There’s also the celebrity factor. Ask a casual reader to head into a bookshop to pick up a novel for her holiday. She sees a book by Katie Price and she sees a book by (for example) Rebecca Farnworth. She’d pick up Katie Price’s. How many casual readers - not dedicated Chick Lit fans, just people who like a bit of easy reading for holidays - go into a book shop and pick up a novel because it’s written by Katie Price? A lot, I’d say. Same goes for all the other celebrity authors - Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Martine McCutcheon, Lauren Conrad, Kay Burley, Fern Britton. Surely it should be the fact that the person is reading. We’re having it shoved down our throats that people aren’t reading any more. So surely the fact that the celebrity’s name sells books isn’t such a bad thing. They can pick up a novel by Katie Price, realise it’s enjoyable (because despite what everyone thinks, there ARE people who like Katie Price) and then go on and discover more authors in the Chick Lit field.

Whichever way “real” authors look at it, Katie Price sells books. Katie Price has the kind of book sales not many authors can match and what most Chick Lit authors would love to sell. Here are a few stats: Angel Uncovered sold 130,000 hardback(!) copies; Angel sold 300,000 copies in its first 6 weeks; Crystal sold almost 160,000 in the first 3 months; Sapphire sold almost 43,000 in 2 weeks. This isn’t even total sales, which I guess probably go over the 1,000,000 mark. How many authors can say they sell that many books? Katie Price sells books. Her books fly off the shelves the day they’re released. There’s a market there for it and Katie Price took advantage of it. Love it or hate it, Katie Price and her publishers are laughing all the way to the bank and despite other authors raging against the fact Katie Price isn’t a “real” author, it doesn’t matter. As long as her books continue to sell in their thousands, in their tens of thousands, they’ll keep coming. Why should Katie Price stop putting her name to novels? If celebrities did stop writing novels, I would worry about what that would do to Chick Lit sales. Sure, authors like Sophie Kinsella and Marian Keyes probably sell the same amount of copies as Katie Price, but not all Chick Lit authors do. Sure it’s sad, but that’s just how it is. Having Katie Price is undoubtedly better than not having Katie Price. Sad, but true.

Now don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t be caught dead reading a Katie Price novel; she doesn’t write the kinds of books I like but I think the criticism she receives is probably unfair. Maybe it is wrong she doesn’t write her books. Maybe she is wrong to put her name to something Rebecca Farnworth wrote… But that’s life. Katie Price is nothing if not a shrewd businesswoman (how many other models have managed to turn into businesswomen with their fingers in twenty different pies)? I don’t personally like Katie Price, but I admire her business acumen. She definitely isn’t a stupid person. Somebody saw the opportunity of Katie Price gracing the cover of a novel and that somebody won out. Was it Katie? Was it her publishers? Was it someone else? Who knows. Either way, it was a bet that’s paid off in spades. Her novels are released in hardback first and there are always thousands of people waiting to buy them. People will always disagree about celebrities writing novels - or “writing” novels, but like it or not, celebrities sell. I may not like it, you may not like it, authors may not like it… But Katie Price sells. Katie Price probably does help the Chick Lit market. I’m not saying she does it single-handedly - some superwoman in tight spandex here to save the genre! but her sales do do something.