Mark Mason

The future of the trivia book

It is, if Noddy Holder is to be believed, Christmas. And so those of us who pen trivia books listen for the ring of tills or, as is increasingly the case these days, for clicks on Amazon’s ‘Add to Basket’ icon. Will our offering be the one bulging the stockings this year? Will the royalties tide us through another few months? And even if they do, what is the long-term future for the trivia book in an age when so many factoids (TM Steve Wright in the Afternoon) are freely available on the internet? The subject is one I discussed recently in a Covent Garden pub with some elves. Some QI elves.

Yes, these creatures really do exist. They’re not just names invented to pad out the credits on BBC2. So that they can move more easily among us they take human form, and have developed a tolerance to alcohol, though rather than snacking on crisps in the pub they nibble torn-up pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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