Will you be tempted by the new edition of Giles Foden's The Last King of Scotland - rushed out by Faber to coincide with the film?
Film and publishing have a bizarre relationship. If you walk into any high-street bookshop, it often seems like most of the paperbacks thrust forward at you have been turned into films, or TV miniseries. If Hollywood wants to rehash plots, good for them. But why should it act as a recommendation to the reader? Why is having a film of the book regarded as such a stamp of approval? Hollywood is run by the financiers, the MBAs, the accountants - so why should they be able to tell a good book from a bad one?
Maybe they can't, but the money they spend on "print and advertising" - all the marketing that accompanies a major release - creates a lot of buzz, and buzz is something that all publishers know how to cash in on.
"The Last King of Scotland is doing very well. Last week saw the highest sales since it came out in mid-January," says Jon Howells of Waterstone's. It is, of course, now part of one of their three-for-two offers, but the real driver is the Oscars at the end of this week. "If it does well at the Oscars, that will definitely boost sales. If someone wins an Oscar, we expect it to reenter the top 10, even though it's a very strong field at the moment."
Good news for Waterstone's then: William Hill has Forest Whitaker as favourite to win Best Actor. Yet film tie-ins are usually a bit hit or miss from the publisher's perspective. Perfume, a film that was roundly panned by critics, did nothing for sales of the critically-acclaimed book.
The problem, I think, is that usually either the film or the book is clearly better. In many cases, I suspect that most people either just see the film or read the book - not both. "Thrillers in particular don't work so well", Howells admits. "If you've seen the film you pretty much know what will happen, where all the twists are."
Having seen The Last King of Scotland, I'm pretty unlikely ever to read the book. There are plenty of other original stories out there, beyond the tie-ins. But Jon at Waterstones is surprised to hear me say this. "The Last King of Scotland will do well because there's such a big story there. It's not enough to just see the film."
Perhaps he's right, and I should buy a copy after all.
