[NEWS PROGRAMME INTRO MUSIC — suitably important and unnecessarily dramatic]

ANDY ROBINSON:

Good evening.

I interrupt your regularly scheduled internet scrolling to bring you a really important development from the world of literature.

A new book has been published!

Authorities are describing the situation as “fairly normal, actually,” although the author has asked us not to dwell on that for too long.

The book in question is The Book’s a Lot Better Than the Movie, a novel about Localad, a sixty-four-year-old bookseller who spends twenty years writing his masterpiece.

Which is admirable.

It is also an extremely inefficient use of twenty years.

I mean, the Sydney Opera House only took fourteen.

His novel, Purradise, is a sweeping fantasy involving cats, fallen knights, singing mountains, grief, courage, a brave warrior named Jasmine and a mysterious Wound in the sky.

Then Hollywood discovers it.

And this is where conditions deteriorate rapidly...

A producer loves the manuscript.

The studio buys the movie rights.

Localad goes to Hollywood. Just like Frankie did forty years earlier. 

And several highly paid people immediately begin 'improving' his story until almost none of the original storyline remains.

There are meetings.

There are notes.

There are rewrites.

There is market research.

There is an all-action hero star.

And somewhere along the way, the delicate emotional heart of Localad's twenty-year masterpiece is apparently beaten to death with a demographics report.

The resulting movie is released.

It is enormous.

It is expensive.

Things explode.

Critics use words such as a “spectacle”, which is frequently what critics say when they are trying very hard not to say “Oh dear.”

But then something rather unexpected happens.

People discover the original book.

And they like it.

Quite a lot, actually.

Which leads to an increasingly dangerous idea spreading fast across the internet:

The book’s a lot better than the movie.

[ANDY PAUSES. AND LOOKS TOWARD SCREEN.]

Which, rather conveniently, is also the book's title.

Marketing experts have described this as either “excellent branding” or “an author getting away with something.”

The novel is mildly funny, warm, occasionally ridiculous and just possibly has something to say about creativity, success, failure, Hollywood, books, the whole writing process and what happens when people with PowerPoint presentations are allowed anywhere near art.

[ANDY NOW LEANS SLIGHTLY TOWARD CAMERA.]

And, in a relatively disturbing development for journalism, I should now really fully disclose that I actually wrote it.

So truth be known, this entire news report has been nothing more than a shameless advertisement for my latest novel.

Of course, there will be an inquiry.

And I intend to cooperate fully.

And in the meantime, The Book’s a Lot Better Than the Movie is available now on Amazon.

Buy yourself a copy.

Read it.

And if Hollywood calls afterwards...

for heaven’s sake, don’t answer the phone.

[SERIOUS NEWSREADER NOD.]

I’m Andy Robinson.

Good reading and...

Good night.

[NEWS OUTRO MUSIC]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0645493953