The Repercussions of Indifference

The lovely Alison Gaylin of First Offenders gave me the perfect opening for something that was already on my mind.

The most serious issue in the publishing industry today is not quality of work or distribution. The most serious issue in the publishing industry is indifference.

We’ve all heard the saying actions speak louder than words. There is truth in that expression, and it’s also true that the lack of action speaks louder than words. Consider if a man tells you he wants to marry you, but never proposes and then moves out of the country and doesn’t give you his address. Logic infers the declared desire to marry was a lie, or if not a lie, there were other competing interests that overshadowed any desire for a permanent relationship. Waiting for him to return and propose would be considered by most foolish.

What does this have to do with Alison? Today, she writes on the blog about getting a billboard for her latest book, and how that’s helped boost sales. And then she adds in a bit of commentary about the growing onus on authors to handle their promotion. ”So many people have come up to me, a look of shock in their eyes, saying they saw the billboard and, as a result, bought TRASHED that I'm wondering -- why didn't NAL get me one of these babies? (Oh yeah, because they're not friends with the billboard people and it would actually cost them lots of money.)”

That connects with something Steven Torres said in a comment on a recent post here, and with his permission I quote:

"Publishers generally refuse to see the books they publish as cultural events - unlike movie producers or even music producers. Publishers prove that they don't think the books are relevant when they refuse to spend advertising dollars saying - rather weakly - that no one buys things because they see ads...Movie/music producers are happy to run ads claiming that their product will "change the way you think about XYZ." Publishers don't run ads at all. What is the public supposed to think about which is more relevant?"

Let me be emphatic about the purpose of this post: It is not to attack publishers. What these comments actually got me thinking about was the culture of indifference, and social conditioning. No, I haven’t been smoking anything illegal this morning…

It is a very simple reality that in our society, we follow trends. We reference cultural shifts, such as the fashions of the 70s, the music of the 60s, the sexual revolution. Anyone remember when Cabbage Patch Dolls were all the rage, and the stores couldn’t keep them stocked long enough?

The reason that I believe JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series was such a success was because the release of a new book became a cultural event. It was anticipated, widely discussed, publicized and promoted.

In the publishing world, we typically seem run counter to the norm. With movies, they tend to spend a lot of money making the movie and, unwilling to then not recoup the investment, they promote the movie. Here’s a question: How many movies that are released to mainstream movie theatres have a zero advertising budget? How many movies will Famous Players (or whoever it is now) show this weekend that didn’t have a TV ad?

I think we probably all know the answer. And yet, this same week, dozens and dozens of books will be released that will have no promotion behind them at all. In the book world, the theory seems to be make money by not spending money. Refer back to my recent post citing Jeri Westerson's, and the reality of publishers not shipping out books for signings, thus rendering author events ineffective. And one would truly think that in order to make money it would be important to get the books out to stores... In the movie world, advertising generates awareness of the existence of a movie and the release becomes an event. Compared to the release of Harry Potter, I’m struggling to think of any other book launch that’s been so greatly anticipated. For individuals, we can all name our own, but I’m talking collectively.

Yet I remember lining up for the new Star Wars movie, how anxious people were to have tickets for opening night. I remember the line-ups for Titanic, which was sold out long before I got to the ticket booth, which is why I never saw it. (I’m going to get back to this in a minute.) And I most definitely remember the anticipation of The Lord of the Rings and going on opening weekend to see each of the movies. Indeed, as Steven said, movie releases become cultural events. I can scroll through the news articles in the Toronto Star today, and they’re talking about two music artists. Yesterday it was ‘must-see TV’. On the weekend, the latest films. On a daily basis other arts are discussed and celebrated, and the very act of discussing those releases increases public awareness and, consequently, their significance to the public. Do you want to be the only one at the water cooler not talking about the latest Bond film, or who doesn’t know what happened in the last episode of Seinfeld or hasn’t heard the new Bruce Springsteen album yet?

And really, what is it that’s different about CDs, movies, TV shows and books? There seems to be a tendency to discount interest in books, saying they’re a luxury item, nobody needs it to live.

In short, I think it goes over to social conditioning… and access.

I grew up in a small town. In the summer the Muskoka Theatre was a busy enterprise, providing live entertainment to the tourists. I lived in Muskoka for almost twenty years of my life, and it was not until that last year that I took my cousin to a play at the Muskoka Theatre. Why? Because as a local resident I was far too busy working to indulge in the entertainment the tourists enjoyed. Locals made their bread and butter off of the tourist industry. The tourists played, we worked. It isn’t that simple for everyone, but I remember friends saying how lucky I was to live there year-round. They visited, on a holiday, and had a picture of paradise. I remember the long winters, the fact that we had no mall, a furniture store sold a small selection of records and tapes, there was no bookstore but the pharmacy had a few racks of titles and the grocery stores had a small selection as well, and by the time I was an adult the one, lone movie theatre was gone.

It was easy to feel as though the world was a place you only heard about on TV, and occasionally people who lived in it visited. From the perspective of a teenager it was isolating and dull, and yet we weren’t far from other major cities. Orillia was half an hour south, Barrie about an hour’s drive, and half an hour beyond that you were on the outskirts of Toronto. The nature of our location, and access, made a sixteenth birthday an enormous cultural event, because it marked the age at which we could drive, and being able to drive meant being able to gain access to all of the things we didn’t have in our town.

As a result, you also would not commonly hear people talking about going to the opera, the ballet. People made events of going to rock concerts. I will always remember going to see Les Miserables, an event followed by a visit to a city bar where we spotted famous actors. I was with my sister and future brother-in-law. Since my BIL had family in the city, they knew the spots to visit, and his father and step-mother introduced me to a different world, his step-mother a cousin to Timothy Findley, and she actually possessed the letters which had inspired The Wars.

Since I distinctly remember a childhood thinking life was what was happening everywhere else, I remember the transitions in my own thinking. I didn’t think I would ever travel and see the world. Books were a window, and an escape, and therefore treasured. We would drive to Orillia or Barrie to go to the mall and my mother and sister would go to look at clothes, while I went to the bookstore.

Through TV, even through newspapers, we’re subtly and sometimes brazenly conditioned to consider certain things important. If other people are talking about it, it must be significant… even if what they are talking about is nothing more than Britney Spears losing custody of her kids. How is that relevant to us, as individuals? It isn’t. And yet it was marked as ‘breaking news’ yesterday. We have a culture that is built on the creation of idols, and our media (and consequently many individuals) assign significance to everything they do, even if it has no bearing on any of us. Why should Britney Spears be newsworthy? Why is her divorce, or her shaving her head, more newsworthy than the recent releases of The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen, Mark Billingham’s Death Message, Ian Rankin’s Exit Music?

The answer is, simply, that we’ve been conditioned to think her behaviour is significant. While it’s unlikely that regular readers of this blog assign much value to her as a source of news (other than, perhaps, as a cautionary tale) clearly the media believes putting her on the cover sells newspapers and magazines. Hollywood is a physical location, where multiple ‘celebrities’ can be tracked (in the same way multiple country stars can be found in Nashville) and therefore, it is easy to have a few reporters there to follow the latest news and gossip because it is easy to access several “newsworthy” people with limited resources. Their antics are newsworthy, and of the dozens of books released this week, few will ever receive even a review in a newspaper, never mind inspire a column or article.

The importance – or lack of importance – a culture puts on the printed world says a lot. Consider what was said of the formation of schools in the early days of colonizing America:

”More than any other device,” Lewis Mumford wrote… “the printed book released people from the domination of the immediate and the local;…print made a greater impression than the actual events… To exist was to exist in print: the rest of the world tended gradually to become more shadowy. Learning became book-learning.” In light of this, we may assume that the schooling of the young was understood by the colonists not only as a moral duty but as an intellectual imperative. (The England from which they came was an island of schools. By 1660, for example, there were 444 schools in England, one school approximately every twelve miles.) And it is clear that growth in literacy was closely connected to schooling. Where schooling was not required (as in Rhode Island) or weak school laws prevailed (as in New Hampshire), literacy rates increased more slowly than anywhere else. (Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, page 33.

The printed word revolutionized society. It brought knowledge of other places, people, beliefs, to others. Shared knowledge could become a strength, and conversely, keeping knowledge from others became a means of control. Think back to the history of the Church, to maintaining the practice of performing Mass in Latin – a language which exceptionally few people have any grasp of – and how that isolates. People can be classes as in the know or not in the know. Knowledge becomes a source of power. Just consider how desperately scholars try to decipher hieroglyphs and ancient symbols. Why? So that they can attach meaning to the organization of strokes connected to represent some shape which had significance to a culture, even if that culture no longer exists. We want to know what they knew. Curiously enough, we live in a society replete with contradictions. We do not want to think of others knowing what we do not know. Did ancient Egyptians know of life on other planets? What happened to the Anasazi tribes? Is there a mystical key to immortality in some remote jungle on the planet?

Civilizations have killed, and been killed, for the knowledge of their secrets. What was the quickest way to suppress a people? Take away their language, destroy their culture. We need think no further than England and Ireland. In the seventeenth century, under English rule, many Irish chieftains and teachers were forced either to emigrate or go into hiding, and for many people education continued only in the illegal 'hedge schools', in fields, barns and sheds….
It was also at the beginning of the nineteenth century that scholars, notably Germans, began to unravel the mysteries of 'Old Irish' and Irish studies became a recognized scholarly pursuit. Towards the end of the century the Irish cultural revolution, or 'renaissance', began. Conradh na Gaeilge (The Gaelic League) was founded in 1893 with the principle aim of reviving the Irish language, which was showing signs of decline.

TV now means that you do not need to read to be able to know, and we have come full circle, with students now able to graduate from high school and college remaining technically illiterate. The printed word is not afforded the same significance by society at large, which is odd, because to be immortal is still to exist in print. That's why people cut out newspaper clippings about themselves or loved ones, it's why people still publish obituaries to mark the passing of a loved one. You can be on TV and your appearance over in a heartbeat, without ready ability to recapture that moment and share it with others, but being in the newspaper is something that can be framed, referenced... It is permanent in a way that TV is not.

And yet, I am left referring back to what Alison Gaylin said, and could cite example after example that demonstrates that awareness does generate interest. It is not that people do not have the time or money for books. Let me go back to Titanic. Sold out the one time I tried to see it, so I believe I saw a Bond movie instead, and never saw Titanic. Why? It really wasn’t that important to me. I was with someone who wanted to see it, and since attending a movie was really more of a social event (let’s not touch on the contradiction of socializing while sitting in the dark with strangers watching a movie and not talking) than anything else, it lost significance for me in the absence of that person. I had no individual desire to see the movie.

The point there is that people will spend $20 going to see a movie (by the time you drive to a different town, buy book and tickets, probably more) for entertainment, even if they have no overwhelming desire to see the movie. People are often willing to dispense with money if they feel they will be somewhat entertained for a few hours. We make excuse after excuse for why people don’t buy more books or read more – too busy, books are too expensive – but if you examine our consumer habits I would say that an overwhelming majority of what I see advertised on TV is not anything essential. You don’t have to advertise groceries, because people need to eat to survive. (And yet some products are advertised – local potatoes, Milk. I note that many of the items advertised are either local or ‘special’ in some capacity… or are items that have become a subject of controversy as people debate the health benefits. Eggs and peanut butter are good examples.) No, what is advertised on TV is not what it essential, but what is regarded as desirable, items of convenience that are going to make your life better. Movies you should want to see, because everyone else does. TV shows you shouldn’t miss. New albums you simply must get your hands on. The latest fashion trends. Beer. In fact, the most memorable commercials for me, for some reason are beer, coke and Canadian Tire ads. God only knows why. But I remember that Barry Eisler had an ad in the NY Times…

Last week I saw an ad on TV for a book. The new James Patterson. It is not that advertising doesn’t work, or that there’s an unwillingness to invest in promotion. It’s that it is done for exceptionally few items. I think back to the summer and the Edinburgh Book Festival, which received plenty of media coverage, based on an over-hyped comment blown way out of proportion… which was soon followed by a joke that got out of hand (about JK Rowling and her “new” book) that earned Ian Rankin headlines in the national news here in Canada. One remark, well-placed, earned enormous free press coverage, simply because of who he was talking about and the cultural significance she’s considered to have.

Meanwhile, review space declines, and we mourn its loss, while not grasping the cultural shifts that have brought it to this place or what the implications for the future are. Michael Connelly was one person I saw who dissected the issue with intelligence, talking about how newspapers were doing a disservice to themselves in the long-term by undermining the importance of the written word by not covering books. His thoughts on the topic (which if someone has a link to, please do share in the comments) came closest to a discussion of communication theory and the culture of literature. I could digress and go on whole new tangents and easily be here day after day, week after week, on the subject because it fascinates me, but instead am reduced to trying to whittle down my thoughts into one semi-coherent post. What reviewers fail to understand is that yes, all forms of the written word, have merit. Going back to Postman (page 51 this time): To engage the written word means to follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning. It means to uncover lies, confusions, and overgeneralizations, to detect abuses of logic and common sense. It also means to weigh ideas, to compare and contrast assertions, to connect one generalization to another. The very act of reading conveys a level of intelligence not needed to watch TV, listen to a CD or even watch a play. We translate lines and curves into letters, and again into words, which we assign meaning and when words are put into sentences it can alter their meaning. The act of reading is one that requires knowledge and intelligence. I am not suggesting that there aren’t intelligent people who can’t/don’t read, but when someone can read we assign certain merit to them. Reading is a skill. Watching a movie isn’t.

And yet, what do we celebrate as a society? What gets discussed? The latest books… or the latest movies? Why do I review primarily genre fiction? Because reading is what is important, and if people find what they will enjoy they will continue to read. Some want humour, some want drama, some want romance, some want purely to be entertained and others to be challenged. We make the mistake of denoting significance to things based on content. One of the main reason ‘literary’ types are thought to snub their noses at genre fiction is because of the ‘fluff’ factor, and so we categorize things based on relevance… but there can be as much merit in making a person laugh as in making them think about an issue.

This is not all about publishers needing to do more promotion. What I fear has become lost in the recent push for authors to do more and more to promote their own books is the bond we share as people who love the written word, and love writing and reading. It’s been replaced by necessary competition, to get our work noticed ahead of others. I read on a blog a few months back a candid admission from an author that when someone walked into a bookstore, they wanted people to buy their book instead of anyone else’s. Believe me, when What Burns Within comes out I hope a lot of people buy it and read it, and more than anything that they enjoy it… but my first love does go to reading, and recognizing that individual tastes vary, more than anything I want people to find the books that will speak to them. When they find those books it will ignite their love of reading, and have them seeking more and more books. This is what one author did for me at a critical point in my life, and as a result I discovered so many other authors.

I look to the UK. I’ve had a long-standing love affair with British fiction, and have to applaud their culture, for it is a culture that indulges the love of books. The press takes note of literary festivals. I can tell you about Hay-on-Wye when I’ve never even been to it, or to Wales. I read the news about book launch parties, the Edinburgh festival and others, and feel a new sense of isolation, because we do not have the passion for literature here to sustain those types of events.

I look to the CWA who, in recognition of the fact that much of what we give significance to in society is attached to a dollar value, and made the top prize at their annual awards £20,000. They created a newsworthy event that in turn conveys significance to the awards, and raises awareness outside of the industry. And that's critical, because we are far too good at preaching to the converted, and ineffective at reaching beyond genre insiders.

What is needed is not just clever marketing gimmicks. What is needed is a culture that stands up and says that books are to be cherished and celebrated, that inside on those pages is a story worth reading, that opening a book is like opening a window to the world, allowing you to see inside the minds of others, to experience what they experience, to feel their pain, their joy, their conflict.

The author organizations can invest in the future of their industry by making a stand that books are relevant. We need to get over this apologetic attitude that treats books as luxury items that aren't important.

Or, we can carry on, everyone out for themselves, and still fail to spark the awareness of the many, many great books out there well worth reading.

In closing, I’m going to quote myself, from something I contributed in the comments to a post Patti Abbott made.

At some point in your life, you pulled out a book, held it in your hands, and fell in love. And it might have been right then, or maybe a little while later, but one day you thought, I want to see my name on a book some day. And that was the dream.

And it isn't the same achievement self-publishing. It's the difference between getting a mail-order bride and having someone genuinely fall in love with you - that's the feeling when an editor says they love what you do, and want to publish it.

That's the moment to write for. I know there's everything else (believe me, I know) but to be able to hold a book in your hands with your name on the cover is the dream. We just have to try not to let it be overshadowed by the nightmare.