Popularity and Quality

Okay, so today I'm shamelessly stealing from myself. There's a discussion over at Kristin Nelson's blog about whether or not a popular book is automatically a good book---or as she puts it, whether or not millions of readers can be wrong. It's a subject that I've given a good deal of thought to, and after I reading through the comments I decided to weigh in. I liked what I wrote, so I'm posting it here as well.

First, about the theory that marketing money=success: That's not always true---there are examples of publishing companies throwing money behind books that did miserably. I can't name any, because the books did miserably, but I have heard publishers in editorial meetings talking about "making sure it's not another xxx". Also, the books that get money get it because the publishers liked it. They generally, in their list, have a bunch of good books---books they think will sell, have an audience, and are written well enough. They select the most likely to succeed of those books. So by the time a book gets selected for a big marketing push, it's been through two intensive screening processes---first to get picked up at all, then again to get picked as a lead title. Having gone through all that and come out on top, of course it's likely to succeed once it gets a marketing push.

Second, about whether popularity=quality. I don't know that it does, but I'd add the caveat that I've never seen quality without popularity. People are talking about how time gives us our classics, weeds the good books out from the bad, etc. If we look back a few hundred years, are there any classics that weren't popular with the unwashed masses? Shakespeare created the "blockbusters" of his day, but we revere him. Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters wrote what was, at the time, pulp fiction--but try to find an English course on their time period that doesn't feature them on the reading list. Just another point to consider.