As the year winds down, I've been thinking a bit about my writing career lately, as well as the state of publishing in general. I suppose waxing philosophical is only natural at this time of year. In any case, it led me to reread one of the sections in my memoir in which I compare fast food with fast fiction. I'd elaborate further, but then, I might as well just post the chapter. So in any case, happy holidays to everyone, and here is the aforementioned chapter from Memoirs of a Starving Artist:
Fast Fiction Equals Fast Food?
If this sounds a little bit like rationalizing the abandonment of a dream, perhaps it is in part. After 25 years, reality is hard to escape. Maybe I’ve given up on changing the world but I still haven’t given up on writing. As I wrap up this memoir, the wheels in my head are already in motion, formulating a romantic series about a group of young adults coming of age in the city. Los Angeles? San Francisco? I’m not sure yet, but I will write it as quickly as I can. If things go well, perhaps I will finally be able to support myself from my writing, not just in some inexpensive city halfway around the world, but in the city of my choosing, wherever that may be. It is one decision I long to face.
Fast Fiction Equals Fast Food?
Everything I needed to know about
how to make it as an independent author I learned from the very first
self-published success stories. Authors who made it big in this new
paradigm, such as million-selling paranormal writer Amanda Hocking or mystery
writer John Locke, did the same things. As I mentioned earlier, they
picked a popular genre, created a recognizable brand, and cranked out books
with incredible speed. Without the same massive overhead, they were also
able to undercut the traditional publishers on price.
In the years since these two
writers set the publishing world on fire and marked the beginnings of an ebook
revolution, many other authors have found self-publishing success of their
own. Few have achieved the blockbuster sales levels of Hocking or Locke,
but numerous writers are generating comfortable six-figure annual
incomes. All of them, by and large, follow the same strategies listed
above. Some write erotica, others sci-fi, romance or mystery. These
authors tend to put out a new book every two to four months. One such
author wrote her first-ever book in 2012. Within one year she’d written
and uploaded fifteen full-length romance novels and earned more than
$100,000. That’s roughly one new novel written, edited and uploaded every
three weeks without a break. Another successful thriller writer wrote and
published 27 novels in 36 months. The pace is simply astonishing.
All of this points to a literary
landscape that is changing in numerous ways, though even before this ebook
revolution, plenty of authors made their living by writing what used to be
known as pulp fiction. Back in the 1950s and 60s, these were the cheap,
disposable novels of the day. Some were erotica, others sci-fi, romance,
mystery or “noir.” They were churned out quickly without much heed to
quality. It led novelists as far back as the 1940s to grapple with some
of the same issues that I struggle with today. Italo Calvino, my favorite
Italian novelist, wrote to his friend Silvio Micheli in 1946:
I know you get through tons of writing a
day, that you write novels with plots, with incest-plots, crime-plots, hot
novels, lukewarm novels, novels with hot and cold running water. This fills me
with envy because I’m still here just wasting time.
…I’ve started a novel too: I wrote four
pages in a week. Weeks go by in which I can’t even add a comma, whole days are
spent wondering whether in that sentence going up is better than ascending.
Is there room for such
philosophical novelists in today’s publishing environment? The prospect
of spending a year or two working on a novel of substance seems like a
dwindling luxury. If Calvino struggled with these pressures even in his
day, how would he have reacted to the current environment? In another
letter, this time to Eugenio Scalfari, Calvino wrote:
All the ideas currently in my head are
subject to a strange phenomenon: while I work on them and perfect them
continuously from the philosophical point of view, they stay rudimentary and
barely sketched on the dramatic and artistic side. In my creativity thought has
the upper hand over imagination.
This concept is the exact opposite
of most books on the market today, where imagination has the upper hand and
philosophical thought is virtually non-existent. After all, how much
thought could really go into a book written in three weeks? Or even in
eight? There are exceptions no doubt, but in general these are not
thoughtfully considered, carefully crafted works. This is
stream-of-consciousness flung out onto the page.
These days, literary works are
still the domain of the traditional publishing industry. They simply
don’t do well as self-published books. They take too long to write, can’t
be easily branded and aren’t part of a popular genre. A self-published
literary novel is likely to disappear in the flood of new content and never be
noticed by anyone at all. At the same time, as publishing houses
become more risk averse, literary novelists are finding themselves in an
increasingly perilous position.
A number of concrete, specific
market forces are currently working in favor of genre fiction and against
literary novels. These are only in part related to ebooks. One
issue is that publishers make nearly all of their profits from a few
bestsellers. It is the J.K. Rowlings and the James Pattersons who grease
the skids of the publishing industry. Typically these bestselling
mega-authors bring in the money that the publishing houses use to fund smaller
projects they believe in. Profits from the latest Dan Brown novel might
go toward publishing a whole slew of literary novels that the publisher is
willing to take a chance on. With pressure on the entire publishing
industry, this is becoming less common as the publishers expend more of their
energy searching instead for the next big thing. They want to find
“franchises” that can guarantee an oversized return. They are desperately
searching for the next Harry Potter or Twilight or Hunger
Games. They have less time for the small literary novel that probably
won’t sell anyway.
Part of the reason for this shift
in dynamic is that thousands of bookstores have gone out of business in the
U.S. in the last ten years. This has two effects. First, with fewer
bookstores there are fewer bookstore clerks personally recommending their
favorite new books to readers who might otherwise never find them.
Second, with fewer bookstores around, many readers buy their books at discount
stores like Wal-Mart, or drugstores like CVS. These outlets don’t want
literary novels. They’re not interested in the books themselves, like a
bookseller would be. These stores are simply trying to move product, and
that means genre novels; romances, perhaps some sci-fi and fantasy, and all of
the bestsellers.
Yet another reason for the downfall
of literary fiction is the decline in newspapers as a source of
information. Numerous newspapers across the country are declaring
bankruptcy and going out of business. Those that survive are
downsizing. They are eliminating as many daily sections as they can to
reduce costs. One of the first sections to go in many papers is the book
review section. In the old paradigm, book publishers sent the novels they
believed in to newspapers for reviews that could make or break an author.
Now the number of newspapers that are willing to publish book reviews is
shrinking dramatically. If readers can’t go to bookstores for
recommendations and can’t find them in their local newspaper, where do they
go? Perhaps to the internet where new book review blogs are popping up
all the time, though most of these concentrate on popular fiction. Genre
novels.
On an indie writers forum not long
ago, the question was posed as to how Ernest Hemingway might have reacted if
he’d come of age in our time. I can’t help but wonder if there’d be room
for him at all. If publishers did take a chance on his stories, it would
probably be for less than a living wage, with little to no promotion. His
novels don’t portend the best-seller potential most publishing houses are
looking for, yet for Hemingway the indie option seems even less likely.
Ernest Hemingway churning out genre fiction? I think he might have shot
himself a whole lot sooner.
Publishers now compete with indie
authors to give the reading public what it wants, and increasingly that seems
to be books that provide a quick and easy escape. In many ways, fast
fiction equals fast food. Just consider for a moment which restaurant is
the most popular in the world. Is it the best restaurant? Is it
even good at all? I won’t answer that last one, but hands down the most
popular restaurant in the world is McDonalds. The reasons are fairly
simple. It is cheap, it is easy, and people know what to expect.
There are no bad surprises when you go to McDonalds. You probably won’t
love it, but you probably won’t hate it either. You can be comfortable
knowing what to expect. It is unlikely to provide you with a healthy,
balanced meal, but it will fill you up.
Consumers often react to books in
much the same way. They are not usually looking to take chances.
These risk-averse readers aren’t particularly interested in thought-provoking
works. They are not in the market for books that bite and sting. As
Kafka would say, most readers want books that will make them happy instead of
searching for that ax to break the frozen seas within them. They are
searching for something that is familiar and that will make them feel better.
Again, branding has much to do with
this equation. Just like with McDonalds, readers want some assurance that
what they are about to buy and read is something they will be comfortable
with. They also want to be in on the next big thing. They want to
be part of the public conversation and know first-hand what everyone else is
talking about. Big name authors who have generated this brand-recognition
sell whatever they come out with, whether it is any good or not. When
J.K. Rowling released her latest novel, A Cuckoo’s Calling, she opted to
use a pen name, to see what it would feel like to be a typical, anonymous
writer without the pressure and expectations that came along with her
notoriety. The book still had a major publishing house behind it, along
with a moderate marketing push. In the ten weeks that the secret held,
she managed to sell about 7,500 copies across all platforms. Shortly
before the secret was revealed, according to the online tracking website Novel
Rank, the book was sitting at around 35,000th on the Amazon bestseller
list. Once the news leaked that Rowling had actually written the book, it
shot up to number one overnight. This after her previous book, The
Casual Vacancy, was generally panned by readers and critics alike.
That book was a number one bestseller, too, primarily because J.K. Rowling is
the most recognizable brand in fiction today.
All of this leaves me with
the question of where to take my own writing career from here. I have a
literary novel in mind but after all these years, maybe it is time to forget
about changing the world for the time being. I haven’t proven to be very
good at that anyway, and besides, I need to survive. I’ve got to do
whatever it takes to get by. One thing that I have come to accept is that
I don’t have the talent for greatness. If I did I’d have reached it by
now. I do still think that I have the ability to spin an entertaining
yarn if I set my mind to it. Maybe I’ll never win the National Book
Award, but I can still aspire toward writing novels to be proud of, with
well-developed characters and interesting plots. Some writers of pulp
fiction carved out relatively distinguished careers for themselves. There
was Dashiell Hammett, for instance, or Philip K. Dick. The ranks of today’s
self-published novelists are just as likely to deliver some authors of
note. At least it is something worth striving for. If this sounds a little bit like rationalizing the abandonment of a dream, perhaps it is in part. After 25 years, reality is hard to escape. Maybe I’ve given up on changing the world but I still haven’t given up on writing. As I wrap up this memoir, the wheels in my head are already in motion, formulating a romantic series about a group of young adults coming of age in the city. Los Angeles? San Francisco? I’m not sure yet, but I will write it as quickly as I can. If things go well, perhaps I will finally be able to support myself from my writing, not just in some inexpensive city halfway around the world, but in the city of my choosing, wherever that may be. It is one decision I long to face.
