You don't have to be an Obama supporter, or even a Democrat, to have been inspired by the presidential election last week. The highest voter turnout on record, gracious concession and acceptance speeches, and the sheer joy expressed at Obama's victory, here and around the world, was enough to move all but the most cynical.
More than one pundit has remarked, in the postelection days, on a sense that the country and the world seem to have rediscovered optimism (pay no attention to that stock market).
Even the Eeyores of BookLand seemed buoyed. At several events I attended in New York last week, editors and publicists and booksellers remarked that despite the ongoing recession, they already felt better about the economy. “I think the holidays will be fine,” one prominent bookseller told me, articulating a pre-election theory that I had been keeping to myself: that even in depressed times you still have to buy dad or junior a present, and that books—properly marketed and sold—can be promoted as classy gifts of good value. Likewise, an editor of a midsize house said she thought overall sales, which dipped significantly in September and October, would rebound, not necessarily because the economy was going to be any stronger, but because the election, which had preoccupied publisher and book buyer alike, was finally over. Harper CEO Brian Murray, in an interview with PW, expressed much the same hope.
Surely, the Obama win will at least squash the idea—floating among the media in the weeks pre-election—that Joe the Plumber was heading for a book deal; let's hope that any publisher even considering such a money-flushing project will think better of it. I'll be interested, too, to see how Epicenter's Sarah Palin bio will fare now. And surely, there will be a rush to sign up the how-he-did-it analyses; it's hard to imagine that Jeffrey Toobin isn't already polishing a Making of the President—type proposal. (And see this week's feature for already scheduled Obama books.) But there is this: like it or not, once the new administration is in place, you can count on a backlash resurgence of antiliberal titles and how-he's-doing-it-wrong books. What's more, suggests Nick Harrison, author of The Best-Ever Christian Baby Name Book and a senior editor at the Christian publisher Harvest House, the fact that McCain/Palin did draw 48% of the popular vote may force “the publishing world [to see] that there is a huge market for [books that appeal to] Joe the Plumber and Susie Soccer Mom.... Will they acknowledge this huge market... or continue to ignore it?” he asks.
Personally, I hope the Obama publishing effect will extend beyond specific titles of whatever political bent—and venture into ethos. It is, after all, Obama's calm demeanor, his inclusiveness, his optimism that won him this election; and we can always use more of that in the book business. As for his methods, well, there are lessons to be learned there, too. Even Obama's detractors concede that much of his campaign's genius was using e-mail and Twitter and god knows what else to get the young and disaffected to vote; if he can do that, maybe, finally, we can figure out how to get them to read.
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