The 2024 London Book Fair stand of one of Richard Charkin’s former venues: Oxford University Press. Image: Publishing Perspectives: Porter Anderson
By Richard Charkin | @RCharkin
Publishing’s Literary Magic Bullets
The concept of the magic bullet seems to have emerged from German folklore about a bullet that would unerringly find its victim without harming anything or anyone else. Carl Maria von Weber features it in his 1821 opera Der Freischütz (The Marksman, or The Free Shooter).
Paul Ehrlich
The Nobel-winning immunologist Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915)used the term Zauberkugel (magic ball) to describe “chemotherapies,” which led to a cure for syphilis. Ever since, the pharmaceutical industry has been hunting for silver bullets for specific diseases or conditions.
In parallel to scientific research and clinical testing there is, and always has been, an industry of fake potions playing to the natural human desire to seek physical and mental perfection. As Dulcamara in Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore (1832) sings about his cure-all potion:
He is a seductive opaque
For scrupulous guardians:
It’s an excellent sleeping pill
For the old ones, jealous:
Give the daughters courage
Who are afraid to sleep alone;
Wake up is for love
More powerful than coffee.
In fact, it cured just about everything and at a very reasonable cost.
Folklore vs. Reality
From a publishing perspective the book industry has profited enormously from literary magic bullets, such as beautifully produced cookbooks that transform us all into cordon bleu chefs; do-it-yourself manuals that will fix all the odd jobs in our houses without the need to hire professional fixers; body-enhancing exercise manuals which create Adonises in 15 minutes a day.
Richard Charkin
Get rich. Become successful. Outshine our business colleagues with simple techniques. Improve IQ. Enhance love life. Cope with anxiety. Make gardens beautiful. Save the planet in three easy steps. Impress the neighbors. And all from visiting a bookstore and forking out a few dollars.
Apart from the books themselves, we’re constantly looking for magic bullets for our intractable industrial problems.
How do we protect local bookstores? Let’s introduce or maintain retail price maintenance to prevent big bad Internet bookstores or supermarkets undercutting us.
How do we reach book readers around the world with our whole catalogues? Amazon and others.
How do we have our workforces reflect the racial, gender, class, and age diversity of the countries in which we operate? Committees, audits, and enhanced human resources strategies.
- How do we reduce our carbon footprint? Digital delivery and print on demand.
- How do we sell more books? Sophisticated social media marketing.
- How do we reduce the prices of books? Eliminate taxes on them.
- How do we reduce our administration costs? Artificial intelligence.
- How do we nurture minority writers and languages? Positive discrimination over economic necessities.
- How do we deter monopolies? Supporting the also-rans.
I don’t need to describe the magic bullets we have uncovered for these afflictions. How many have worked? How many have solved one problem only to create another? How seriously have we monitored the efficacy of these chemotherapeutic agencies?
Peter Mayer. Image: Richard Charkin
It’s hard, hand on heart, to claim that we have found a magic bullet to any of these issues or the ones I haven’t listed.
Maybe it’s because magic bullets exist only in folklore, not in reality.
As we approach another London Book Fair (March 11 to 13), I’m certain that new versions of Dulcamara’s elixir will be presented as solutions to our industry’s issues, and I find myself thinking again of this photo of my old friend and teacher, the late Peter Mayer, whose comment said it all: “It’s complicated.”
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