The great chick lit conspiracy

You know what it is. You've got one in your beach bag. But do you know how it got there? Scarlett Thomas does. And it makes for a pretty disturbing read...

Throw a party, quick! The chick lit phenomenon is in decline. The sales are slowing down and Mills & Boon has recently launched its own chick lit imprint, thus reclaiming territory that is rightfully its own. But before chick lit takes its glass of Chardonnay and limps off into the sunset, it is worthwhile asking if we can learn anything from the experience.

The term "chick lit", with its post-feminist use of the word "chick" and its sing-song almost-rhyme, originated as a way of describing young women's fiction of any sort. Now it specifically means a "fun", pastel-covered novel with a young, female, city-based protagonist, who has a kooky best friend, an evil boss, romantic troubles and a desire to find The One – the apparently unavailable man who is good-looking, can cook and is both passionate and considerate in bed. That many of these novels explicitly make reference to Bridget Jones's Diary (which had all these elements) shows how powerful one genre-inspiring novel can be.

The author Jenny Colgan, one of chick lit's most articulate and passionate supporters, explains why Bridget Jones became such an instant phenomenon. "Growing up in the 1980s, all we had to read if we wanted commercial fiction were these thick tomes covered in gold foil," she says. "Women with long blonde hair built up business empires from harsh beginnings using only their extraordinary beauty and occasionally some goldfish – is it any wonder we fell on Helen Fielding so desperately?" Bridget Jones's Diary was gripping, fun and had some moving moments, but it was one of a kind; whereas the acres of chick lit that have been published in its wake are anything but.

However, despite the Identikit covers and the join-the-dots plots, almost everyone you ask in commercial publishing says – at least publicly – that chick lit is not formulaic, exploitative or cynically produced. In fact, it is almost a conspiracy. It is virtually impossible to find anyone prepared to criticise the genre other than Beryl Bainbridge (who notoriously labelled it "froth"). Jenny Colgan says that comments like those from Bainbridge imply that "young women are too stupid to a) write books and b) read them". The author Matt Thorne agrees. "People who are dismissive of chick lit are misogynistic and élitist," he says. "Chick lit is a perfectly acceptable genre, no different from 'literary fiction'. The best writers in the genre are producing some of the best writing around today." Some suggest that because chick lit is a wholly female enterprise, it is virtually feminist. Dr Stacy Gillis, an expert in gender and popular fiction from Exeter University, rejects this. "Frankly, chick lit is not feminist but backlash. It serves to reinforce traditional categories of sex and gender divisions while appearing to do the opposite." Or to put it another way, books that are for women, by women, but actually about searching for Mr Right are never going to be feminist. And criticising them is anything but misogynistic.

Chick lit is not just bad for the reader – it is bad for the author too. Many chick lit authors are little more than assembly-line workers, as one publisher put it. "The ideal commercial fiction author is someone who delivers one book and then goes on to keep writing, well, not exactly the same book again and again, but certainly one that's very similar." Knowing how controversial these realities are, this publisher, like several I talked to for this piece, asked not to be named.

One bestselling woman author (who also did not want to be named) was told to cut much of the description in her novel. Unaware of the strict divisions within publishing houses, she was shocked to be told, "You're an 'A' format writer. We have certain regulations about how much description you can put in." Another author, asked directly to write to a formula, says simply, "They've crushed me. Authors are just brands now."

Many commercial publishers will buy a manuscript with a view to reworking it extensively after the contracts have been signed. One household-name author wrote a novel about boredom and nothingness, only to find that her editor wanted to rewrite it to make it a romance. Another had to fight to keep an adoption sub-plot deemed too "depressing". One editor says, "Just as there's a place for five-star restaurants, there's a place for McDonald's." But do the authors know they are supposed to be the literary equivalent of a fast-food restaurant? "Not always," admits the editor.

In general, reviewers do not like reading it and authors don't like writing it. Could it be that the chick lit formula is not exclusively what "ordinary" people want to read either? The market is broadening, says Kirsty Fowkes, publishing director of William Heinemann. She describes the way that the Mango book club, which originally sold chick lit and relationship fiction, has successfully branched into thrillers and classics. This is good news. "People who buy six books a year are seen as exceptional," says Fowkes. "Most people simply don't buy that many books. But some young women buy a couple a week. They understandably become a key market for booksellers."

So if these readers are prepared to try other sorts of fiction, and writers want to produce it, why keep publishing the same old books with the same old covers? Several people I asked, including various agents and editors, say that it is because booksellers have demanded it. This isn't strictly true, says Nicholas Clee, editor of The Bookseller. "I'm not sure that booksellers are saying: 'Give us more chick lit because we can sell that'. Booksellers aren't as cautious about the market as publishers sometimes say they are. If booksellers promoted chick lit and no one wanted it then they'd have to sell something else."

Aha. It's so thoughtful of capitalism to give us exactly what we want, isn't it? Funny that chick lit is the cheapest thing for publishers to produce, and the easiest for them to get hold of. Yes, they often pay big advances, but this stuff is not hard to write, and a lot of people can do it. If you were a company that had access to three apples and a thousand bananas, you would try to get people to like bananas – especially if you had to sell all your fruit at the same price. There just are not as many Zadie Smiths as there are Jane Greens. That is not to say there are not many wonderful women writers out there. There are. They just don't all fit into the same off-the-peg marketing plan.

The benevolence of capitalism goes on. According to many of those involved in commercial fiction, everyone should be grateful for chick lit because it pays for serious literary fiction to be produced. "You can't have literary prize winners without genre fiction," said one senior editor. "It's just not economically possible."

That is another myth, according to Philip Gwyn Jones, publishing director of the literary imprint Flamingo. "The belief that genre publishing subsidises the 'real' literature is incorrect. In five of the six years I've been publishing director here at Flamingo it has delivered a net profit margin in excess of 10 per cent." Interestingly, one of Flamingo's recent bestsellers was Naomi Klein's wonderful No Logo. Often, at the more literary imprints, profit comes from successfully publishing cutting-edge non-fiction alongside "challenging" fiction. It seems rather silly to suggest that frothy romance should appear in this equation at all.

Rosie, a 27-year-old receptionist, says that although she reads a lot of chick lit, she throws the books away afterwards. "It's embarrassing," she says. "You just feel ashamed of yourself after you've read something like that." Like many readers I spoke to, Rosie wanted to find more interesting women's fiction but didn't feel it was out there. It is, it's simply obscured by piles of pastel-covered chick lit.

Other industries have learnt the hard way that cynical, short-term marketing does not work. No one likes over-branding. Even the chick lit authors do not like it. "No one really wants to be described as a chick lit author," says Jenny Colgan. "We are not all the same. A lot of different books are packaged in similar covers if the writers are young and female, and that's simply not our fault." And what will happen to promising young writers such as Colgan and Lisa Jewell when chick lit does disappear? Neither of them actually writes standard chick lit – not that you would know from their book covers. However, once the hype is over, many young women authors may find their careers in serious trouble. Criticising this situation is important for anyone who cares about women's fiction.

Some people say that the next big thing is going to be "reading-group novels" – books with juicy themes that readers can dissect over a glass of wine. Nicholas Clee thinks that it is more likely that we will see another Helen Fielding-style situation, though. "One author will come along and spark a genre. Someone will write a book that will make publishers think, 'We should do one of those.' And then they will. And then they'll do more." Oh dear.

Scarlett Thomas's new novel, 'Going Out', is published tomorrow by Fourth Estate

The chickerati ...

Helen Fielding, 43

Books: Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Bridget Jones: Sobrevivre, Cause Celeb

Pioneered the chick lit genre with Bridget Jones's Diary column in The Independent. Bridget Jones was born, and after her more Bridget Joneses, and more and more...

India Knight, "mid-thirties"

Books: My Life on a Plate, Don't You Want Me?, The Shops

Plundering her own experience of being left by her partner, Knight focuses on marital fatigue. Writes for "anyone with breasts".

Wendy Holden, 37

Books: Fame Fatale, Simply Divine, Bad Heir Day, Pastures Nouveaux

The queen of the bad pun, Holden focuses on posh young gals and their romantic trials in and around Fulham.

Jane Green, 34

Books: Babyville, Bookends, Spellbound, Jemima, Mr Maybe

One of the first of the chick lit crew. A review of her latest book Babyville suggested she had moved on from chick lit and founded a new genre... mumlit.

Marian Keyes, 39

Books: Last Chance Saloon, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, Watermelon, Rachel's Holiday, Sushi for Beginners, Under the Duvet, Angels, No Dress Rehearsal, Irish Girls About Town

In her twenties Keyes was a depressed alcoholic who attempted suicide. Now she is a champion of chick lit and has seen some of her books televised.

Allison Pearson, won't reveal age

Books: I Don't Know How She Does It

Pearson has launched yet another take on the theme: working mumlit. After reading her novel, four working mothers resigned. There are no signs of Pearson resigning.