The Business Side of Art

The obsessive hunt for sure-fire mass market bestsellers is "tainting" the UK publishing industry, according to Clare Alexander, president of the Association of Authors' Agents….

"We have the stupidest bestseller list in the world at the moment." Publishers are not trying hard enough to creatively market less well-known authors, instead relying on 'Richard & Judy' or literary prizes, she said.

Although this article centers on the UK publishing industry, it isn’t so far removed from North America, where getting on Oprah generates hundreds of thousands of sales. In recent months there have been criticisms for picking well established, successful authors who don’t need the publicity, although in light of the incident with James Frey one can appreciate why she might be cautious.

The first thing about the Bookseller article I’m quoting from that I think is important to note is the reality of the statements being made, and what this means for both authors and readers in the future. Putting extreme emphasis on bestsellers without growing authors means that we’ll see more one-hit wonders in the book business, from people who get one clever idea and can’t match it afterwards (especially if they only get a one-book deal, which is quite common right now) and more formulaic books. It is why a book like DaVinci Code gives birth to dozens and dozens of clones, and it’s why fantasy books are so popular with children’s book publishers in the wake of Harry Potter. Something succeeds and everyone wants to cash in.

Publishing has become a trend follower.

For those – like myself – who find formula gets old fast, who relish in the original works that bring something fresh to the genre, these trends should be of some concern. We may eventually reach the point where fewer and fewer authors are published in more narrowly defined subgenres that are proven sellers.

Those who’ve already read and found much food for thought in John Rickards’ post “The Genre Has No Clothes” will appreciate Clare Alexander’s point: Specifically, the genre cannot expand and grow if publishers are obsessed with only the next bestseller. More and more authors will fall through the cracks, despite their skill.

There needs to be a long-term view in place, instead of solely focusing on the short-term gain. Authors do need to be grown through their backlists, and innovative works need to be supported. The reason is that a high number of readers will abandon the genre or the very form of storytelling through books if every new book feels like a repeat or variation on something else. Many readers will get bored, and in the wake of complaints about the costs of books who wants to spend more and more money on books that are copycats of something they’ve already read?

Following this trend to the exclusion of all else will ultimately result in a more serious state for the publishing industry than it’s ever experienced, and it may well mark the death of fiction publishing.

Ah, but publishing is a business, you say. Publishers should be allowed to focus on what sells.

This is where the publishing industry relies on a double standard.

There was agreement among the panel that word-of-mouth is still the most powerful force. Marketing and publisher's hype can push a book so far, but only personal recom­mendation can generate major successes.

The problem with this conclusion is not that it’s wrong, but it’s what some publishers have determined as a result. In order to generate word of mouth people actually need to have read the book, but distribution issues are also hampering book success.

My own experience reviewing confirms to me that more than 50% of the time I receive books from the authors, and that a startlingly high percentage of the time when an author tries to get their publisher to send a review copy I don’t ever receive it, probably around 40% of the time. I’ve stopped concerning myself with taking on reviewers as a result. I’d love to have more, but I’m not willing to work review copy offers the way I used to (I used to e-mail all listed potential reviewers to see who was interested). Now, I take books very hit and miss, and from the ones I accept at least a quarter of them are never sent.

As authors hear things like that, they feel more pressure to produce review copies and distribute themselves. More and more authors are spending their entire advance, and sometimes more, promoting their books, but there are other issues authors can’t solve themselves. At no point should authors who have major publishers have to make blog posts in order to tell people where to find their latest work because would-be readers can’t find it stocked in stores.

This is why I’m concerned about the focus of author groups on drafting strict rules for legitimate publishers that sometimes exclude valid publishers from their list in their attempts to separate the wheat from the chaff. As more and more big publishers develop a more conservative fiction list (by conservative I mean perceived bestsellers and formula books) it would be nice to believe that the smaller presses will sprout up, the ones who will publish the experimental, the completely original. I want to see books like Mabanckou’s African Psycho in print. Thank goodness we have Creeping Hemlock to bring us new Tom Piccirilli but the result of narrowly construed acceptability lists means that it will be the formulaic, the “bestseller potential” books that get the additional publicity of awards. Many readers don’t understand the eligibility rules, and I certainly don’t blame them for not being interested in the politics, but it gives artificial importance to some books that are nominated against others that don’t make the list that are every bit as good, if not better, but simply have a publisher who pays advances of $900 instead of $1000 or who hasn’t been in business for two years.

Just yesterday Sarah Weinman posted something that speaks to that indirectly. She refers to a review by Janet Maslin in the NY Times, in which Maslin states: Only the toughest and smartest cops could police a city like Los Angeles, with its giant size, ethnic complexity, large amount of crime and chronic shortage of police manpower,” Mr. Leake continues robotically. (Michael Connelly, the Los Angeles police-work aficionado, writes admiring blurbs for many crime stories. “Entering Hades” is not one of them.)

The very act of including in a review a comment on who did not blurb a book should raise concerns within the industry, as well as eyebrows. Such a statement presumes that authors receive copies of all books each year and then actually read all of them and choose to only blurb the most worthy. They do not. In the same way that not all books published are eligible for the Edgar Award or the Dagger, not all books can be blurbed because many are never sent to established authors. To assume the lack of a blurb can be interpreted as a statement against a book shows a lack of understanding of the process at the least. Sarah already said it best: (Maslin’s comment about Connelly) tells us what, exactly? That he should have? That by not doing so he's passing silent judgment? That by mentioning the lack of blurb, Maslin's passing not-so-silent judgment? (Guess what door I'm picking.) I can think of any number of reasons for this so-called blurblessness, from not being approached to this being just another manuscript Connelly turned down on principle now that he's not giving nearly as many "admiring blurbs" as he once did. Editorializing on the book is fine; editorializing about the intentions of a writer unrelated to the book is not.

While I do not think the publishing industry is about to fall apart in the next few months, I do think that ensuring our long-term success and growth as an industry requires assessment and consideration of the trends in publishing. There is already too much of this. I see comments on reader discussion lists about growing disbelief in blurbs, and it’s a cynicism I can appreciate when some authors openly admit they’ll blurb anyone who asks, even if they haven’t read the book, or that they’ll only blurb their friends. Any endorsement that isn’t on merit falls flat on the face of it.

As a result of such misguided philosophies employed by some authors the entire process of author referrals has been tainted. It may not be completely destroyed at this point, but the credibility of that referral has been undermined. And distributing advanced copies to authors in attempts to get them talking about new books to look for has been standard practice amongst the biggest publishers. This is how the cycle feeds.

If publishers want to reach the point where word of mouth can catch on to the point it generates sales they need to make sure that the word of mouth referrals can remain credible, and that people actually get their hands on the books. The focus needs to be on ensuring review copies actually get sent out by publishers, that we preserve review space or find new venues for reviews that are effective, and that books are getting distributed to stores.

For I know one way to almost certainly ensure the failure of a book, and that is to do nothing so that it gets no reviews, nobody can accidentally find it in a store or know it exists.


And from the department of major congratulations, Amra Pajalic is the latest author to be picked up by Australia’s sensational Text Publishing! Breaking open the virtual champagne, three cheers for Amra – another writer we’ve had the privilege of publishing in Spinetingler btw.