A good recommendation on a read is always welcome. But what happens when the person doing it is someone famous? Publishers and booksellers know very well when the singers Rosalía and Dua Lipa or the former US president Barack Obama talk about one of their books because, most of the time, even temporarily, sales skyrocket, old titles are rescued or, It is even reprinted. It happened a few weeks ago with I Love Dick, the veiled autobiography about the love obsession that possessed the German author Chris Kraus by the sociologist and cultural critic Dick Hebdige.
Montse Serrano and Fernando Pelayo, Bernat booksellers in Barcelona, ??recognize that several readers have come in recent weeks to buy the latest book that the Motomami singer praised.
From Alpha Decay, which publishes the edition in Spanish, they admit that their influence has been noticed. “Not enough to sell out the edition right away, but several hundred copies were placed in just a week. We published this edition a couple of years ago and sales were already somewhat stagnant, so this has given it a new life. We will reprint soon.”
Such is the devotion to Rosalía that, beyond the readings she talks about, her followers go one step further. She once uploaded an image on a plane in which a book appeared but its title was not visible and, minutes later, they discovered that it was On Earth We Are Fleetingly Great, by Ocean Vuong. The same thing happened with Water and Soap, by Marta D. Riezu, which rested face down on her nightstand.
The pop and dance star Dua Lipa is another of the luxury prescribers who are causing a sensation. Her love for reading is such that she founded the Service95 platform, which has a weekly newsletter, podcast, and book club. The last of her recommendations. Tears in H. Mart, by the lead vocalist of the alternative pop band Japanese Breakfast, Michelle Zauner, has gone viral on social networks.
There are many who have retouched the image that the vocalist uploaded to put the cover of the book that best suits them. Even the Guadalajara Book Fair, in Mexico, used it on poetry day to recommend the volume Poesía reunida, by Coral Bracho, FIL 2023 award. Despite its impact, it is too early to know if sales of the book in Spanish will be have they shot or not. “There is no tangible way to measure exactly at the moment when something like this influences,” acknowledges her editor Manuel Mardones from Neo Person, who celebrates that the singer has chosen a small publishing house.
Lumen did notice “a considerable sales spike” when Dua Lipa recommended So Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara, a story that spans three decades of male friendship. “The book worked well, but it ended up being a revolution after its publication. It is still successful, something unremarkable for a 1,000-page book that is now nine years old. In addition to celebrities, TikTok has a lot to do with these 23 editions, since it promotes the challenge factor: ‘who is able to read in less time?'” says María Fasce, literary director of Lumen, Alfaguara and Reservoir Books.
In Asteroid Books they explain another case. “The then acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, García-Margallo, was photographed reading A Sangre y Fuego, by Chaves Nogales, in the constitution of Congress. It was something very talked about and that same month the sales of the book went up.”
But if anyone gave some weight to celebrities recommending culture, it was Barack Obama. During his tenure as US president, he began making lists of his favorite movies, songs, and books, which caused many publishers to quote him on their newsletters. A tradition that continues today, since last December he made public his discoveries, among which Maniac stands out, Benjamin Labatut’s novel about the limits of thought and the delusions of reason; and The Water Pact, by Abraham Verghese, which he discovered when he was included by presenter Oprah Winfrey – another prescriber – in her book club.
Sara Carbonero also shares readings. The last one, Letter from a Stranger, by Stefan Zweig. “Two train hours that have flown by thanks to this book.” Another very reader of television is Kiko Matamoros, who acknowledged in prime time that Ordesa, by Manuel Vilas, helped him recover his paternal instinct. Shortly after, sales skyrocketed on Amazon.
Regarding youth, Nocturna Ediciones highlights the push that Emma Watson gave to Love Letters to the Dead, by Ava Dellaira. She “she recommended it to her book club.” We put it on the cover and we have already had more than seven editions.”
She is not the only one who has her own reading club; Emma Roberts, Sarah Jessica Parker, Bill Gates and Reese Witherspoon join in, who has brought some of her favorite readings to the big screen, such as Wild Girl, by Delia Owens, which tells the adventures of a young woman who lives alone in the marshes of Barkley Cove, North Carolina.
