Will this make a difference to sales? Yes, of course. They'll go up.
A combo of cover stickers, bookshop promotions and people remembering the title appeared on the programme (but forgetting it got rubbished) will remind readers the book made the cut. If a book appears on telly, the public will think 'somebody important' must have decided it was worth the publicity.
How do I know this? I was once the programme consultant to London Weekend Television's book show, You're Booked!, produced by Mike Mansfield Television Ltd. We got savaged by 'Square Eyes' in Private Eye, in a whole-page rant expressing the magazine's hatred of the You're Booked! concept, the contents and the presenters (i.e. Craig Charles, briefly; Eve Pollard; James Whale; TV executive, Linda Agran; and, er, Nathan Moore from boyband Brother Beyond). The result? Our viewer ratings trebled and remained high, beating the LWT regional figures for The South Bank Show.
There's no such thing as bad publicity when it comes to books: witness Sap Rising by A A Gill, which became a bestseller after a Guardian review implored its readers: 'Do not buy this book.'
PS: Viewing figures for the first TV Book Club show were around 350,000 and, yes, sales of The Little Stranger did leap as predicted.
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