These titles seem to target the same audience... not sure how they will do when in competition with one another for Christmas.

Let's hope the Beeb, etc, cover this like they have been doing for the past couple of years to make the needlessly negative David ("It seems to be more talked-about in the book trade than in society at large") Shelley feel better. Surely he and McRae should back it rather than moan that "it's not big", "it's too early", and "other things are more important"?!

People do talk rubbish and the Bookseller laps it up. "However, publishers said they have little control over publication dates for some of their biggest titles because of external factors such as worldwide publication and TV scheduling, leading to some potential internal clashes."

I can't believe many of the titles listed have worldwide publication schedules as they're largely UK c list celeb titles.

As there appear to be two big dates for release it would be nice if the industry could rearrange things such that we have a Celeb Thursday and a Super Thursday. The former would be the publication date for all the celeb bios etc which can then happily compete for space on the grocers' shelves without disturbing booksellers and the latter would be a day about books.

And there I was blissfully thinking that the hope for Waterstone's et al of a brighter future might rest on a raft of international literary heavy-hitters due out this autumn... Murakami's '1Q84' perhaps, or Eco's 'Prague Cemetery', or perhaps even Steven Pinker's 'The Better Angels of Our Nature.' Alas, it appears that I'm as anachronistic as the Cold War and that I shall be forced to forego the dubious pleasure of wading through next year's remainders and charity shop rejects to find something decent to read. However, I'm not so anachronistic as to not be able to order from Amazon. Now if I just had a TARDIS to take me back to 1961...

It's a shame Shelley adopts the attitude he does because this is a promotion the whole trade could really get behind, and with media interest could really get book or gift buyers into shops early. And contrary to the suggestion, Super Thursday has already been picked up by the likes of the Guardian and the BBC. It would be a fairly easy shove to get it higher up in the nation's consciousness. But heh, I guess it wasn't dreamt up by committee and therefore doesn't count. I have a gift-horse in my back garden if Shelley would like come round and take a look down its throat.

From My experince people like buying this stuff at christmas. That's why it gets published at christmas. Just like this time of year there is a influx of manly trash fiction and lots of pink holiday reads. to catch those shoppers that only buy books 3 or 4 times a year.

Why are you all so snobby about it? It keeps us all in jobs, you can spend the other 10 months selling your high brow snobbery to each other.

Can we have a publisher reaction to the almost universal condemnation of this promotion and the titles being promoted ?

Double edged sword innit? Very hard to get the big chains to promote literature, new authors and new ideas. Supermarkets are only interested in more of what worked last year, amazon will promote titles that get publicity. Sadly, that usually doesn't include new authored, literature etc.

Independents are, sadly, a bit irrelevant. Until they club together and get a bit of buying power they will sit on the fringes of the industry moaning about how much easier it is for everyone else.

Harsh, but true. Very rarely send any of my reps to an independent (with few honourable exceptions) because 99% of the time it isn't worth their petrol costs.

Ah well, we'll all be muted trimmed down when digital takes off in a big way, anyway.

Geez....... You guys, moan about not having anything to sell.
The publishers give you something and you still moan.
Sounds like most of you are still living in the dim and distant past...
The world and peoples reading habits have moved on.
This little lot could will sell and save us all.....

What worries me about the books above is not that they won't sell but that they won't sell enough to make money for everyone in the supply chain. Authors need their royalties. Publishers need to make back their advances and then more on top to pay their costs and for future investments. Distributors have to get books to shops efficiently and in a timely manner and pay for fuel and warehouses and drivers who won't get lost or lose parcels or drop off parcels in the wrong place. The retailers need to pay their rates and staff and electric bills and everything else and a bit more on top to keep their bank manager happy. Often the customer just wants that book by that funny man off the telly and doesn't want to pay too much for it. That's where it all breaks down.

Amazing how the announcement of the big Christmas releases has turned into this type of debate! Baxian, while I understand your obvious contempt for the celebrities you list I cannot see too much wrong with some of the other big releases listed; Bernard Cornwell, Robert Harris, David Starkey, Martha Swift, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Nicholas Sparks, Terry Pratchett, Irene Nemirovsky etc. Although these may not match the 1961 list for quality there are some reasonable authors here and perhaps we should do our best to be positive about some of these titles as these can often be the gateway to some of the more literary delights you mention.