Publishing is not fair

Sometimes events unfold in the wonderful world of publishing that really reminds you that this is indeed a capitalistic enterprise in which rewards are unequal and can largely be unearned too.

Jun 04, 2025

I think the dust has settled enough that I don’t feel like this is me chasing clickbait and speaking too early on a subject … so with that in mind; let’s talk about BookTok Luke Bateman’s two-book deal.

I’m going to assume by now that a lot of the bookish cohort know the state of play. But if you don’t, a quick run-through of the timeline;

Luke Bateman is a retired Australian professional rugby league footballer. I believe he began playing professionally in 2013 and finished his career in 2018 after a knee injury cut it short by one year.
2019 - he gets Instagram-verified (for an account he started in 2012). Currently (as of June 2025) he has 22.5K followers on Insta.
In 2023 Bateman appeared on season 11 of The Bachelor Australia. I can’t find any information about how long he was on, but he evidently didn’t win - and I have seen interviews where he admits to being paid $70K for the role (sorry if this is bursting your bubble about reality-TV actually being heavily scripted).
Some time in 2024 - 2025, Luke (himself, or via his management team) email publishers with an outline for a fantasy book/series idea. He gets no bites, no replies.
April 22nd, 2025 - he joins BookTok. Readily admits that living in the country, on a farm, he doesn’t have much opportunity to talk books with people. And he *loves* books and reading - fantasy in particular. He is also keen for book recommendations from people. He also mentions; “I realise there’s a lot of females here and youse [sic] all love smut and spice … I think I might have to have a little delve into it myself to see what all the fuss is about.” Hook - baited.
He quickly amasses a large following and currently (June 2025 as I write this) has 178.5K Followers and 1.2M Likes.
25th May - Luke goes on The Project TV ostensibly to talk about his meteoric rise on BookTok, but where he also makes the surprise announcement that he’s secured a book contract.
26th May - Atria Books Australia (a new imprint of Simon & Schuster Australia) announce that they’ve signed Luke up with a two-book deal for his debut fantasy series, coming early-2027. Luke also jumps on TikTok to speak on the announcement, and this is where he talks about this being his childhood dream, thanks his TikTok following, and - critically - states that he “can’t wait to write this book.” Which suggests he’s sold this ‘on spec’ (on specification) on pitch, and that the manuscript has not yet been written.

Cue: Benny Hill music.

And since then there’s been plenty more written on the state of publishing that allows a good-looking white Australian man to join a social media platform one month, and secure a book-contract the next, seemingly without having written a first draft.

No matter what; I am actually impressed that the savvy media-literacy and healthy skepticism that didn’t appear to be in abundance when Luke first joined BookTok, has come roaring to the forefront upon News of his book deal. Damage already done, maybe, but at least it shows people won’t swallow commercial chowder uncritically.

The celebrity-author:

This is not uncommon. Luke’s deal falls into the category of a celebrity-authored book. This happens in the industry, a lot. These creators tend to get more money and more advertising/marketing budget from publishers because they’re seen as a sure-fire investment, they have expectations about their worth already, and they have in-built (and growing) audience, additional curiosities and intrigue from the market.

These are often seen as separate to celebrity memoirs - they are authors wanting to try their hand at (often) fiction fare.

Children’s publishing is particularly used to the slings and arrows of the celebrity-authored outrageous fortune book, zapping a lot of oxygen from the room (not too long ago the hoopla was over actor Keira Knightley writing a children’s book, announced October 2024).

It’s not like those authors also uplift fellow KidLit creatives. You don’t see Peter Helliar really raving about other picture-book authors whose books he recommends, or Isla Fisher listing her recommended-reading lists - compared to the way that KidLit, but creatives generally, do often bolster one another (whether through endorsement-quotes, or shout-outs on Festival stages etc.) And if they do claim to care about literacy in schools and boosting reading amongst kids, enough that they’re willing to be hired for public-speaking events … a school may have to mortgage themselves to the hilt, and the Principal sell a kidney to afford their speaker’s fees.

It’s not just children’s books that get celebrity authored, it happen in adult fiction publishing too. They exist, but are maybe not as prevalent - possibly to do with the misguided assumption that kid’s books will be “easy” and less time-consuming for busy celebs who want to be writers.

But in adult publishing we’ve had (beginning with big cringe);

Palo Alto by James Franco
The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece and Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks
Richard Osman’s books
Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham
Shopgirl by Steve Martin
Bonfire by Krysten Ritter

My one exception to the plague of celebrity-authors in books and publishing, who I must mention because she shows actual altruism and is an angel on earth; Dolly Parton.

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library exists not to get her own books into kid’s hands, but to get books into the hands of all kids, everywhere and to foster a love of reading. She has gifted over 264 million books since the Library’s inception in 1995. That woman is a SAINT!

The social-media influencer author:

Increasingly as a new beast of celebrity rose in people’s minds - that of the social-media influencer - they’ve also been tapped by publishing to author books and make the most of their rising infamy.

Those who survived the early-to-mid 00’s will remember the swathe of YouTube-personality authored books that we were inundated with (and would later see in half-price dump-bins and discount stores);

What’s The Deal With Youtuber Books?

The new version of this is the BookTok author. Critically different to the “Trending on BookTok” books, these are books written by people who became big on BookTok, talking about books.

To name a very few;

Stacy McEwan - who got big applying protagonist tropes to real-life, particularly when she used her husband as a prop for spice-testing.
Alex Aster - author of Lightlark who sold the book of the back off buzz for the story concept, then ran into controversy when it was revealed she was *slight* nepo-baby rich kid and the whole thing was maybe an industry plant
Hannah Nicole Maehrer - whose whole TikTok schtick was playing “assistant to the villain,” character that she then turned into a book series.
Eden Victoria - a British book-reviewer who turned her popularity into a “fake dating” and “bodyguard romance” debut called Close Protection.

I could go on. *THIS* is the new place that publishing is mining for hits.

Luke Bateman

This leads us to: Luke Bateman.

And I must say, one of the better takes I’ve seen of this comes from British literary agent Alice Sutherland-Hawes from ASH Literary, who I actually think gives a spot-on summation (minus the fact that he actively pitched a concept)

I think she makes some bang-on points, like;

He didn’t get a global publishing deal; this appears to be ANZ-only via Atria Australia and presumably because he’s famous *here* but not really anywhere else (his BookTok numbers aren’t really astronomical enough to suggest he’s blipping internationally). This is a reflection of his Australian celebrity status. So I did see many people weighing in from the US and UK particularly annoyed at this state of things; but it’s a reflection of how our very small market operates when it comes to signing celebrity clientele.
Her making points about just how *teeny tiny* the ANZ market is, compared to the rest of the world is good - I get the “hot white farmer man scores two-book deal not having written a word,” is infuriating for many but it’s not a foolproof reflection on the global publishing industry so much as it is our personal shenanigans here, in Oz.
Acknowledging that people who are angry at this, should be more so at the system and infrastructure that allowed it to happen - more than him as an individual who - I will admit - doesn’t recognise his own privilege, but he’s a symptom of a capitalistic, often-shallow and patriarchal system not the cause of it. So kinda back-off, because the comments were getting *wild*.

Sounds about white

I was also going to say that at the end of the day and still with a lot of marketing and media behind him (which somewhat guarantees success); Luke’s book still has to be good. And if it’s not; there’s nothing BookTok loves more than tearing down a poorly-written book.

But, honestly? BookTok and our entire industry are often willing to forgive a lot of a poorly-written book by a white author, because;

BookTok’s Racial Bias

“I think it’s a reflection of a structural misunderstanding — the idea that the white woman is the factory model and everything else is a new edition on top of that, a new thing to consider, instead of the conceptualization of whiteness as a racial identity alongside all of the others — and I think that, given how young the BookTok audience skews, there’s not really a level of self-awareness about that yet,” says Sanjana Basker, a BookToker who creates content at @baskinsuns.

I think that is 100% true. It’s a racism problem; as British author Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson alludes to, being good (even great) is simply not enough for some;

And I think the brilliant Bigambul and Wakka Wakka author and academic, Melanie Saward has addressed this in her own TikTok’s about Luke Bateman’s “good luck” that it’s hardly that, it’s structural bias;

We’re not going to get away from the things that are holding publishing back and can make it a pretty uninteresting and uninspiring place to work, if we’re not willing to have honest conversations and ‘mea culpas’ when stuff like Luke Bateman happens.

Look, at the end of the day I think people are right to be skeptical and to bring their media literacy to this landscape that sees white male privilege intersecting with “pretty privilege” and celebrity-authoring. I will say I know the Atria Books publisher and I think they are immensely talented, finger-on-the-pulse, epically fascinating and if I’m giving even grace to this situation it’s in their corner because I do have trust.

But the cartoon that instantly sprung to mind when I first heard all of this, was a Will McPhail one that I think sums up the whole situation pretty spectacularly;