Why would you insult your own readers?

I was a little taken aback by an article published last week in the media from a bestselling author seeking to flog her latest novel, a fictionalization of Diana Spencer’s early years. To use a popular ‘phrasal verb’, she was slagging off at the romance novels of the late Barbara Cartland and the tropes of historical romance generally.

I’m not linking to the artcle because I don’t want to give the author – also a ‘celebrated journalist’ according to her publisher’s bio – any more free publicity than she’s already received. She hardly needs it – her new book has glowing advance reviews ahead of its release later this month.

I just wanted to say that you don’t raise yourself up by viciously lambasting the work of those who came before and putting down vast swathes of your own potential audience by criticizing the literary tropes they adore.

Not only does it display a mean spirit, but it hints at jealousy when the target of your scorn was more stratospherically successful than your own output is likely to be over time. Yes, Cartland’s work is dated. The woman died 23 years ago.

But she was also one of the best-selling authors worldwide of the 20th century with somewhere between 750 million and 2 billion copies of her books sold. She wrote 723 novels. They were filmed for television and translated into so many different languages that Cartland is the fifth most translated author worldwide.

She wrote biographies, plays, music, poetry, drama, and health and cook books. She was even elected a councillor on Hertfordshire County Council for nine years and campaigned successfully for nursing home reforms, raising the salaries of midwives, and the legalisation of education for Romani children.

Furthermore, she penned newspaper and magazine articles, so I guess that made her a ‘celebrated journalist’ too.

The colour photo here was taken in 1987 at Cartland’s country home by Allan Warren. The inset shows her in 1925, two years after her first novel was published.

Sadly, slagging off successful predecessors is something of a trend right now.

Perhaps those who do it might heed the warning recently sounded by marketing experts who suggest actress Rachel Zegler is actually damaging the potential box office takings of Disney’s upcoming Snow White live action remake in which she stars with her negative comments about the 1937 animated original.