You know how whenever someone gets disgruntled with the publishing industry they invariably name a classic book and say, “Well, [insert James Joyce, William Faulkner, Herman Melville, other dead white male/Jane Austen here] would NEVER have found a publisher today.” And this is supposed to remind us about the fickleness of today’s crass publishing business, the shortsightedness of its employees, and the general debasement of literature? As opposed to “back in the day” when they appreciated Literary Genius and Weighty Books and all the rest?
What I want to know is: how come no one does the reverse? Here’s a fun exercise: let’s instead think about all of the books published today that would never have found a publisher in a previous era. You think they would have published Toni Morrison in the era of Herman Melville? (nope!) What about Jonathan Franzen in the era of Jane Austen? (nope!) Or an openly gay author like David Sedaris in any closeted era? (nope!)
Why would previous publishers not have recognized the genius of these authors?
They would have been a) worried about the bottom line and b) busy publishing books that were reflective of their own times.
You know. Like today.
Nathan – I haven't studied it, and I believe you. Rings true.
If anyone thinks that the nineteenth century was a prelapsarian era of publishing joy, I highly recommend they read George Gissing's New Grub Street (published 1891; available in Oxford's World Classics IIRC).
Heck, I recommend this anyway, because Gissing is a fantastic writer and not enough people read him. But really, as Nathan says, it always was about commercialism.
Anyone wants a lecture on how Mudie's Circulating Library forced the Victorian publishing industry to work in a three-volume format, you just let me know.
Everyone-
Please just continue to ignore the anon until he goes away.
Never mind OWC – you can read New Grub Street thanks to Gutenberg:
https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1709
(And the Victorian litgeek will now quietly depart….)
(or until he's actually able to pull together a non-insulting and constructive comment. But we all may be waiting a while for that.)
Thanks, Nathan.
How bitter is the fight between editorial folk and corporate folk about dropping writers quickly? The whole one and done scenario? I'd just think that someone like Dan Brown would be a good example… there's money in letting a writer take a few books to develop. It's gotta be frustrating as hell for agents and editors when good writers are cut…
bryan-
Quite a few editors I know on the adult side are feeling pretty beaten down at the moment. More work, less autonomy, uncertain future, etc. I think that Dan Menaker article from a few weeks back really captured the mood among editors.
Nathan @ 9:45 AM, October 9,
I’ve sensed exactly what you’re saying – and read a few Internet blogs that express the same opinion – that editors and some agents are feeling pretty frustrated with the struggle to sell books right now. It isn’t just writers who are frustrated. In many ways, it’s a great time for writers. I figure that, in the same way that very successful businesses are able to create new products during tough economic times and then sell them when the economy improves (several big companies started out that way), writers now have the time to write good books and hone their skills.
I always found the one and done philosophy sort of puzzling.
A writer puts out a book, and publishers expect a sale of 20,000 books. Total sales end up being 10,000. A disappointment, so the writer's cut.
Instead, they publish a debut writer, hoping that he/she will sell 20,000 copies. And so on.
But… that first writer, even though his sales were disappointing, still sold 10,000 copies. Even if only half of those readers became fans… that's 5,000 fans. Which is 5,000 more than a debut writer has. And the fact that this writer didn't reach 20,000 sales likely was not because people thought it was a terrible book, but because they never saw it at all. It was lost amidst all the other books.
But a second book, say, would have 5,000 sales from the fans of that first book (disappointing as it was in terms of sales), and then it would have just as much chance to bring in new readers as the debut author's book, just as much of a chance to be noticed. So, maybe just a plan for a 15,000 print run. But 5000 sales are pretty solid. And if all it does is match the first book's (disappointing) run of gathering new readers it will sell 15,000 total, paying out its advance. Everyone's happy! Or maybe it does a little better than the first book and earns some royalties. 20,000 sales! And half of the new sales become fans, too…
Now the writer has 12,500 solid fans to buy his next book. So, one disappointment and one mediocre, let's say, book… but for the third book you already have a pretty solid 12,500 sales… you build on that and start to make some nice money. And so on and so on. And maybe you reach a tipping point and have that breakout best-seller.
Now, this assumes the writer keeps putting out good books that the agents and editors believe in. Except for the big names, though, you're selling the book and not the writer. So, if you have an equally good book by a debut and a published author, shouldn't the published author have the advantage on account of those few thousand fans?
Lol, though maybe I should save this argument for a point later in my career…
Nathan, what you said about editors, that really sucks – that people are feeling so discouraged and beathen down. That's not good.
Maybe we can be helpful….
Maybe we could have a post or two about how to help the publishing industry or the editors within it strengthen and/or make more money. Brainstorming….
Just an idea….I felt for them when you said that.
gordon-
Every generation, especially as they get older, feel that art in the present is inferior to the past. My grandparents hated the rock and roll my parents loved, my parents hate the music I listen to, I'm sure I'll hate the music my kids listen to. That's just the way it works. I think music got far better with the rise of Indie rock, but then, that coincided with the time everyone thinks music was at its greatest – basically whenever they are 18-24.
I also don't know that complexity is necessarily an artistic ideal. I find it curious that you both bemoan lack of complexity in literature as well as modern art. It seems to me that the pendulum swings back and forth between accessibility and inaccessibility, and right now we're at the zenith of literature that is both artistic and entertaining.
Lastly, just because you disagree with the present course of certain institutions doesn't mean they have collapsed.
Brilliant post there, Gordon, but a white dude talkin' a religious themed topic here? Whew, you're treadin' on hot coals on this blog.
The degradation of which you speak is unique in human history indeed. In the past, govts attempted to control art through censorship, but we are now at a crossroads where the govt doesnt squelch freedom of expression, but the lockstep and narrow mentality of the people themselves enforce conformity (ahem, Nathan).
The reason that affects quality is when you have a defacto system of conformity it has a chilling effect on creativity, because individuals fear stepping out of bounds.
How's that Nathan? Constructive enough for you? Now, refute your role in that, please.
See? even threw in a please for ya!
There exists no greater offense than censorship! (Who said that?)
bryan-
The thing that always drives me craziest about business in general is the way expectations drive perception more than the actual results. When I was in college I co-ran a student business, and the CEO kept telling us, "You're over budget!", nevermind that we were turning a profit. The budget is just a guess! So what if we guessed wrong as long as we were making money?
Ugh.
All of this is to say that I don't think the publishing industry is alone in hewing too much to whether a book was a relative disappointment rather than looking at the underlying success. Authors are penalized far too much for a publisher's initial irrational exuberance, in my opinion.
Thanks for keeping it real Nathan. It seems to me like there's a lot of amazing stuff being published these days. Things that never would have 200 years ago. I have to say that I think the philosophy of book "x" not being published today is fundamentally flawed. There are a lot of books like "x" that are published these days too. Bottom line. These days TONS of books are published every year–contrast that to 200/150/100 years ago.
Be still my heart, anon, wrote a post that I don't have to delete.
You seem to be simultaneously accusing the industry of conformity as well as excessive diversity. Which is it?
I also think it's pretty hilarious that you're essentially accusing a straight white male of discriminating against other straight white males. And one whose parents are farmers no less.
And straight white males sure are having a rough go of it in the publishing business these days, what with Dan Brown, Jonathan Franzen, Michael Chabon, Dave Eggers, John Grisham, etc. etc. all experiencing phenomenal obscurity.
Anon – you're driving me nuts. I've googled all of your quotes and come up with nothing.
Could you please quote whoever it is correctly?
You so clearly want to know who said these things, and I'm trying to help you out here.
Note: I will tell you one way the industry could make more money. Put authors on salary, and give them huge bonuses if their book sells well.
I'll volunteer.
Lol, and Nathan's favourite book is Moby Dick, no less, a novel by one of the pre-eminent old, dead, white guys.
bryan-
Herman Melville taught me everything I know about being a liberal hippie communist.
Yay! Substance!
Ok, here we go, stay with me:
"You seem to be simultaneously accusing the industry of conformity as well as excessive diversity. Which is it?"
Great point, this is the key! When one enforces diversity for the sake of diversity itself it becomes exclusionary, hence a self defeating proposition, because one begins to look not for quality, but "diversity". That in turn reduces quality AND diversity.
"I also think it's pretty hilarious that you're essentially accusing a straight white male of discriminating against other straight white males."
Exactly! Its the proof of how far you in particular are willing to go to ingratiate yourself and conform to the new york elite lit circles (which I'm sure you sit around and dream of becoming). That is precisely that self induced "lockstep" mindset of which I speak. I mean, this is self evident when it has become passe to hear white males such as yourself speak derisively of their own kind. (When it fact, to do so, is patently patronizing to other groups, because it actually latently implies a superiority.)
Here's some advice: if you really want to be elite, then DONT be like them, stop combing your query pile for the next teen chick vampire drivel and be a little different.
anon-
There is actually no such thing as exclusion through diversity. Diversity is by definition diverse, meaning it represents all viewpoints and is nonexclusionary. That is how the same publishing company (Random House) can publish both Barack Obama and Bill O'Reilly.
And yes – I have completely demonstrate my desire to be a member of the New York publishing elite by moving away from New York and living in San Francisco.
I think you reveal everything anyone needs to know about you by referencing my "own kind." Guess what, anon, my "own kind" is FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS OF ALL BACKGROUNDS.
Oh that's too rich! I'm a cretin because I used the term "kind"! (When isnt it literally true, don't we all have a "kind"?)
But when you speak derisively of a whole segment of the population that's ok? Because its white males and you're one? Apparently, by your own words white males are a "kind" worth centering out, yet detest the day someone use the term "kind" specifically. Such hypocrisy!
Nice try to deflect on the issues by contriving some indignation at something that you are guilty.
When white males talk self effacingly of "white males" generally, don't you see how that is actually patronizingly superior?
Its offensive to everyone, not least of all, white males (yes, your "kind").
What's even funnier in all this is your assumption that I am both white and male!
Thanks for the joust – you get the last word, make it good.
Gordon,
You have some interesting points there, but when you say it's not subjective… it is. It's your opinion, based on your own particularly held view of complexity (and the difficulty of production) as the end and goal of art. But for many people that does not hold true.
Simplicity is as true an artistic goal as complexity. And there's nothing inherently beautiful in either.
And I think (subjectively, I admit), that artistic pursuits have often been driven more by the desire for newness and change than it has been for complexity and refinement… though complexity and refinement have often been modes of change.
But how much more refined and complex than Finnegan's Wake do you want? I think the fascination of stories has a root far deeper than external complexity and refinement, and there are many ways of reaching down to those roots – and most of them won't be following in Finnegan's wake (sorry for the pun). It's only natural for general trends, at some point, to move away from that. And even back then there were always other threads, diverging threads, of artistic pursuit and artistic goals. Part of the interest of art and aesthetics is the contention between different ideas and forms – the fact, say, that you can get remarkable art out of both Hemingway and Faulkner. Artistic ages are rarely homogenous.
Just my two cents.
Best of luck with your writing, Gordon, and I hope you find the right home for it.
Bryan
anon-
I didn't speak derisively of anyone, actually. Whatever slight you divined from my post was the projection of your own anxieties.
Anyway, I know it's frustrating and scary when the world has passed you by. The flip side of progress is that it always leaves some people in the dark.
Oh, sorry, one other thing:
Saying that diversity is diverse, ergo, simply because you refer to it using the term "diverse" is that classic circular logic of: "well, if we call it by a particular word, then it MUST be that thing we call it!"
But, no, sorry, just calling something diverse doesn't make it diverse.
You should be a politician!
So, are we basically saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same? Wondering whether "X" classic book would be published today is kind of like wondering if The Beatles would have been popular by today's music standards, isn't it? Or is that a pointless comparison? Forgive me, I'm a total newb…
Anon,
Um, where did Nathan say anything disparaging about white males? Must've missed it.
In his joke, he referenced dead white males who wrote classics. He didn't say anything bad about them. He simply said it's not prudent to judge modern publishing habits in regards to books published over a century ago. Again, maybe I'm missing it, but what's derogatory to white males?
Diversity in publishing is not exclusionary. Unless you're suggesting that they only publish minorities, now, and not white males. Which would be laughable. I think white males are still doing not too shabbily. All diversity means is that the industry is no longer ignoring quality works from minorities (or not as much as they used to, anyway). I find it kind of hard to swallow that white males are somehow disadvantaged. Unless, of course, your definition of disadvantaged is merely a loss of the gross random advantages they once received on account of their race and gender, the ol' "this whole equal opportunity thing based on ability is a real downer."
Yeah, right, Nathan, so much again for your high-minded insistence on "constructiveness" to the commentary.
You are such a hypocrite! And a very linear thinking one at that. Its no wonder you ended up as a b level agent who spends more timing blogging than cutting deals.
Listen, you're reasonably bright, just try to think a bit more outside the narrow constraints you and your profession have put on you.
Don't be so afraid to be a little different, take some risk, dont be so conventional in your thinking.
Best of luck.
Bye Anon.
Too bad you weren't able to learn anything from this conversation. You ended it pretty much the same way you started it. That's a shame.
Anon-
So much for letting me have the last word, eh?
Anyway, I've extended far more courtesy to you than you have shown to me. If we're in advice giving mode, mine would be to work as hard on your writing as you do on finding slights where there are none.
Nathan,
I REALLY liked your response back to Anon at 11:24AM. Nicely done!
Anon, you should really find something else to do than insult Nathan, and maybe think about stepping up and using your actual name instead of hiding behind "Anon".
Nathan, you rock!
Nathan,
I agree that the istitutions I mentioned may not have actually collapsed yet, and perhaps they won't. However, art (music, literature, painting, sculpture) has gone from more degree-of-difficulty to less. At least in general.
This seems to have coincided with a growing technological culture, a more atheistic culture, and a more sexually expressive culture.
I believe humanity has lost its certainty about many things, and this has caused a great deal of existential despair. I believe art reflects this by becoming more chaotic, less defined, less skillful, and more beastial. Essentially, since we can't figure out why we're here, art serves less and less of a purpose. We have no reason to do our best. We have no reason to rise above our animal instincts.
Soon, there will be no difference between a painting by a monkey and one by a human. Eventually, a comic book (most likely a sexually oriented one) may be the greatest work of literature that is commonly produced. Eventually, all music will be nothing more than booming tribal beats, or expressions of anger and rage.
From that, a civilization may form as the result of some religious cult following or some such thing, and in that setting people will try to rise upward again.
Perhaps it's all cyclical.
"Herman Melville taught me everything I know about being a liberal hippie communist."
LOL, Nathan.
Nathan, who said I was a writer?
Did you thunk that just maybe this blog came up in search on a particular writer, whose name just might have popped up?
Hmmm?
Sigh – more of that linear thinking . ..
I'll give you the last word once you demonstrate an ability to make it an intelligent one. Remember, the "make it good" part?
Gordon,
You have some interesting ideas, but that's a pretty steep assumption…
I'm not too worried that the death of literature is right around the corner… there's simply too many people invested in writing good books, and too many good books still being published.
Lol, Anon, I'll take some linear thinking over your circular logic.
Gordon-
What's wrong with revisiting our tribal roots? Do not all art forms come full circle eventually? You speak of the constant dances of art and cultural evolution as if it's a bad thing!
You do not have to like all that is currently being expressed, but to pooh-pooh the fact that it is being expressed seems very, I don't know…dare I say archaic?
Actually, anon, the cool thing about owning the blog is that I do get the last word.
And with that, anonymous comments are closed until further notice.
If James Joyce's Ulysses were published today it would inevitably be as a graphic novel only!
https://ulyssesseen.com
hey nathan: quick quasi-related question, but i think an important one:
when we are titling our book, do we have to worry about someone else having the same title? i mean, i'm not going to call my book "The Great Gatsby" but there's millions of books out there and the chances are that a good number of titles are repeating…right?
i ask because i just came up with an AWESOME title for my book, only to find that there is one book from ten year ago, also called that (at least it's almost identical)….what copyright issues are there with titles?
thanks!!!!
mark-
There aren't any copyright issues, it's just a matter of deciding if the previous book is going to overshadow yours. If it's relatively obscure and published a while back there probably won't be a problem.
thanks a mil nathan. appreciate the prompt reply.
I love the way you run this blog.
How did you get to have such good judgement and sense of timing?
Kudos, Nathan.
Gordon,
You have some interesting ideas,
Thank you, Ink.
I'm not too worried that the death of literature is right around the corner… there's simply too many people invested in writing good books, and too many good books still being published.
That is true. Hopefully, I am one of them, or at least I wannabe one of them. And that may be just the thing: the more and longer art shifts toward talentless chaos, the more the demand will increase for the opposite.
Jen D. wrote:
Gordon-
What's wrong with revisiting our tribal roots? Do not all art forms come full circle eventually? You speak of the constant dances of art and cultural evolution as if it's a bad thing!
Tribal roots are for animals, that's why we left our tribal roots. That's why we value upward evolution not devolution or horizontal evolution.
You do not have to like all that is currently being expressed, but to pooh-pooh the fact that it is being expressed seems very, I don't know…dare I say archaic?
You may dare. It seems the older I get the more archaic I become. I am in fact becoming more archaic every day.
That said, I don't think you'll find anywhere where I have pooh-poohed that devolved art is being expressed. I have merely pointed it out. However, I am sane enough to know the difference between good art and bad.
For sure there is good abstract art, and there is garbage. There is good classical realism, and there is garbage. There is good literature, and there is bad. And music from say, Yes in the early 1970's, is more complex than music from P-Diddy.
Like manners, everyone has taste, that doesn't mean everyone has good taste or good manners.
Where I live, if you take some of the folk who come speeding out of the sticks in rusted pick ups, greasy hair flying, missing teeth, and scraggly nicotine-stained beards, they will consider Burger King fine dining. They would be wrong. But even more importantly, they are not an equal judge of what fine dining is. Their opinion doesn't matter.
Dolts will like a good story. They also like romance porn. It is our responsibility to give them a good story wrapped in good literature, not fishnet.
"Actually, anon, the cool thing about owning the blog is that I do get the last word. And with that, anonymous comments are closed until further notice."
Oh, snap! That was totally worth reading all those ridiculous comments. Thanks, Nathan!
Just heard a story about how morally debauched Jane Eyre was considered during its time on NPR. Then a few days later, David Sedaris comes on with a story about how he found a book about a family who was having sex with each other.
Every writer that has something that pushes the edges of what society deems as accessible, will have a challenge expressing their point of view when it comes to publishers who are worried about commercial viability – and promoting a product that is broadly socially accepted.
It's much the same with advertising – there's a limit to how far an advertiser can push the boat out before a client freaks out, or society cries foul.
Ooh! Opportunity for sports analogy!
It's a bit like when sports writers, in that slow period between contract negotiations and felony convictions (otherwise known alternately as "the regular season" and "the playoffs"), try to debate whether the 1904 Miami Penguins would beat the 2003 New York Metrosexuals. Or whether today's #10 drafted wide receivers would even be playing the game back in the '50s when the players had to pay for their own bus fare to away games and fashion their own dentures from scavenged railroad ties. THOSE were the days.
But Ted Williams would never bat .400 today.
I also…and don't take me wrong, anyone…I have a hard time with the correlation between "atheism" and "bestiality."
I'm pretty much an agnostic. I am not a believer in any traditional sense and yet I accept that existence and consciousness are very complicated and mysterious and that I don't have the answers to these eternal questions.
But I do not accept that my lack of faith in some form of patriarchal Deity in any way equates to a debauched, lower form of artistic expression.
Hell, most of America's founding fathers were religious skeptics or at least not traditional in their beliefs, and they did pretty well in setting up a system that despite its faults, serves as a model of enlightened rationalism. Which I'm assuming is the opposite of the "bestiality" that's being decried here.
I'm not using the term "bestiality." I said bestial, or like an animal. And I'm not referring to a god of the male gender, nor have I. In fact, I am not arguing God's existence at all. What I'm saying is that if we believe there is no God, then humanity won't try to be perfect. If we stop trying to be perfect, then we settle for less.
Eventually, we settle for being human animals, because that's our default state. Animals know nothing of any God.
On Rosie O'Donnell's blog, you have to enter your email, but it doesn't show up to the public. Once, when she was being targeted by an annoying commenter, she published their angry emails on the blog with some sort of "Go away blahblah@yahoo.com."
I would've loved to have seen how that person reacted to all the junk in HER inbox the next day.
Have a good weekend, Nathan.