'No one likes us much; the general public imagines we're all earning as much as Dan Brown and if we aren't it's our own fault for not being popular enough. Publishers don't like us because we're not Dan Brown, and they don't know how to sell books by writers who aren't already bestselling authors.'
I'll skip over the bit where she says 'bloggers' loathe 'us' because 'they' are jealous of the small success 'we' have achieved and concentrate on the other, more insightful things she says:
'No one wants to hear about the things which have become standard, from barely civil rejections of manuscripts by editors who've loved previous books to incessant demands that books should be easier to read and make fewer demands on readers.
Twenty years ago, when I was writing Misogynies, I was able to include a discussion of the Yorkshire Ripper murders. No one suggested it was too dark or challenging but I very much doubt I'd be able to do it today; not long ago an editor at one of the country's leading publishing houses told me that readers expect even such subjects as sex-trafficking to be handled in a light way....
...Contemporary publishing is driven by an obsession with profit, celebrity and gimmicks, which has resulted in a cull of non-populist writers ... terrorised by accountants and marketing departments, mainstream publishers are desperately trying to work out what sells and the only way they can do it is by referring to something else ... I remember reading that one author's first novel had been reissued under a new title to maintain his 'brand' while another had her career mapped out for her - a string of bestsellers with imaginary publication dates - before her first novel was even in the bookshops.
The result of all this hype is a migration to small independent publishers by authors of the calibre of Francis King, Emma Tennant and Maureen Freely...
...We can react to this in two ways. One is as individuals, demoralised and struggling to find the energy to keep writing. The other is as professional writers who understand the vital role of literature in our culture, and how it's being undermined. When publishers stop doing their job, ours is to get angry and tell the world.
4 comments:
I'm with you on this, but I also kind of think there is an arrogance about a certain kind of (lets be honest) midlist author. I feel that Francis King, Emma Tennant, Maureen Freely and Joan Smith have had their chance, frankly, and if they've not got an audience (and I wouldn't read any of them, to be totally frank), then there's no "divine right". I'm sure they can do other jobs if they put their mind to it. Writing isn't a career, its a vocation, and that their (probably mediocre middle class) novels are being published by small publishers and going into a void isn't any sort of tragedy. Commercial fiction's a different animal; but, as someone who hasn't had the opportunity to find an audience that these people have, I can't find a lot of sympathy. A literary culture should see a little bit of culling along the road.
Crikey!
But whatever you personally think of these writers, the point Smith is making is that they are being sidelined for a much wider issue than the specifics of their own writing: ie literary fiction in general is being sidelined, and midlist writers dropped not because they didn't come up with the goods but to make way for the exciting unknown, ie the Next New Thing.
PS, and the reason certain new writers can't find an audience (ie those considered 'too challenging'in various ways) is a result of the VERY SAME MECHANISM.
Yes, you're right, of course. Sorry - I'd had a bad day!
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