The Corean Chronicles
The "Popularity" Problem in F&SF
In a time when readers, along with everyone else, are watching their purchases more carefully, fewer are going to risk their entertainment dollars on an author they don't know, unless someone they know personally and trust recommends that author. But... with new authors very few, if any, readers know the author -- unless the publishing house pours a ton of money into publicity, and that is happening less and less.
Now, in this time of economic downturn, this is relatively self-evident. What isn't quite so evident is that it's merely the continuation of an on-going trend. At a time when blockbuster sales -- such as the Twilight books, the Wheel of Time, Nora Roberts, etc. -- are dwarfing best-seller numbers of previous decades, the sales numbers of mid-list and low best-selling authors at major publishing houses tend to be flattening, if not declining, especially mass-market sales, although there are some exceptions. These exceptions are always cited as contrary examples, of course, rather than the anomalies that they are.
The reaction of many authors is to aim for that "popular" audience, to the point that F&SF aficionados can cite example after example of imitation, subtle or blatant, and that the media and series tie-in section of the F&SF section at many chain stories is almost as large as the "regular" section.
One reaction in the F&SF field has been the growth of small presses, some of which stretch the definition of "small," but these presses are limited in what they can do, although they often publish novels of high quality. This has had another off-shoot, as well, in that it appears a number of "professional" and "semi-professional" F&SF reviewers tend to concentrate on such works, almost as if assuming that most of what is published by a large publisher is "merely commercial," and seldom worthy of comment.
Writers who have the ability to write excellent books are placed in an unenviable position, because books which tend to be technically outstanding usually have lower sales. As one of the responders to this blog has pointed out, outstanding books also get fewer and "less favorable" reader reviews, and those reduce sales. Since most professionals do write in hopes of making a living, there is a not-so-subtle and continuing pressure to "write popular," even if an editor never says a thing to a writer.
More than a few readers have pointed out that these trends could very well lead to more self-publishing, more web publishing, and more electronic alternatives to getting stories and novels out. It probably will, but it won't solve the "popularity" problem, because for those stories and novels to reach more readers requires word about them to reach readers, and successful "word-passing" on the web requires the support of widely-read and popular websites. Thus... the web-publishing option merely transports the popularity problem from one form of publishing to another -- and does so without nearly the same degree of quality control as is exercised by the old-line print publishing business. This shift also results, in most cases, to a reduction in the income of writers, along with the problem that readers are left having to spend far more time sifting through web and other less conventional forums to find books they like that fall outside "popular" parameters. Again... there are exceptions, such as Baen's Universe magazine, but they're few indeed.
In the end, it all boils down to the fact that readers, as a whole, get what they're willing to pay for, and if most readers flock to the "popular," before long, that will represent most of what's available -- and that will be the case whether the source is "conventional" publishing or the web.
To me, the main cause of the problem is that fiction book editors now are trained to look for best sellers regardless of quality. When publishers receive a low-quality but potentially popular book, the editors do little or no editing at any level (spelling, grammar, internal consistency, filling plot holes, etc.) They just print the submitted crap and hope it sells like hotcakes. The fact that better books got shunted aside doesn't seem to bother them.
: 4:25 PM
The solution I would propose is creating greater access for those authors to connect more directly with their readership. I unhesitatingly recommend Mr. Modesitt's work to many people who have never even read within the SF&F category simply because his writing reflects much of the economic/environmental and social discourse of the day. The approach of creating consumer advocates of the product works for books as it does for nearly any other product. As Mr. Modesitt has pointed out in the past, communication of today has changed to be more brief, terse and emotionally shorthanded. At the same time, many of these social networks for better or worse are going to be the way consumers / readers will find and appreciate the next generation of authors. The recessionary pressures in a way are good in the field of writing as in the field of business – it separates the wheat from the chaff more efficiently. Mr. Modesitt has created a forum and discourse far outside his work and I believe this blog in and of itself has and will continue to have a far more profound impact on his readership than might be apparent in the short run.
Perceptive people can understand both high and low complexity books. Unperceptive people can only understand the latter. Which product-type has a higher market cap? Worse, the percentage of people capable of understanding and enjoying the high-quality product is not half. It is more like 1%-5% (my own low-accuracy guess).
The only solution would be for the minority desiring high-quality works to pay markedly more for the products that they desire. In order for a good number of higher-quality books to be published, we (I hope that I am in the second category) would need to eschew the "merely commercial" and (in addition!) pay a premium for what we wish. Alternatively, people like Mr. Modesitt would have to accept a lower amount of pay. The publisher certainly won't (or wouldn't be in business for long).
It is not a happy choice. Either we pay more or high-quality authors get less. I don't see much hope for growing the demand by depending upon our excellent educational system to produce critically thoughtful citizens.
In the end, VOTE WITH YOUR WALLETS.
In a year or three it will be something else. As a publisher, it makes sense, because someone reaing Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake series is likely to read Charlaine Harris, so there's less money involved in pushing the works in question. So I don't see any reason for the publishers to do anything else. As a writer, you can either follow the crowd or not.
Now as a reader, what I've done in the past when this has happened is to switch genres. When cyberpunk took over I went from being a predominantly SF reader to reading fantasy, and it took me a decade or more to work through the back catalog of stuff that was still in print. I've read and enjoyed some urban fantasy, but recently I've been working through the back catalog of a bunch of military sci-fi. Filtering on authors who still have works in print after 10-15 years does pretty well as a decent first-pass filter.
There are, I think, too many vampire novels in which the vampire is the lover of a female main character. Why won't someone write a novel about vampires being tricksy predators instead? Here comes a young lass now. Ooo, she thinks she's quite the dangerous one with that spear she's carrying. Watch her go bravely into the Grassland of Grabs, from which few women ever return. She sees nothing for a long time. By and by, she must relieve herself and steps into one of the many tall-grassy bushes that dot the landscape. At some point, however, the young woman discovers that she can't find her way back out of the bush again. The tall grass just seems to go on and on and on. She can't see more than a few feet in front of her. What's that rustling sound? It's...it's a MONSTER!
Descriptions of these bush dwelling monsters may vary. Sometimes it will be a rascally smart-mouthed vampire who introduces himself, exchanges a few humorously insincere pleasantries, then leaps upon the woman, bites her neck, and drinks her blood while she wriggles futilely in his grasp until she dies. When he lets her body drop, he says, "I'm sorry my dear, but I don't launder panties" or some such thing.
At other times, the monster in the bush might be a hairy mangy-mangler type of monster, known for his direct and unsubtle ferocity, for pulling off limbs and eating them one by one, and known also, of course, for perpetrating disembowelments. Unlike vampires, mangy manglers are simply predatory beasts who lack the power of speech.
A particular bush could be the lair of a dapper, cultivated Mad Scientist who insists the girl drink some of his experimental potions--usually fatal with unique and amusing side effects. Or the inhabitant of the bush might be one of those rapists, who, other than the obvious bad habit, are usually rather courteous fellows.
Such is the Grassland of Grabs. I could as easily have a Murder Mountain range, where an enormous giant roams, forever hunting dragons to eat, although a passing Girl Hot Air Balloon would also make a tempting morsel. Or a Deadly Desert of Doom, featuring carnivorous woman-eating cacti that superficially resemble the plants you'd cut open to have a drink of water. Or a Slime Swamp, where the Swamp Demon lies in wait for adventurers to get stuck in the mud...
There are lots of things that might become popular as easily, or with no more difficulty, than the currently-popular stuff had. What I imagined is only one example.
Could one of the reasons for why innovation is not as common in fiction as it might be, be a tendency among editors to frown on out-of-step ideas, such as making any demographic group (other than White men) look stupid. Such as measuring any pioneering effort according to a yardstick of political correctness?
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