July - December 2000
December 9/00: Discount Stores
Without Discounts
Indigo, Canada's second-largest bookseller, is bidding to take over Chapters,
Canada's largest.
And they may well succeed. Chapters has not been doing at all well lately,
leading some to question whether they can even pay their bills to publishers.
Indigo is probably also losing money, but since they are a privately held
company nobody is sure. In any case, experts seem to agree that some kind of
"rationalization" is due.
Is this a good thing? I certainly don't think so. As you know, I've never
been a fan of the big box stores. And as far as I can tell there is no
difference at all between the two. One is McDonald's, the other Burger King. You
may prefer a Big Mac to a Whopper, but the corporate philosophies, marketing
strategies, store lay-outs and affiliate "synergies" are all the same.
The only thing you can say for the present state of affairs is that with two
major players in the field there is at least some degree of competition.
"Rationalization" is, of course, business shorthand for getting rid of
competition and setting up a monopoly. Monopoly is always the most rational
business model.
But for consumers? Does this mean more choice? No. It's unlikely we will see
more stores being built, and there's no reason to believe the stores that are in
place will be carrying more selection. Does it mean better service? No. The
people working at these stores will be the usual mix of the knowledgeable and
helpful with the ignorant and rude.
Does it mean better prices?
Absolutely not.
The one thing most commentators in the media seem to agree on is that if the
merger goes ahead we will have to say good-bye to those big discounts on
bestsellers and new releases. Apparently they aren't very rational at all. My
favourite comment on this matter came from Bronwyn Drainie, when she appeared on the current affairs program Studio 2. This is
just some of what Drainie had to say:
"I'm not sure that any of us really deserve 40% discounts on our books,
and we're not going to get that anymore if Indigo takes over. . . . I don't
think Canadians are panting for 40% discounts on their books. They really
aren't."
It's comforting to be told, as consumers, exactly what it is we deserve and
what it is we want. Getting rid of the discounts, however, might not be so easy. In the first
place, books are expensive enough even with the discounts. As most booksellers will tell you, it
is hard to move new hardcover fiction. How many people are going to shell out
full price - which can be up to $40-$45 - for books like Anil's Ghost
or The Blind Assassin?
But there is a more basic issue. The whole point of the retail superstores
was supposed to be their ability to offer huge discounts. It may not be what we
deserve or want (mercy, no!), but it was their reason for being. That's the
advantage dealing in volume is supposed to give you. If we end up with only
one super-retailer that doesn't give us 40% discounts, then what's the point?
December 5/00: Whose Book Is It,
Anyway?
Controversy surrounds the authorship of Notes From the Hyena's Belly,
the winner of this year's Governor-General's Award for Non-Fiction. The book is
supposed to be the memoir of Nega Mezlekia, but an editor named Anne Stone
apparently did most of the writing. Stone did not receive any acknowledgment for
her work.
The whole affair is disgusting. The National Post has made public
threatening letters written by Mezlekia to Stone that seem to indicate that he
is insane as well as illiterate. In all likelihood Stone is in the right. But
that is not what I find most disturbing.
If you've been following this column you already know what I think about the
growing bureaucratization of writing. More and more one has the sense that books
are being written by committee (see my column on Atwood below). What the current
controversy over the extent of Stone's involvement as "editor" or
"ghost-writer" only reveals is how far the rot has set in. Note the
following comments by Stone:
"Authorship is an industry concept . . . It doesn't identify or see the
communities from which a work comes."
And also:
"I'm still completely unclear of what it means to be an 'author,' or a
'ghost-writer' - which is why I prefer to discuss this issue in terms of what
actually happened."
What are we to make of this? As I have already said, I think it likely that
Stone is in the right as far as her claim to be acknowledged as at least
co-author is concerned. But what do
her comments tell us about writing today? Keep in mind, Stone is a published
novelist herself as well as a creative writing instructor. Yet here she is
telling us that "authorship" is a misleading concept, and that a work
really comes from a "community." She also describes herself as "completely unclear"
as to what an author is!
Has it come to this?
November 29/00: A Canadian
Laureate
Saskatchewan has named poet and publisher Glen Sorestad the province's first
poet laureate. The honorary appointment is to last for two years. No other
provinces have such a position, nor does Canada have a national poet laureate.
The first poet laureate in England was John Dryden in 1670. The position was
one of royal patronage, and one of the duties of the laureate was to write
commemorative verse for special occasions, like the birthday of the Queen. The
U.S. only adopted the title in 1985, and their poets laureate are not obligated
to write any poetry at all (the current laureate is 95-years-old), but rather
act as ambassadors of poetry in general.
And what's wrong with that? I thought Robert Pinsky did a fine job of raising
awareness for poetry in America, especially with the "Favourite Poem
Project." And while the idea of commemorative verse is a little stale,
that's only one part of the tradition. Apparently the City of Toronto has given
some thought to having a city laureate on call to write about civic events, but
we don't have to take things as far as that. Since many established poets
already have government sinecures (i.e., tenure), it's not like we'd be
breaking any new ground there. It seems to me that a poet laureate could have at
least as much impact on poetry in Canada as the new Griffin Prize, and that
regardless of whether they are good or bad. We may not remember much of
Southey's poetry today, but we all know what Byron thought of him.
So why not give it a try?
November 17/00: The E-Book and Its Discontents
Random House has reported that it will set its royalty rate on electronic
books at fifty percent of net revenues. Meanwhile, a chorus of voices continues
to complain about the destructive vanity of e-publishing.
For long-time goodreports.net News readers this will seem like
repetition, but just in case you've missed some of my earlier rants, here it is:
First of all: On the viability of the e-book. Personally, I don't see it
happening yet. Stephen King would seem to have been the ideal candidate to
succeed: his style of writing is particularly well-suited for serial
publication, he is the biggest brand-name in publishing today, and he has a huge
online audience. Nevertheless, even after sinking enormous amounts of his own
money into his first independent e-novel venture, The Plant, he seems to
have stumbled. One man, no matter how big, cannot be "big publishing's
worst nightmare." The industry is bigger. It is the promotional and
advertising budgets and media networks of the big publishers that make authors.
Without it, any writer hoping to stand out in the 500-billion-channel Internet
universe has no hope at all.
The royalty rate set by Random House may seem generous, but the fact is few
people are making money out of e-books anyway. In addition, "net
revenues" are only what is left after distributor payments and allowances. Wired
magazine quotes an executive at Simon and Schuster as saying that "Fifty
percent of net profits may not wind up being all that much more than 15 percent
of the cover price" (a standard industry rate).
I sympathize with e-authors. I get requests from them all the time asking me
to help promote their books. But as I have pointed out, I don't think any of them
have a chance - no matter how good they are. And that's the painful part.
But still, amazingly, the e-book has its critics.
Typical of the anti-e-book propaganda is a piece appearing in this month's Harper's.
The Harper's article is written - surprise! - by two editors working
for mainstream publishing houses. The authors see the e-book phenomenon as
"destroying" publishing, and obliterating "whatever remains of a
genuine book culture."
How? By publishing too many books.
Why the authors should be so concerned, given the facts about e-publishing already
discussed, is beyond me. Given their understanding of the fact that even a
printed book "without an editor, marketing, or publicity" will sink
like a stone, one would have thought they had little to fear from the unfiltered
masses.
"The book industry has many problems; publishing too few books is not
one of them." No; but publishing too few good books is one of
them, especially considering the massive growth in the bureaucracy of mainstream
publishing. Bad writing has driven out good. As with the film industry,
it can be safely said that good books are only being published now by accident. What use is a filter except as a way to perpetuate corporate power structures within the
industry?
Like any bureaucracy, big publishing has also grown mindlessly elitist. Their
over-reacting defensiveness is only one symptom. The sneering tone adopted by the
authors of the Harper's piece is another. Why is an intentional travesty
of a novel created solely for the purposes of the article said to be "a
prime example of the kind of work" that gets published on the Internet? And
why mock Xlibris's claim to be the place "Where writers become
authors" by saying that no amount of self-publishing is capable of such a
transmogrification? Frankly, I had no idea there was a difference, and still
can't see why the labels are important.
What these people need to be made aware of is the fact that the real vanity
in the publishing world is the vanity of the industry-types who now, and not
without some justification, see themselves as the most important and essential
part of the literary process. While I admit it's unlikely, nothing would
please me more than to see the destruction of that sort of "book
culture." I don't need a corporate filter. Now: Throw open the gates!
November 11/00: Bouncing With Booker
Margaret Atwood has won this year's Booker Prize for her novel The Blind
Assassin. This was her fourth time nominated for the award.
And so the question is raised (and not just by me): Did she win for the book, or as a kind of
lifetime achievement award? The consensus in the media seems to be the latter.
Even Atwood's staunchest defenders appear willing to concede that The Blind
Assassin is far from her best work. And while it was a weak shortlist this
year, there is every reason to think that the primary consideration in the
judging was the fact that Atwood had been so many times a bridesmaid. As Kazuo
Ishiguro put it in an interview taped before the announcement, it would have
been an "insult" not to pick her this time. (As an aside, Ishiguro
also said, apparently with reference to his own nomination, that no one should
win the award twice. Just last year, however, J. M. Coetzee won his second
Booker. Was Ishiguro's comment a slip or a jab?)
In the face of criticism that this year's committee
had overlooked many big names the chairman of the Booker panel was quick to respond
that "this was a prize for a book, not a writer." This is protesting too
much, and given the circumstances is almost certainly disingenuous. In a
newspaper column I wrote before the Booker was announced I made the point that
all literary awards are basically "political." This raised some
hackles, but by political I was merely referring to the way most of these awards
end up being decided on extra-literary grounds. This leads not only to baffling
decisions, but to such a patent absurdity as this year's Giller Prize,
where a three-member jury actually ended in a tie.
In this reviewer's opinion there is little doubt that the Booker was both a
nod to Atwood's career as a writer and, as
Ishiguro suspected, an attempt at avoiding the "insult" of sending her
home empty-handed for a fourth time. In any event, and as I have pointed out elsewhere (e.g.,
my review of Amsterdam),
the Booker has little credibility. What distinction it does have is that of the
world's most annoying and overhyped literary award. It is also, I should add,
becoming crass in the extreme. Those who would argue that the main purpose of
such awards is not advertising but the celebration of art must have missed the
prominent barrage of industry quotations about the sales effect the Booker has
(an effect that is apparently on the wane).
In any event, the season is drawing to a close and hopefully this is the last
thing I will have to say about literary awards. At least for another year.
October 27/00: The Dyer's Hand
Don Foster, an English professor at Vassar College, has uncovered evidence
suggesting that the author of the famous Christmas poem "The Night Before
Christmas" was not, as has long been believed, Clement Clarke Moore, but
rather Henry Livingstone, Jr.
Foster's evidence is circumstantial, and includes such nuggets as the fact
that Moore didn't claim authorship of the poem, which was first published
anonymously in 1823, until 1844. He has also uncovered what appears to be a
precedent for Moore's plagiarism in a book donated to a library that Moore
falsely claimed to have translated from the French.
But what is really interesting about Foster's detective work is the technique
of authorial attribution. The way this works is by comparing texts of uncertain
origin to computer archives of an author's known output and searching for
patterns in such things as diction and syntax. In a way it is like DNA testing
for authorship, and Foster has some reputation with the method after using it to
identify Joe Klein as the author of Primary Colors. Other high-profile
examples of authorial attribution in recent years have included the
identification of Edward II as the work of William Shakespeare and the
ascription of the Jon Benet Ramsey ransom note to one of the suspects in the
case.
The theory behind authorial attribution makes sense. An author's voice is a
kind of literary fingerprint. Even without a computer most readers can identify
a passage as Hemingway or Faulkner, Blake or Milton. A style may evolve - think
of early and late Yeats, or the more recent transformation in Cormac McCarthy -
but there is likely to be something that remains constant.
But do we really want to see that something, that authorial essence, so drawn
out and analyzed? Will writing become a science? To take the DNA analogy one
step further, would it not be possible to develop software capable of cloning an
author's voice? Could the rhythm of an author's language or their way with
metaphor then be protected by copyright? And what about writers who would
genuinely prefer to remain anonymous? Oh brave new world!
October 17/00: Politics, As Usual
China's government claims that this year's Nobel Prize for Literature,
awarded to exiled writer Gao Xingjiang, was "used for ulterior political
motives." Their statement goes on to say that more worthy Chinese writers
were overlooked.
No kidding. Of course the Nobel Prize is political. The Academy Awards are
political . Judging gymnastics at the Olympics is political. Does the Chinese
Communist "government" really think that only the most deserving
writers win these things? The fact that this year's prize went to a political
exile very few people, even outside of the English-speaking world, had ever
heard of only makes it a little more obvious. But not much. Listening to
the buzz leading up to the announcement, with all of the odds-making and
weighing of extra-literary factors (region, gender, politics), gave the
game away.
The buzz may have been a little cynical, but remember: These are the same
people who gave a Peace Prize (in 1992) to Rigoberta Menchu, whose deeply
political autobiography I, Rigoberta Menchu was later revealed to be at
least partly made up. There is no magic to the Nobel. Like any other literary
award, a committee gets together and picks a pet. In fact, the Nobel Prize for
Literature is probably one of the most political literary awards in existence. It's enough to give
Salman
Rushdie hope.
September 30/00: Getting Men to Read
Harlequin is going after the male market in England with a new line of
thrillers designed to get men reading. According to some industry research only
31% of book purchases in the UK are by men. The new books, appearing under the
Gold Eagle imprint, are to be authored anonymously and written to formula. They
are described by their creators as short and easy to read, "with story
lines like action adventure films." North American readers are already
familiar with the series, which has sold some 50 million copies in the U.S.
In itself, the goal of getting men to read is a noble one. Oprah's much
ballyhooed mission to "get America reading" is directed solely at
women, which is only preaching to the choir. The figures I have seen relating to
book buying by gender in North America are even worse than those reported in the
UK. Fifty years ago William Faulkner pointed out that men in the U.S. don't
read. Little has changed.
Gold Eagle men's fiction is, of course, the same sort of tripe that Harlequin
sells to women. (Indeed, it would be interesting to find out if there are any
authors writing for both lines.) To borrow from Harold Bloom's take on Harry
Potter, we might ask whether consuming products like these really counts as
reading at all. Bloom thinks that adolescent devotees of the boy wizard are
unlikely to grow up to become lifelong lovers of great literature. What, then, are
we to think of adult male readers of The Executioner series? Will they ever
graduate to Conrad? Promoting a taste for trash is a one-way street going
downhill.
September 9/00: The Big Prize
The recently announced Griffin Poetry Prize, endowed by Toronto businessman
Scott Griffin, will award two prizes worth $40,000 each: one to the best
Canadian book of poetry written in English and the other to a poet from any
other country whose poetry has been published in English. The first winners will
be announced at a gala in June.
Literary awards are all about publicity, and the Griffin Prize has already
made a big splash. The $40,000 jackpot is four times what the Governor-General's
Award hands out, and even dwarfs the glitzy Giller (at 25K). Given all the media
attention, it is interesting to note some comments that have been made by the
major players.
The founder of the new award says that he wants to lift the profile of poets
since "Some of our best novelists were first poets." The apparent
implication of this is that we should support poets because some of them might
eventually grow up to write novels. Sad to say, for a lot of people that
probably makes sense.
Another interesting comment comes from Margaret Atwood, who is reported by
the CBC as saying that "poetry was strong in the 1960s. Then the spotlight moved to
novels, helped by national and international prizes." This strikes me as
surreal. When in the 1960s was Canadian poetry strong? Did the spotlight move to
novels only because of the prizes? Any confusion on this point is quickly
settled by an understanding of where Atwood is coming from. Poetry was strong in
the 1960s because Atwood was writing poetry in the 1960s. When she moved to
writing novels the spotlight naturally followed her. It all reminds me of a
recent piece Atwood wrote for Maclean's magazine that was ostensibly
about Canadian literature at the millennium but which turned out to be little
more than a memoir. But then for Atwood Canadian literature is Atwood;
its achievement is her memoir.
All this aside, the real question here is whether such an award will
do anything to get more people to read poetry. I doubt it, and for two reasons.
First of all, the award does nothing to help Canadian writing shake off the dead
hand of our overpraised and undertalented literary establishment. Atwood and
Ondaatje on the Board of Trustees? How can anything good come of that?
Secondly, the award's effect on what kind of poetry gets written can only be
bad. Griffin's account of how he memorized poetry and recited it aloud along
with the rest of his family as a child is genuinely moving, but it makes me
wonder if he has read any poetry that has been written in the last fifty years.
I can't imagine young Canadian children getting excited over the limp,
anecdotal free-verse lyrics that make up 90% of poetry published today. When my
parents get together with friends they still recite Tennyson!
The problem with poetry in the second half of the 20th century has been its
withdrawal into the academy and small networks within the arts and publishing
communities. In a previous column I asked whether a $10,000 prize for short
fiction might have the unhappy result of inducing some authors to try writing
for the committee. Quadruple the cash and direct it at a form of writing even
less popular than short fiction and that same temptation will be
incredible.
An escape from the halls of academe? Not a chance. The winner will become a
"poet-in-residence" at the University of Toronto's Massey College for
two months. Massey College, in case you haven't been there, was specifically
designed to be a monument to academic introversion. The rooms are unpleasantly
dark because the architects didn't want to have any big windows looking out on
the street. It is one of only two residences on the U of T campus that I can
remember having a locked gate.
The winners will know they have arrived.
September 8/00: La Rentrée Litérraire
A recent story in the New York Times provided an interesting account
of the French publishing industry. Within a two to three-week period every year,
which is traditionally known as "la rentrée littérraire" or
"literary return," over 500 new novels are published. The practice is
almost universally condemned as bad for everyone involved: authors, readers, and
publishers. Nevertheless, the crush of titles continues as each new release
hopes to cash in on the extra media attention surrounding the
"return," and tries to position itself for a run at the shortlist of a
major literary award.
While book publishing in North America hits a peak around the same time,
there is really nothing comparable to this in our BookWorld. Nor is "la
rentrée" the only difference in how we do business. The French government
supports independent booksellers by subsidizing their operation and requiring
all books to be sold at cover price (thus, no discount chains). As a result, the
influence booksellers have in recommending new titles both to readers and
reviewers is more pronounced. Book advertising on television is banned because
it is believed this will only increase the popularity of major-market
bestsellers. And, last but far from least, agents networking for big advances
are almost unheard of. Writers deal directly with editors, cutting out at least
one layer of middlemen.
Is any of this a viable alternative to BookWorld, or is it just the defence of
a proud national culture? Probably the latter. I couldn't imagine it taking hold over here. The idea of the government being so involved in the arts
makes even me nervous. Nevertheless, I have to respect the effort.
August 26/00: Roll Credits!
Margaret Atwood's new novel, The Blind Assassin, was released this
week.
What makes this news? Why does it make me want to rant? Well, I'll tell
you.
As you may be aware, I've been complaining for some time now about the
acknowledgments found in books. For some non-fiction books a fairly
comprehensive list of acknowledgments has been the style for a long time, and is
probably still worthwhile. For fiction, however, it is a relatively new and
entirely unwelcome development. I'm sorry, but just twenty years ago this almost
never happened. (Anytime before that it would have been unthinkable.) These are
not dedications but attributions.
Why do it? An author who finds it necessary to thank the four or five people
who held his or her hand during the writing process does not fill me with a lot
of confidence. A book that "could not" have been written without the
assistance of an agent is not a book I want to read. And I also don't understand
why so many industry people have to be dragged into the picture. Once again this
is a borrowing from movie culture, where a roll of credits has to be included
for every producer, editor, agent, etc. who may have had a hand in the works.
I know I am not the only person to complain about this (I noticed there was a
piece recently in The Village Voice addressing the issue), but I want to
be the last. Please, this has to stop. Novels are not corporate or group
projects. They are the fruits of an individual talent and imagination. If you
want to thank your managers send them a basket of fruit and a note after the
launch.
Which brings me back to The Blind Assassin. I nearly threw up. At the
end of the book Atwood thanks 35 (that's thirty-five!)
people. The crowded credits include friends, readers, and no less than - get
this - three agents, and four editors! I suppose I would have
thrown up if I could have picked my jaw off the floor. Why on earth does anyone
need four editors? In most cases these big shots don't even read the manuscript
(that's the kind of work they save for their underlings). And why does Atwood
need "research assistants"? Doesn't she have the time to do her own
research? Doesn't she want to do her own?
As I have said before with regard to this deplorable trend, one must kiss the
hand that feeds. But why does a writer of Atwood's fame and stature have to do
this? 35 names! Who wrote the book? Margaret Atwood or Atwood, Inc.? Enough of
this!
August 23/00: Industry Reports
According to Book Industry Trends 2000, an industry report by the non-profit
Book Industry Study Group, sales of children's books jumped by more than 15%
last year. Meanwhile, growth in sales of adult books was slower than expected at
only 2.9%. Reasons cited for the strong growth in children's book sales are
Harry Potter and the use of promotional/product tie-ins (as, for example, with
Pokemon and Star Wars books). The slow growth of adult book sales is attributed
in part to rising prices.
I never know what to make of these statistics. As I have noted before, book
buying numbers tell us next to nothing about who is actually reading. In
addition, my understanding from earlier reports is that sales of children's
books have been declining for the last decade, so the sudden jump may be no more
than a correction. On the other hand it may also be an indication that
demographics are destiny. There are more kids around today than when I was a
kid.
But there are other, darker conclusions to be drawn (and these are the kinds
I like to draw). The importance of product tie-ins, for example, emphasizes the
value of corporate marketing strategies while reinforcing the idea that books
for children are just another kind of toy. The slower growth in adult sales
(which can't really be explained by high prices since adults are the ones
purchasing all those expensive children's books) is also troubling. Will books
become even more like movies in that they will increasingly be geared toward
young consumers? Will mature readers (i.e., readers over the age of 30) start
staying out of bookstores, complaining that there is nothing for them? It is not
an incredible outcome. I would suggest that there is already some uncertainty
about what a truly adult fiction is.
August 18/00: Passing
Carlyle V. Thompson, a professor of literature at Medgar Evers College in
Brooklyn, has declared that in the novel The Great Gatsby F. Scott
Fitzgerald characterizes the hero "as a pale black individual passing as
white." His evidence - that, for example, Gatsby keeps his hair cut short
and tells people his family is dead - is sketchy. Nevertheless, Thompson hopes
to have his views published in a scholarly journal.
Surprise, surprise. The bottom line to this story (reported in Salon)
is provided by Fitzgerald scholar Matthew J. Bruccoli: "It may get the chap
tenure, and it may get him a promotion. . . . His idea is absurd, but I don't
want to take the bread out of someone's mouth."
Canadian readers will no doubt be reminded of the recent flap over the charge
that Anne in Anne of Green Gables was a lesbian. In both cases the
comments were made at academic conferences by English professors desperate for
attention. Sadly, given the fact that no one has any interest in what passes for
scholarship these days, the only way academics can get anybody to notice them is
to make these silly claims and hope the mainstream media picks up on it. As
Bruccoli correctly observes, the motivation is pretty
transparent.
August 10/00: The Pirates of Print
In the wake of the much-publicized court rulings against music download
agency Napster, online book piracy is also receiving some attention. Apparently
a bootleg text of the latest Harry Potter book was available for download over
the Internet within a day of being released. There are also reports that Stephen
King's latest e-books Riding the Bullet and The Plant have been
pirated.
Analysts seem to agree that there is no immediate cause for concern. How many
people can there be who want to steal a book? Downloading an e-book isn't quite
the same thing as getting digital quality music for free. Having a bootleg text
file on your hard drive just isn't very sexy. Further evidence, if any were
needed, that books today are primarily consumer products, not vehicles of
thought and feeling.
August 8/00: The Review Reviewed
Two recent magazine articles, appearing in two very different publications,
have attacked the integrity of what is perhaps the most prominent book review in
the world: the New York Times Book Review.
The first article is actually the second in a three-part series
appearing in Z Magazine by Edward S. Herman under the title "All the
Book Reviews Fit to Print." In it, Herman makes the claim, supported
by what seems to be a convincing collection of evidence, that the Book Review
has been leaning over backwards for decades to accommodate right-wing political
views. While books by Times favourites are regularly reviewed, and
typically praised, books by writers outside the ideological pale are ignored.
Such filtering constitutes a form of censorship, and compromises any reputation
for fairness and objectivity.
In a piece that appeared the
same month in Harper's, Renata Adler's "A Court of No Appeal," the author describes how she was pilloried not just by the Book Review,
but by the Times editorial staff after stepping on the toes
of the powers-that-be. The point of contention seems ridiculously trivial,
especially for such a major newspaper, but the drubbing Adler received in no
fewer than eight negative attacks on her book proves her point that "no one, at least no writer in his right mind,
[wants] to antagonize the Book Review."
The fact that the Times
has a political bias
is not something that should surprise us. But Adler's story is different, and
scarier. Her
demonstration of the insidious role played by personal and corporate biases, of
the way a whispering campaign among insiders can become an engine of personal
destruction, came as a shock even to these jaded eyes.
But the real point both these stories make has another, darker dimension. The dramatic effect of being on the Review's bad side
should make it clear to all hopeful authors how useful it is to be on the Review's good side.
The corollary of the rule "no writer wants to antagonize the Book
Review" is that "every writer wants to toady to the Book
Review." The same is true for most of the
major market media. There is bias. To some extent the system is rigged. What you
have to do is learn how to play the game.
July 29/00: The Book Museum
The American Library of Congress has been told by a federal advisory panel to
get ready to add more digital information to its collection. The Library is
charged with collecting the creative work of the American people, and, as the
chairman of the panel puts it, "the nation's creativity is at this point
significantly represented by what is happening electronically."
Business as usual means the world's largest library may soon become merely a
"museum of books."
It is an interesting challenge. One can imagine a number of
difficulties. How durable are magnetic storage
systems like disks and tape? (Less than paper, as things turn out.) What about technology that becomes
obsolete? For a Web document to be archived, do all of its links have to be
archived as well?
But the biggest question to be answered is how necessary and/or important it
is to save what is often intended to be disposable. The digital is almost by definition what doesn't last. The head
of the advisory panel has said that the focus of the Library's efforts
should be on collecting electronic information that is available now rather than
transferring analog materials to digital, since what is already in electronic
form might not be with us for long, and once it is gone it is "probably lost
forever." The average life span of a Web-page is said to be only 18
months, meaning that millions of sites, along with all of their
content, have already disappeared.
Is that a bad thing? And is there any library on Earth that can keep up with publishing on the
Web? I have my doubts. A recent industry report suggested that there
are now about 550 billion documents stored on the Web. Is it even worth the attempt?
I think it is. While
there is an enormous amount of garbage out in Cyberia - is the Library of
Congress going to catalogue all that porn? - there is also a lot that is
worth saving. I have found material on the Internet that is much superior
in quality to that found in more traditional media. And like it or not,
this is the form an increasing amount of literary expression - whether
journalism, essay-writing, fiction, poetry, or something entirely new - is going
to take. The real question is what digital documents will do to libraries,
not what libraries are going to do with them.
July 21/00: The King of All Media
Stephen King's latest novel, The Plant, is being made available for
download from the author's own web-page. The book is being published by
installment, and King will only continue writing as long as 75% of the people
who download each chapter send him a dollar.
King is clearly throwing down some kind of gauntlet. "My friends,
we have a chance to become Big Publishing's worst nightmare," he writes in
a message to his readers. Self-publishing online threatens to cut out the
middleman and allow artists to communicate directly with their audience.
As the head of Microsoft's electronic publishing department puts it, "the
balance of power has changed."
Or has it? Stephen King can get away with something like this because
he is a brand name in the book world, with a large and intensely loyal fan
base. How many other authors publishing their own e-books can expect the
same success? Heaven knows I hate the corporate media middlemen as much as
anyone (and certainly, I would have thought, more than King), but the fact is
that in the current environment these corporations still control the most
important element in publishing: promotion and advertising. It is not
uncommon for a major new paper release to have an advertising budget of as much
as a quarter of a million dollars. Such figures are necessary if the book
is going to get any kind of notice at all.
We can see the same thing happening with movies. New digital
"film" may take a big bite out of production costs, but at the end of
the day even the lowliest of independent films needs a multi-multi-million
dollar promotional campaign to get off the ground. It's more than just a
question of getting a distribution deal. The Internet can take care of
distribution. It's a question of actually selling the
product. Few artists are very capable in that department. I think
it's safe to say that the creators of art will remain dependent on the power
brokers and corporations that know how to create demand.
July 13/00: Beer Money
The Upper Canada Brewing Company has announced that it will be sponsoring a
new award for the best collection of short stories by an Ontario author. The
winner will be announced at a gala in Toronto in October, and take home $10,000.
Another Canadian literary award! I'm telling you, these things are
everywhere! How could you be a Canadian author and not have won
something?
But seriously, more money for writers is always a good thing. And especially
for short story writers, since they only make a little more than poets in the
first place. $10,000 is probably ten times what the winner will have received
from his advance and any royalties. In fact, one might wonder if the economics
of writing literary short stories isn't warped by prizes such as these, to the
extent that authors begin trying to write for the committee. Given the sales
figures for short story collections (which are pretty dismal), such an unwelcome
outcome is entirely possible.
