Keanu and co: how celebrities became bestselling novelists
From Richard Osman and Millie Bobby Brown to the upcoming book by Keanu Reeves, celebrity novels are everywhere. What’s behind the boom? And how do non-famous writers feel about it?
I understood that if I was going to do it, I would have to put 100% of myself into it,” says Richard Osman about writing his debut crime novel The Thursday Murder Club, which was an immediate bestseller when it was published in 2020. He had attempted a novel before, but “I wasn’t giving it everything, I had too much on. And this was the first time where I thought: No, I’m able to focus on this for a couple of years now.” Osman’s agent, Juliet Mushens, adds: “He told me he was working on a novel, but he didn’t want to show it to anyone until he finished the whole thing.” When he did, “we did a couple of drafts and submitted it to publishers”. The rest is history: since The Thursday Murder Club was released, Osman has published three further novels and sold more than 10m books worldwide.
He is the most successful example of a phenomenon that is more prominent than ever: the celebrity novelist. Of course, famous people have written novels for decades – from Alan Titchmarsh to Ben Elton. And the children’s market has become saturated with celebrities, including David Walliams, Geri Halliwell-Horner, Paul McCartney and Jamie Oliver. But sales of adult fiction by celebrities have remained relatively low, until recently. According to Nielsen BookScan data, in 2018 the Top 100 paperback fiction bestsellers contained just one title by a celebrity author – Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks – with none in the Top 20. In 2023, the picture changed dramatically: eight of the top 100 bestselling paperback fiction books, and five of the top 20, were by celebrities – including books by Bob Mortimer, Richard Coles and Dolly Parton. Osman’s exceptional success has seen an army of celebrity novelists follow in his wake.
