The Bookseller.com

3rd December 2008

Anna Richardson is The Bookseller's media editor. Anna's media blog will provide a weekly insight into the big books featuring in the media.

The Peter-Parky effect

07.11.07

It was this week last year that Peter Kay made a rare media appearance to promote The Sound of Laughter on "Parkinson". The publicity-reluctant comedian spent a couple of minutes on Michael's settee, adding another few arena-loads of fans to his already devoted following and causing the impressive weekly sales of his autobiography to rocket into an even higher stratosphere, surging from around 30,000 a week to more than 65,000.

Thus the "Peter-Parky" effect was born: a magical bit of media coverage that sees the alignment of the right author, with the right book (especially non-fiction), talking to the right audience, at the right time, to ignite particularly bright book sales fireworks.

Whether it was that one appearance alone that lifted Kay to another level and whether more appearances from him would have shot him to a different universe altogether is debatable, but the "Peter-Parky" is surely every publicist's dream. Moreover, it is safe to say that we have not yet witnessed the phenomenon this year, so all is still to play for.

A number of books are however benefiting from the small-screen limelight in the run-up to Christmas. Nigella Lawson's return to the box has done what her publishers hoped, helping Nigella Express outperform her TV kitchen rivals Ramsay and Oliver these past few weeks; Richard Hammond leads "Top Gear" colleague Jeremy Clarkson on the bestseller lists, as their current series reaches the half-way mark, and Sphere must be thanking its lucky stars that a sulk from Sharon Osbourne a couple of weeks ago lead to just a temporary walk-off from ITV's "The X Factor", rather than a full-blown defection, with her memoir follow-up, Survivor, striving to emulate its predecessor's success.

Thursday sees the start of "River Cottage: Gone Fishing", in which Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall does what it says on the tin, with The River Cottage Fish Book perfectly timed to tie-in; while chirpy chappies Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman continue on their African motorcycle journey on Sunday--providing not quite the level of intriguing insight as fellow TV traveller Michael Palin, but charging ahead with tie-in sales nonetheless.

As for 2007's Parkinson-moment, there are plenty of author media appearances crammed in between now and Christmas. George Best's sister Barbara discusses her new memoir Our George (Macmillan) on "This Morning" tomorrow (8th November), while Lucy Kellaway plugs the quirky The Answers on BBC2's "Working Lunch"; and as for the chat show king himself, he welcomes Lewis Hamilton this Saturday, crowning weeks of media hoopla surrounding the Formula One rookie and his book release with a few minutes of settee time. Sports Personality of the Year? Christmas Bestseller? It's written in the media stars.

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