I doubt it. One has to be really careful when reading articles such as, “The Decline and Fall of Books” written by Nicholas Clee.
In it he writes, “Traditional bookshops are closing; vending machines are churning out novels; and e-books are the new paperbacks; so is this the final chapter for the book industry?…Booksellers have managed to make profits from this bizarre business model by balancing new titles, which sell quickly, with deep ranges of stock. The bestsellers pull in customers and generate instant turnover and profits; the backlist ensures continuing custom. The problem now is that profits from the bestsellers have sharply declined… From the producer’s end, the economics of the book business are just as challenging. The leading publishing houses are international giants, hungry for bestsellers, which are very expensive to acquire.”
He then goes on to explain how a particular publishers agreed to a whopping author advance that insured the “…new book was almost certain to be unprofitable unless it reproduced the earlier success…” He then writes that, “It didn’t.”
For authors like myself, new to the profession, full of stories and eager to write them down, articles like this pose a threat, but also a challenge.
The obvious threat is that we’ll stop writing. If that be the case, then we never should have placed fingers to the computer keyboard, nor pen to page.
A more subtle, and less clear enemy is that of falling prey to confusing the meaning of book industry with writing and crafting fiction that is both well-written and that we the author thorough enjoyed writing.
And yes, you can enjoy hard work.
I like that somewhere in Clee’s article he acknowledges the author’s piece, their contribution, to the tedious process of producing a printed book, which publishers do not always achieve in the best and most efficient of ways.
“…You pay an author an advance – say £15,000 – that is probably too large, even though it is too small as recompense for what may have been a year’s work. You print 1,000 hardbacks and manage to sell 800 copies to booksellers. Lorries bring them to your warehouse and take them out again to the shops. The book gets a few reviews, but no recognition from prize jurors. Half of the copies come back and they, along with the 200 that never left, get pulped. A year later, the paperback comes out. Richard and Judy fail to recommend it, the booksellers do not select it for their three-for-two promotions. The lorries go to and fro again and more books get pulped…”
If the efforts of publishers at promoting what they produce is any indication of the belief and trust they have in the author’s whose works they acquire, then we all as authors should run and place our stories and novels into a safe deposit box and in hide the key.
What to do?
On the other side of threat stands challenge. This largely rests with authors.
First and foremost we have to keep writing.
Those for whom writing is your lifeblood will do just that.
Those looking for a large advance, in many cases will keep trying until they succeed.
But are they happy? Truly at peace?
This is where you might want to read Clee’s entire article, and take up reading this blog again.
The sad, but certain truth is that most of us, and authors in general come to writing on our search for healing. Some of us know it. Some do not.
In either case the search is on.
For those most particularly interested in making money at writing, I suggest the level of injury is most deep and profound.
And this includes the hallowed few who go on to achieve financial success.
Yet how much healing can a wounded individual attain from their writing in an industry so blood thirsty for money, so much so that all but perhaps 1% of consideration in producing a book is given to artistic effort, and sacrifice on the part of the author. While publishers are most guilty of this lack of concern for authors and our well-being, we authors are strong accomplices, competing for the role of holding primary guilt.
Many years ago when reading about the Zora Neale Hurston, I learned that Alice Walker owns the credit for Hurston’s re-discovery. Walker researched Hurston to find that after creating novels and stories many of us have come to love, Hurston then fell into obscurity. With no benefactor and little money she focused her efforts on surviving, working as a cleaning woman in a nursing home.
To write and create, whatever the medium, the author must attend her or his primary level of needs.
It’s scary to think of how authors who want to write for a living must struggle to survive in a Serengeti type-marketplace as Clee describes in his article. It is truly sad that the lure of earning income from doing what we love places many of us authors and would-be authors at such disadvantages such that we allow publishers, agents and all those in the middle t run our lives, thought and imaginations in our efforts and desires to see our works in print.
I wonder what would happen if all the madness sifting through and around publishing caused writers to rethink why we came to the point wanting to write down our stories and then doing so?
I wonder if in the middle of all the chaos what might take place in each of us if we gave way to our hearts’ desires and simply wrote, not thinking of money and fame, stature and celebrity status and simply said in words what we always thought, but didn’t have the strength to until this point.
I wonder what would happen if we simply wrote not considering how we might or if our words will ever see print and another read them. I wonder what would happen if we wrote the best stories possible and revised, edited and refined them for our, the author’s pure enjoyment.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6236384.ece
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6236384.ece