P.S. This week is Forgotten Story Collections on Friday. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7523153/Apoca-lit-Now.html
Near the end of this piece, the author says that without some sort of institutional support only the trashy and brilliant books will survive.
Do you think this will be the case? Is the midlist or middle-brow book disappearing from our shelves as we speak? Richard Wheeler thinks so. So do I. Do we know any writers that write for readers who want neither genre, junk, or literary novels anymore? I would categorize Anna Quindlen as such. Do genre writers escape this label? There used to be so many-Michener, for example
17 comments:
It's more that "genre" writers are all treated as if they are middlebrow at best.
It's more the midlist, which is a commercial rather than artistic label, which is in trouble.
I've always made a distinction between middle-brow and genre. Phillip Wylie was always the example I used when talking about middle-brow. He was a very good writer and sometimes a clever agitator who wrote for the slicks and the book club readers and did well for himself. Genre writers were automatically considered his inferiors. This isn't to say that the middle brow doesn't produce interesting even a few lasting writers. But I tend to agree with Sartre that most interesting fiction comes from the low brow and the high brow. Great post, Patti.
Thanks to Todd for seeing the distinction.
Yes as Ed says, writers at both ends are fearless to some extent-either knowing their audience is small, huge or simply not caring.
Todd beat me to the first half of my comment, but I have an issue with the writer's conclusion. The new frontier may be even more friendly to what he calls "niche" writers than what we have now. I rarely go to large bookstores anymore; all they have are best-sellers. The primary difference between them and Costco or Wal-mart is Borders will have more backlist titles by each author.
I'm not into e-readers yet, and probably won't be unless too much of what i want to read is only available there. Still, that's where the genre and niche writers may flourish. Their books can be available for a few bucks, and there are none of the physical costs associated with bound books. I understand editing may suffer, but I've read too many books from large, respected publishers that don't appear to have been edited at all to worry about how e-readers will kill the art of editing; publishing houses seem to be strangling it quite nicely on their own.
These are the kinds of distinctions that make my eyes cross. I think Todd nails it about where "genre" writers are typically classified, though.
With few exceptions -- except for non fiction -- the books I buy typically aren't on the shelves at the big box. I hope they remain available via my indy store down the street or at specialty stores.
I am more and more appalled at how few books Borders and B & N carry. Is there really a need to carry items you can get at the drugstore, candystore, cardstore and coffee house down the street. Big signs alert you they can get every book, but why use them when you can get it on the Internet and not pay tax plus get discounts. You go there because you want it now.
I think that it's notable that the article is from a British paper, where a stratified and obvious class system is still an everyday given. In the States, what's lowbrow fiction, highbrow fiction, and middlebrow fiction is more fluid than our economic classes have ever been. And the continuing problem with seeing the world of fiction as somehow a "genre" v. non-"genre" world is that there are varying levels of sophistication and seriousness (in the sense of artistic ambition and achievement) within all the "genres"...and the serious work in each field might well appeal to readers of the sophisticated work in other fields. While the utter bubblegum in each field might well have similar audiences, as well...and if the most interesting developments are coming from those edges, what does that mean for the arts...unless someone is mistaking innovative work for trash (frequently the case...see my first comment). Then let's throw in Dwight Macdonald's MassCult and MidCult and see where that leaves us.
For example, one of "low brow" media Sartre was probably referring to was comics, which have Never been exclusively the province of lowbrow or unambitious artists, even if they were perceived to be thus, with the typical exceptions (pompous, well-educated adults might actually see the comics of Winsor McKay, or EC Segar, or George Herriman, or Crockett Johnson in their newspapers and either condescend to enjoy them or unashamedly do so, but that didn't mean that they were the only artists in their medium or that other folks working in the comic books weren't doing work that deserved similar respect, which most of us of some sophistication have since learned). (In other words, the good stuff in that medium was never trash...it just took a while for the idiots who wanted all of it to be trash to learn better or die.)(Contrast this to the kind of person who sneers or gives credit for a certain shallow Worthiness to "genre" work, including by insisting that there is a single or easy set of or even any meaningful distinction or distinctions between "genre" fiction and other fiction.)
Borders and probably B&N have been consistently mismanaged, both engaged in a costly war with each other (most ridiculously opening stores within a block of each other and then, naturally, having to close many of them) when they should've been banking money, building their websites, and paying their employees better, and Borders particularly has been on the brink of bankruptcy for several years.
So it's not too surprising that their stocks are growing (annoyingly) thin. Though the Borders do vary somewhat more than the B&Ns in what they have on hand. (I haven't been in a Books-a-Million in years, but can't imangine they're in Much better shape.)
Sometimes it does help, supposedly, to order through the stores, though, as they might...Might...reorder the book once it's in any given store's inventory. At least at B&N.
I believe a new business model will emerge. There will be a day when I can logon to your web site, Patti, and my Kindle or Nook or iPad will download your latest work and PAYPAL will put some money in your account. Some Indy bands are already functioning this way. It won't matter if you're high-list, mid-list, or low-list.
I know some midlist writers who are doing OK, though with smaller print runs and upfront money in the past. I know others that are dead in the water. So I think it depends on a lot of factors.
Basically, as Dana and George suggest, almost all books are going to have the electronic distribution model, after all...which does make publishing easier and publicity perhaps harder (but only perhaps).
Getting paid for it. Naaaw.
Can't imagine how publicity will work without publishing houses--not that they do a good job of it now.
Tweets. Blogs. Electronic word-of-mouth. Yes, if the publishers were doing the publicity job, the newspapers wouldn't be dumping their review sections.
As several aspiring midlisters keep telling me, the publishers these days expect the writers to go do the bulk of their own marketing.
With the economy of the last year and the rise of the e-book, the publishing industry is going through a sea change and it's anybody's guess as to what will happen with mid-list. I agree with Dana in that they might find a place in e-books, but it will take a few years. I hope that is what will happen at least. Otherwise it's a bleak future.
Another thing that Dana said that struck me was the comment on editing. I just started a so-called "NY Times Bestseller" (now that would be a good subject for a post, Patti), that on the second page, the author (it's a memoir) says he was "struck numb" by a surprising remark. Struck numb?? Isn't that supposed to be 'struck dumb'? Where's the editor??
Well, Laurie, that might've been intentional wordplay...and the publishers' collusion with the NYT to jigger what they want up the "Bestsellers" list and ignore the books they don't think such promotion in the form of "reportage" has been discussed here, if not recently. (Romances of the non-heavy advance sort, mostly.)
Hey, many publishing houses now want your promotion plans/commitment with your submission. It's a different world: nobody wants to pay for anything on the net and it's a real challenge to figure out ways to make writing pay.
Ask me about Rent-a-text.com -- the new plan for college bookstores AKA another way to not get royalties. It's not really any different than buying used, but surely they should have to pay library fees.
@Laurie -- big houses let their copy editors go long ago. Writers have spell check; why would you need a copy editor >_<
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