Authors throw book at novels ‘written’ by celebrities

Authors including PD James and Deborah Moggach today launched an attack on the trend for celebrity novels.

Writer? Ulrika Johnson is a celeb 'author'

The professional writers said publishers were relying too heavily on stars such as Jordan, Martine McCutcheon, Ulrika Jonsson, Coleen Nolan and Fern Britton.

Dispirited: Deborah Moggach says literary novels sell far less
than books by celebrities

Moggach, whose works include Tulip Fever, said it was "deeply dispiriting" that a celebrity novel could shift at least 100,000 hardback copies compared with fewer than 1,000 for the average literary novel.

Best-selling crime novelist P D James added: "What surprises me is that people are prepared to buy them because there's a celebrity on the cover."

Publisher Nick Perren said he feared the rise of the celebrity novel could even put people off reading.

He added: "If the celebrities were writing really gripping stories, that might be a good thing, but so often they disappoint and perhaps even prevent people coming to fiction for the first time from getting the excitement they should."

The Mistress, a novel by former EastEnders actress McCutcheon, has already attracted criticism after the first chapter was posted online before publication next month.

One blogger described it as "a work of parody that should make the nation's satirists hang their heads in envy".

Publishers Macmillan hope The Mistress — the first of a trilogy — will echo the commercial success of Jordan, who writes under her real name, Katie Price. Her two autobiographies and four novels have sold more than three million copies and, in 2007, her novel Crystal outsold the entire Booker shortlist.

Following her break-up from husband Peter Andre, she has been commissioned to write yet another autobiography and a novel due out next year.

Her success has created a huge demand for celebrity-written novels, many of which appear to resemble thinly disguised autobiographies.

Other examples of autobiographical novels include American actress and socialite Nicole Richie's Truth About Diamonds, Naomi Campbell's novel about the fashion industry and Kerry Katona's Tough Love.

Katona has openly admitted she did not write any of her three books and said Ebury Publishing had put her in touch with a ghostwriter.

"We sat down together and came up with plotlines, characters, then she packaged it together and wrote it the way we spoke about it," she said.