Giving the Gift of Gags
Why publishers keep doing jokey book deals.
Anyone whose brain is blessed - perhaps cursed - with the ability to make jokes on a regular basis has probably made various attempts at trying to monetise it, over the years. Some work their way up the ladder via shows that actively welcome new writing talent, like Newsjack, while others throw heart and soul into a sitcom that, if it gets a foothold, will invariably find itself in one of the many circles of development hell.
Others try the Do It Yourself approach: stand-up, or improv, or forming a sketch duo/trio/troupe, or writing and performing their own stuff on YouTube. But there is another outlet for the dedicated gag purveyor: the jokey pre-Christmas book. They're usually not actually about Christmas, of course, and come in various shapes and sizes, from the TV show cash-in coffee-table epic to the tiny tome that's quite clearly meant for the toilet.
It's perhaps surprising that these books still occupy slots on the shelves in the smartphone age. Web-savvy punters do other things with their spare moments now, like gambling on an online marketplace purchase - always a lottery - or browsing for the best casino deals, or getting into social media spats about whether it's ok to mock an unpopular celebrity's bingo wings: you can do lots from the comfort of your sofa, bed or throne.
But publishers still take a punt on jokey new releases, and lots of them. Why? Well, that change in our lifestyle habits probably doesn't affect the actual sales of those books too much, because let's face it, people rarely buy them for themselves. What percentage of humorous pre-Christmas releases are bought as presents, do you reckon: 80%, or 90%, or more? It's a stocking filler, or a Secret Santa, rather than an essential purchase.
Now this is not to say that these non-essential purchases are necessarily bad: some of them are pretty good. The original batch of those spoof Ladybird books was a funny idea, for example - The Hipster, The Mid-Life Crisis, The Hangover, etc - before loads of other iconic old kids-book brands jumped on the bandwagon, and it became tough to tell the wheat from the chaff.
Some might lump annuals like the Viz and Private Eye yearbooks into that Christmas cash-in list too, but their best-ofs would definitely be worth having. And look out for a notable Christmas-themed release later this year that's a semi-sequel to a book by a British comedian who's taken the publishing world by storm over the last couple of years. Let's just say it contains extra entries from a revealing diary, originally left over because putting loads of festive stuff in the original book would have been a bit weird.
So, those are a bunch of pre-festive comedy releases that may well be welcome presents. And while a lot of the others may never be read by the bemused recipients, it won't be a total waste of paper as many of those books will probably be re-gifted not long afterwards: to charity shops. But do they ever sell them, that's the question? Maybe just before Christmas.