Richard Nash, of Softskull Press:
[note: this originally appeared Dec. 17, 2006]
1. Ever since Sept. 11, there has been a decline in book sales, particularly sales of literary fiction. And since that time, it's been common in publishing circles to explain Sept. 11 as the main "cause" of this phenomenon. Do you agree? Or have other, equally important factors been driving the decline in sales?
I'm actually not aware there has been a decline in sales. I've certainly heard various bits of pontification here and there, but my sense is that it is soundbite stuff, and journalists trying to shoehorn trend pieces
2. The publishing industry has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being pushed out?
The “art” side of the business has always been pretty marginal. Michael Korda, who ran Simon & Schuster in the 1980’s, has said that the publishing business’s relationship to supporting literature has never been all that significant, and that was a welcome bit of candor. That said, the business has become more hit-driven, hence the larger advances.
3. Many major publishers now refuse to accept "unsolicited" work; that is, they will not even consider work unless it is agented. Is this a sound policy from point of view of finding the best new literary voices? Isn't there a chance good writing will be squeezed out?
They're not trying to find the best literary voices, they're trying to find hits. The agents are doing the same thing. The agents have more time to read than do editors so, as a division of labor, that seem “smart.” Sure, sometimes those qualities may overlap, and sure editors would like them to overlap, but ultimately it is only slightly more than coincidental. Which is something that has been true lo these many centuries.
It is of course true that I am not going to publish something that I know is crap, but will sell, and that'll be true for some of my indie publisher peers, but it is just as true that I will not publish something just because it is good. The best literary voices will be found over a long period of time, true cultural processes, of criticism, word-of-mouth, the entire cultural apparatus. Publishing is simply a significant component of the economic component of the culture-making process...
4. Alternatively, for small presses that do accept unsolicited work, is the problem that the majors are squeezing the small houses at the distribution/retail marketing end? In other words, even when good writers get published by small houses, do they have a fair chance of winning an audience? Or are the major houses introducing an overly corporate, overly aggressive mentality to the book trade?
Retailers are the issue here, not the publishers. The biggest publisher in the US has maybe 5% market share...the biggest four retailers have over half the market. (in Canada, one has 70%...) Retailers mostly want velocity. Books selling fast in the first few weeks there are there, and wanting co-op/payola. Also, many independents don't read unsolicited work any more — there's simply not enough time. I've 400 MSS going back to Summer 2004...
5. Returning to the question of agents -- are they too powerful? If so, in what ways? Or are they a largely beneficial and necessary element of contemporary publishing?
There are a great many different kinds of agents. Some might have too much pricing power vis-à-vis publishers, but they don't affect me at all. For the most part, agents are part of the filtering process, just like creative writing programs, freelance editors, professors, reviewers, critics, etc, etc. However yes, if there are a couple thousand editors in the business, and several hundred thousand manuscripts, then yes, obviously agents will be a crucial component...
6. Does America have too many publishers? Or too few?
Too few.
7. In your opinion, how will new technologies such as the e-book or audio books affect the "form" of the book?
Way way way too soon to tell, as Mao's premier Chou Enlai famously said about the French revolution when talking to Kissinger in the 1970’s. There will be massive changes.
8. Putting aside the hype, does the Internet provide a real opportunity to publishers? If so, how?
Developments in technology, many of which don't have that much to do with the internet (the PDF, Quark & Adobe, higher quality printing) have an ongoing year-in, year-out significant incremental improvement to all publishers, though it slightly favors smaller ones, as the benefits of those technologies are only loosely related to scale. The internet constitutes an improvement in communications technology, improving the word-of-mouth process by which most books are sold, allowing retailers like Amazon to carry a broader array of inventory (though it is as much improvements in distribution and warehouse technology that enable Amazon as it is the internet...)
9. And what role can traditional, venerable institutions such as libraries and English Departments play in reversing the decline in sales of literary fiction?
Libraries none, since certainly there the sales of books have declined. English depts...well...it really depends on what you mean...the proliferation of creative writing programs have helped the sales of literary fiction, but the graduates are mostly too broke to buy books, and mostly focus on trying to get publishers to publish their book. So there's a small net positive effect. But English depts certainly don't create lifelong readers.
About Softskull: [by Ginny Weihart] Soft Skull Press, an independent press based in Brooklyn, NY, was founded in 1993. Soft Skull Press publishes approximately forty titles per year, one-fourth to one-third of which are fiction. The average print run for a fiction title is 4,000. [To get a broader overview of Softskull (as well as another interview with Richard Nash), go to "Your Guide to "Fiction Writing" ]
UPDATE: Also check out the following, here and here.
Conversations in the Book Trade: Books, art, art-books, and ... authorial movies.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
R. M. Vaughan -- author, culture critic
R. M. Vaughan -- author, culture critic (The National Post)
1. Literary fiction is in trouble -- that is, more trouble than usual. Why do you think this is? Sept. 11? Ultra-violent video games? Wall-sized TV? Or are there are other factors that are being overlooked? For example (as has been argued by Jason Cowley), the power of literary prizes to form taste, and convey to the public the message that "this book is worth reading and all these others aren't"?
Part of the problem, in this country at least, is the fear of so-called "genre fiction". A Canadian book is supposed to be set in the domestic world, preferably in a rural setting, and to have little or no plot. A while back a writer friend of mine signed with a new agent. Out of curiousity, I went to the agency's website - every single one of the dozen or so agents had warnings underneath their interest lists: no science fiction, no mysteries, no horror, no thrillers, no fantasy books. In other words, nothing that might actually sell. We need to get over the tired prejudice against popular fiction in this country - one we inherited from the first generation of the Canadian Rennaissance in the 60s, almost all of whom were academics and, true to academic fashions of the time, hated popular culture and ranked realist narratives (the best being the ones about poor, uneducated people they'd never met) over speculative fictions. The irony, of course, is that now you can get a PhD in popular culture - but the publishing industry has yet to catch up.
2. What, then, does this suggest about the mentality in Canadian literary circles, especially given the fact that, as Patrick Crean once stated, we have the "toughest literary market in the world" (i.e., we are constantly being inundated with books -- frequently genre -- from the U.S.)? In other words, from a logical perspective there is no market that is more need of commercial/genre fiction ... yet we shy away from it. Why? Snobbery? Or is it something more subtle still -- is CanLit "sublimating" a genre-fiction sensibility into at least some of its literature?
Of course, some authors work with genre tropes - Atwood's sci-fi is the most obvious example, or Findlay's murder mystery-like novels - but I doubt there is any concrete attempt to sublimate anything. Atwood and Findlay are just smart writers who know how best to tell their stories. As to why we don't have more genre fiction in our market, I think snobbery is as good an answer as any.
3. The publishing industry has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being squeezed out?
It's always been this way - deals and money are exciting. If anything, I think the publishing industry could make more of their blockbuster deals. Hollywood does.
4. Are there ways the book marketplace could be tilted more in Canadian publishers' favour? For example, should book stores be required by regulation to devote a conspicuous amount of store-front shelf-space to Canadian work? Should Canada Council funding be significantly increased? Or is cultural nationalism of this sort passe?
Government regulation is not the way, because most of the people who might enforce such regulations are not equipped to understand the complexities of the marketplace. Ask any musician about CanCon regulations. If funding is the issue, perhaps it should go directly into marketing costs. Or, to be blunt, bookstores could be more attentive, especially in the markets outside of the big three cities. I'll never forget going on the book tour for my last novel Spells, and doing a reading in my home town of Saint John, New Brunswick. I was on the cover of the weekly entertainment paper, in the daily paper, and on the local CBC, and the novel was set in Saint John. The shitty little Coles store in the main downtown mall didn't have one single copy of the book for sale. They'd never heard of it.
5. Many major publishers now refuse to accept "unsolicited" work; that is, they will not even consider work unless it is agented. Is this a sound policy from point of view of finding the best new literary voices? Isn't there a chance good writing will be squeezed out? Alternatively, for small presses that do accept unsolicited work, is the problem the majors squeezing the small houses at the distribution/retail marketing end?
It wouldn't be very hard for publishers to hire people to read all their manuscripts. Telefilm has script readers, and every script gets read, good or bad. One wonders what they are missing. I'm not sure the large houses "squeeze" anything, or even pay attention to what small presses are printing.
6. And speaking of agents -- are they too powerful? If so, in what ways? Or are they a largely beneficial and necessary element of contemporary publishing?
A good agent is a good agent, a bad agent is ... well, you get it. Putting "power" into any sentence regarding Canadian publishing seems optimistic to me.
7. Does Canada have too many publishers? Or too few?
Both. Too many publishers printing the same books over and over, and too few printing new, interesting books.
8. After Douglas Coupland published an article in the New York Times criticizing Canadian literature for having too many books set in rural rather than urban settings, you commented that the negative reaction which greeted his column was prompted in part by jealousy of Coupland's success. Given that the Canadian fiction market is relatively small and big-time (or any-time) success in it is hard to find, is jealousy of this sort a particularly Canadian cultural trait? Do we spend too much time knocking others down rather than focusing on ways to make our own cultural more "success friendly"?
I'm afraid juvenile, resentful behaviour is universal.
9. In the 1990s, you were involved with spoken word events such as Tallulah's Cabaret. But spoken word, while it has direct vitality, tends not to travel well unless it is somehow commidified (into a book, or a tape, or something permanent). How can spoken word integrate with more permanent forms and still keep its vitality fresh? Or is it a ghetto for unknowns and an audience-op for knowns?
I don't care about spoken word anymore. It is completely boring now, and 90% of it just wants to mimic American hip-hop culture (and not the good stuff, either).
10. Creatively, you wear many hats: poet, cultural critic, visual artist. Are you sometimes worried that people who create in many fields don't get adequate recognition in one, and so tend to be ignored in all?
I'm fairly certain I'd be ignored no matter what genre I worked in - let's face it, I'm an acquired taste at best.
11. What is Queer Fiction, anyway?
Um, fiction by queers?
12. The US has David Plante and Edmund White. France has Genet. French Canada has Michel Trembley. But despite the fact there are many gay male writers in English Canada, the culture seems averse to really embracing one of them as gifted. Is the genius of English Canada to reject genius?
I disagree with your last statement. We have many prominent queers - Daniel MacIvor, Sky Gilbert, Thompson Highway, and this novelist you might have heard of named Anne Marie MacDonald.
Bio: RM Vaughan is a Toronto-based writer and video artist. He is the author of seven books, and his videos play in festivals and galleries around the world.
1. Literary fiction is in trouble -- that is, more trouble than usual. Why do you think this is? Sept. 11? Ultra-violent video games? Wall-sized TV? Or are there are other factors that are being overlooked? For example (as has been argued by Jason Cowley), the power of literary prizes to form taste, and convey to the public the message that "this book is worth reading and all these others aren't"?
Part of the problem, in this country at least, is the fear of so-called "genre fiction". A Canadian book is supposed to be set in the domestic world, preferably in a rural setting, and to have little or no plot. A while back a writer friend of mine signed with a new agent. Out of curiousity, I went to the agency's website - every single one of the dozen or so agents had warnings underneath their interest lists: no science fiction, no mysteries, no horror, no thrillers, no fantasy books. In other words, nothing that might actually sell. We need to get over the tired prejudice against popular fiction in this country - one we inherited from the first generation of the Canadian Rennaissance in the 60s, almost all of whom were academics and, true to academic fashions of the time, hated popular culture and ranked realist narratives (the best being the ones about poor, uneducated people they'd never met) over speculative fictions. The irony, of course, is that now you can get a PhD in popular culture - but the publishing industry has yet to catch up.
2. What, then, does this suggest about the mentality in Canadian literary circles, especially given the fact that, as Patrick Crean once stated, we have the "toughest literary market in the world" (i.e., we are constantly being inundated with books -- frequently genre -- from the U.S.)? In other words, from a logical perspective there is no market that is more need of commercial/genre fiction ... yet we shy away from it. Why? Snobbery? Or is it something more subtle still -- is CanLit "sublimating" a genre-fiction sensibility into at least some of its literature?
Of course, some authors work with genre tropes - Atwood's sci-fi is the most obvious example, or Findlay's murder mystery-like novels - but I doubt there is any concrete attempt to sublimate anything. Atwood and Findlay are just smart writers who know how best to tell their stories. As to why we don't have more genre fiction in our market, I think snobbery is as good an answer as any.
3. The publishing industry has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being squeezed out?
It's always been this way - deals and money are exciting. If anything, I think the publishing industry could make more of their blockbuster deals. Hollywood does.
4. Are there ways the book marketplace could be tilted more in Canadian publishers' favour? For example, should book stores be required by regulation to devote a conspicuous amount of store-front shelf-space to Canadian work? Should Canada Council funding be significantly increased? Or is cultural nationalism of this sort passe?
Government regulation is not the way, because most of the people who might enforce such regulations are not equipped to understand the complexities of the marketplace. Ask any musician about CanCon regulations. If funding is the issue, perhaps it should go directly into marketing costs. Or, to be blunt, bookstores could be more attentive, especially in the markets outside of the big three cities. I'll never forget going on the book tour for my last novel Spells, and doing a reading in my home town of Saint John, New Brunswick. I was on the cover of the weekly entertainment paper, in the daily paper, and on the local CBC, and the novel was set in Saint John. The shitty little Coles store in the main downtown mall didn't have one single copy of the book for sale. They'd never heard of it.
5. Many major publishers now refuse to accept "unsolicited" work; that is, they will not even consider work unless it is agented. Is this a sound policy from point of view of finding the best new literary voices? Isn't there a chance good writing will be squeezed out? Alternatively, for small presses that do accept unsolicited work, is the problem the majors squeezing the small houses at the distribution/retail marketing end?
It wouldn't be very hard for publishers to hire people to read all their manuscripts. Telefilm has script readers, and every script gets read, good or bad. One wonders what they are missing. I'm not sure the large houses "squeeze" anything, or even pay attention to what small presses are printing.
6. And speaking of agents -- are they too powerful? If so, in what ways? Or are they a largely beneficial and necessary element of contemporary publishing?
A good agent is a good agent, a bad agent is ... well, you get it. Putting "power" into any sentence regarding Canadian publishing seems optimistic to me.
7. Does Canada have too many publishers? Or too few?
Both. Too many publishers printing the same books over and over, and too few printing new, interesting books.
8. After Douglas Coupland published an article in the New York Times criticizing Canadian literature for having too many books set in rural rather than urban settings, you commented that the negative reaction which greeted his column was prompted in part by jealousy of Coupland's success. Given that the Canadian fiction market is relatively small and big-time (or any-time) success in it is hard to find, is jealousy of this sort a particularly Canadian cultural trait? Do we spend too much time knocking others down rather than focusing on ways to make our own cultural more "success friendly"?
I'm afraid juvenile, resentful behaviour is universal.
9. In the 1990s, you were involved with spoken word events such as Tallulah's Cabaret. But spoken word, while it has direct vitality, tends not to travel well unless it is somehow commidified (into a book, or a tape, or something permanent). How can spoken word integrate with more permanent forms and still keep its vitality fresh? Or is it a ghetto for unknowns and an audience-op for knowns?
I don't care about spoken word anymore. It is completely boring now, and 90% of it just wants to mimic American hip-hop culture (and not the good stuff, either).
10. Creatively, you wear many hats: poet, cultural critic, visual artist. Are you sometimes worried that people who create in many fields don't get adequate recognition in one, and so tend to be ignored in all?
I'm fairly certain I'd be ignored no matter what genre I worked in - let's face it, I'm an acquired taste at best.
11. What is Queer Fiction, anyway?
Um, fiction by queers?
12. The US has David Plante and Edmund White. France has Genet. French Canada has Michel Trembley. But despite the fact there are many gay male writers in English Canada, the culture seems averse to really embracing one of them as gifted. Is the genius of English Canada to reject genius?
I disagree with your last statement. We have many prominent queers - Daniel MacIvor, Sky Gilbert, Thompson Highway, and this novelist you might have heard of named Anne Marie MacDonald.
Bio: RM Vaughan is a Toronto-based writer and video artist. He is the author of seven books, and his videos play in festivals and galleries around the world.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Judy Stoffman -- arts journalist (The Toronto Star)
Judy Stoffman of the books section of the Toronto Star:
1. Literature is in trouble -- that is, more trouble than usual. Why do you think this is? The increasing prevalence of TV? The distractions of narcotic subcultures such as video games? Sept. 11? Or is talk of the "death of literature" simple exaggeration?
It's no exaggeration, alas. Books are published by the thousands and some are even being read but they have lost their authority, their central place in the culture. When I interviewed Norman Mailer recently in New York, he told me he was appalled that at dinner parties people are arguing over the latest television show they have seen, not the latest book. Young people have had their attention span damaged by the instant gratification of DVDs and videogames. My own newspaper, the Star, allots way more space to film coverage that to books, in part because publishers rarely advertise and film theatres do.
2. Prizes and awards are playing an increasing role in determining an author's career-trajectory. In short, winning a major literary prize can win a writer a large audience overnight (not to mention, considerable fame and financial remuneration). But, as British critic Jason Cowley has observed, what is lost is the ability for readers to think in a critically complex fashion. Please comment.
Well, there is some truth to that, although given the deluge of books out there, prizes can clear away the undergrowth and point confused readers towards books worth reading. Book clubs often make their choices based on the short lists for the Booker or the Dublin IMPAC or the Giller prize. Prizes are the new reviews, it has been said. But it's not illegal yet to read a prize winning book and find it deeply flawed.
In Canada, there are way too many prizes; they may have reached a point of diminishing returns, and become less effective as sales boosters.
3. Continuing with the same theme, are literary prizes dangerous in this regard? Do they convey to the public the message that "this book is worth reading and all these others aren't"?
Dangerous? Of course, there are always fine books that are overlooked by juries and it's highly satisfying to discover them for oneself.
4. The publishing industry has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being pushed out?
The way it works is that agents arrange auctions for books with commercial potential, which drives up the cost of the book to the publisher. The more the publisher shells out for the rights, the more he/she will invest in promotion and advertising to make sure the book sells enough to recoup the investment. That the book will be a bestseller is therefore a self-fulfilling prophesy.
It's hard to generalize about "art" and whether it's being lost--after all Philip Roth, Alice Munro, Ross King, Wayson Choy, William Boyd, Orhan Pamuk do get published.
5. As well, should the Canadian cultural nationalism of the 1970s make a comeback? Do we need a "National Culture Policy" that will put more Canadian books front and center in bookstores?
No, the government is already overinvolved. Smart booksellers will feature Canadian books because Canadian readers want them.
6. In Aug. 25, 2006, you wrote an article entitled "CanLit Bonfire in the NY Times" about an commentary piece by Douglas Coupland in which he argues that Canadian fiction possesses a disproportionate amount of writing placed in rural settings and not enough in urban environments.
First, do you agree with Coupland's argument? Are Canadian writers trapped in what Andrew Pyper referred to as the "brand" of CanLit (a brand that presumably emphasizes the rural)? Or, as Patrick Crean puts it in the same article, is Coupland's characterization of CanLit "nonsense", and is he simply stereotyping a period of Canadian writing that no longer exists?
I agree with Patrick Crean. I have interviewed Douglas several times and never had the sense he is great reader. He has not kept up. He is a visual artist, primarily, well informed about art and popular culture. I love the bee-hive like paper sculptures he made after chewing up his own own books.
7. Returning to the same article: in it, Patrick Crean mentions that Canada has the toughest book market in the English speaking world -- that is, Canadian publishers are constantly locked in competition with their (larger) U.S. and U.K. counterparts. Yet recently, author and culture critic R. M. Vaughan has remarked that Canadian publishers and agents have a conspicuous aversion to genre fiction -- in other words, they avoid commercial fiction that stands a good chance of selling.
Is part of the reason Canadian publishing is constantly in a struggle because of an underlying snobbery? Does CanLit need more GenreLit? Or are there other alternative ways the Canadian publishing industry can carve out a larger, more profitable share of the book market than it does now?
No, in 10 years of covering publishing I've never known a publisher to be a snob. They'll publish anything they think will sell. All kinds of genre lit have been tried and none of it sold as well in Canada as, say, Margaret Atwood. It could be that Canadian readers are more serious than U.S. book buyers. Two of the bestselling books in recent years have been the political expose On the Take by Stevie Cameron and the demographic study, Boom, Bust and Echo. Each sold more than 200,000 copies.
Judy Stoffman is one of the pre-eminent arts journalists in Canada. She regularly writes on book publishing for the Toronto Star.
1. Literature is in trouble -- that is, more trouble than usual. Why do you think this is? The increasing prevalence of TV? The distractions of narcotic subcultures such as video games? Sept. 11? Or is talk of the "death of literature" simple exaggeration?
It's no exaggeration, alas. Books are published by the thousands and some are even being read but they have lost their authority, their central place in the culture. When I interviewed Norman Mailer recently in New York, he told me he was appalled that at dinner parties people are arguing over the latest television show they have seen, not the latest book. Young people have had their attention span damaged by the instant gratification of DVDs and videogames. My own newspaper, the Star, allots way more space to film coverage that to books, in part because publishers rarely advertise and film theatres do.
2. Prizes and awards are playing an increasing role in determining an author's career-trajectory. In short, winning a major literary prize can win a writer a large audience overnight (not to mention, considerable fame and financial remuneration). But, as British critic Jason Cowley has observed, what is lost is the ability for readers to think in a critically complex fashion. Please comment.
Well, there is some truth to that, although given the deluge of books out there, prizes can clear away the undergrowth and point confused readers towards books worth reading. Book clubs often make their choices based on the short lists for the Booker or the Dublin IMPAC or the Giller prize. Prizes are the new reviews, it has been said. But it's not illegal yet to read a prize winning book and find it deeply flawed.
In Canada, there are way too many prizes; they may have reached a point of diminishing returns, and become less effective as sales boosters.
3. Continuing with the same theme, are literary prizes dangerous in this regard? Do they convey to the public the message that "this book is worth reading and all these others aren't"?
Dangerous? Of course, there are always fine books that are overlooked by juries and it's highly satisfying to discover them for oneself.
4. The publishing industry has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being pushed out?
The way it works is that agents arrange auctions for books with commercial potential, which drives up the cost of the book to the publisher. The more the publisher shells out for the rights, the more he/she will invest in promotion and advertising to make sure the book sells enough to recoup the investment. That the book will be a bestseller is therefore a self-fulfilling prophesy.
It's hard to generalize about "art" and whether it's being lost--after all Philip Roth, Alice Munro, Ross King, Wayson Choy, William Boyd, Orhan Pamuk do get published.
5. As well, should the Canadian cultural nationalism of the 1970s make a comeback? Do we need a "National Culture Policy" that will put more Canadian books front and center in bookstores?
No, the government is already overinvolved. Smart booksellers will feature Canadian books because Canadian readers want them.
6. In Aug. 25, 2006, you wrote an article entitled "CanLit Bonfire in the NY Times" about an commentary piece by Douglas Coupland in which he argues that Canadian fiction possesses a disproportionate amount of writing placed in rural settings and not enough in urban environments.
First, do you agree with Coupland's argument? Are Canadian writers trapped in what Andrew Pyper referred to as the "brand" of CanLit (a brand that presumably emphasizes the rural)? Or, as Patrick Crean puts it in the same article, is Coupland's characterization of CanLit "nonsense", and is he simply stereotyping a period of Canadian writing that no longer exists?
I agree with Patrick Crean. I have interviewed Douglas several times and never had the sense he is great reader. He has not kept up. He is a visual artist, primarily, well informed about art and popular culture. I love the bee-hive like paper sculptures he made after chewing up his own own books.
7. Returning to the same article: in it, Patrick Crean mentions that Canada has the toughest book market in the English speaking world -- that is, Canadian publishers are constantly locked in competition with their (larger) U.S. and U.K. counterparts. Yet recently, author and culture critic R. M. Vaughan has remarked that Canadian publishers and agents have a conspicuous aversion to genre fiction -- in other words, they avoid commercial fiction that stands a good chance of selling.
Is part of the reason Canadian publishing is constantly in a struggle because of an underlying snobbery? Does CanLit need more GenreLit? Or are there other alternative ways the Canadian publishing industry can carve out a larger, more profitable share of the book market than it does now?
No, in 10 years of covering publishing I've never known a publisher to be a snob. They'll publish anything they think will sell. All kinds of genre lit have been tried and none of it sold as well in Canada as, say, Margaret Atwood. It could be that Canadian readers are more serious than U.S. book buyers. Two of the bestselling books in recent years have been the political expose On the Take by Stevie Cameron and the demographic study, Boom, Bust and Echo. Each sold more than 200,000 copies.
Judy Stoffman is one of the pre-eminent arts journalists in Canada. She regularly writes on book publishing for the Toronto Star.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Fred Ramey -- publisher (Unbridled Books)
Fred Ramey of Unbridled Books:
[note: this interview first appeared Dec. 10/06]
1. Ever since Sept. 11, there has been a decline in book sales, particularly sales of literary fiction. And since that time, it's been common in publishing circles to explain Sept. 11 as the main "cause" of this phenomenon. Do you agree? Or have other, equally important factors been driving the decline in sales?
Speaking here of fiction publishing only, there is little doubt that the events of September 11 changed the equations. At first, it appeared that serious work in literature would return to a more prominent place as Americans looked for meaning. And I think that, aside from their obvious literary value, the critical attention such works as Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America and Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead , among other books, received when we were finally getting back on our feet may owe something to a desire in the American reader to read that which explains who we are, a desire that has risen in the political air since 9/11. This is the same desire, I think, that has moved nonfiction titles about the Founders and about the Revolutionary War and World War II onto the best-seller lists.
But September 11 had another effect on literary publishing: It increased the corporate drive toward fiscal caution in the publishing of fiction. This led to an increased focus on the fiction that appears most nearly a sure thing and ultimately resulted in the sense now that at any given moment everyone is reading the same novel. (I think the one-city/one-book programs are furthering this.) Book sales overall have not dropped as dramatically as your question implies, but fewer books seem to reach the readers’ consciousness now and literary fiction has taken a hit in that process.
This may have begun with the caution 9/11 introduced, but that caution itself seems to me the real source. If everyone is reading the same book, newspapers see less need to review books, a handful of books in the big-box stores will cover the reading habits of their customers who don’t now frequent bookstores, the reality of fewer book-only retail outlets make it easier to keep the readers’ attention focused on a manageable inventory of an artificially finite number of titles, etc. The cause of the decline in literary book sales is complex (though it is not untraceable).
2. The publishing industry has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being pushed out?
The art side of the business is being cornered perhaps, but it’s not because of the Deal. Certainly the two-book deal that Spiegel & Grau made for Sara Gruen’s next works would indicate that the Big-Deal thinking you refer to is still operational. But high-profile, high-dollar deals seem to me far less frequently reported these days. What is shadowing the art of literature seems, rather, to be a combination of the corporate need for a sure thing and the instant availability of sales numbers. Of course booksellers have always been able to access their own sales records and to know how an author’s previous book has sold. And they’ve always used that information to guide their buys. But now a chain fiction buyer can instantly tell how many copies of an author’s first book sold through hundreds of stores, and acquiring editors can get a pretty good look at the author’s sales record even if they weren’t the publisher for the earlier titles.
As a result of this, an author’s second novel might be under-stocked in the chains — that is, IF he or she is able to sell that second book to a publisher in the first place. This makes it far more difficult for authors to develop across long careers, to gain an expectant readership while developing their art, to expand their literary reach. I consider this use of numbers as though they were predictive a real threat to American literature. We all know that sales records of past books do not indicate what an author’s next will sell — unless that next book is not acquired or is under-stocked to make the prediction self-fulfilling.
3. Many major publishers now refuse to accept "unsolicited" work; that is, they will not even consider work unless it is agented. Is this a sound policy from point of view of finding the best new literary voices? Isn't there a chance good writing will be squeezed out?
There is a chance, of course, that an unagented book could be good. But, first, there is a sea of independent presses to handle that and, second, this big-house policy has allowed to develop an editorial role for agents — which the large publishers apparently need.
4. Alternatively, for small presses that do accept unsolicited work, is the problem that the majors are squeezing the small houses at the distribution/retail marketing end? In other words, even when good writers get published by small houses, do they have a fair chance of winning an audience? Or are the major houses introducing an overly corporate, overly aggressive mentality to the book trade?
I think my preceding answers probably imply the answer to this one.
5. Returning to the question of agents -- are they too powerful? If so, in what ways? Or are they a largely beneficial and necessary element of contemporary publishing?
Once we did battle with agents. We no longer do much of that. The changes we’ve been discussing here that have arisen from the caution of the larger houses and the focusing of readers upon a smaller number of titles at any given moment have changed that relationship for the kinds of books we handle. (As an aside here, we had to delay publication of one of our books in 2006 for two weeks because of how much print capacity the latest Harry Potter took up that month. This indicates the world agents now work in, too.)
Now, agents know that while the smaller houses may not be able to put much money down for advances, they will take good care of the authors and their books, give the books a chance, invest in them and the authors over a longer period of time. In this context, the remaining problem for independents seems to be the agents’ inability to resist the big-house offer once an independent publisher has succeeded with an author’s first or second or third book. That can at times be dangerous to the author’s career, but it isn’t always. I suppose it’s just part of the small-press reality.
7. Does America have too many publishers? Or too few?
The marketplace dictates that. If one new publisher survives over the long haul, I suppose there aren’t too many. A better question is whether collectively we publish too many books. Where are we now? 175,000 titles a year? If we publishers focused on what is good, would more people be able to find what they like and thereby read more books on their own rather than waiting for a single book to be anointed by this taste maker or that one?
8. In your opinion, how will new technologies such as the e-book or audio books affect the "form" of the book?
It is my opinion that, while new technologies will certainly — but only eventually — change the delivery of the text, the answers to the issues that face publishing are not technological. Again, I’m speaking here only as a publisher of quality fiction and speaking only about fiction. People need narrative.
For a long while yet, I imagine, the artifact of the book will be necessary to those people who read narrative rather than get it only through media — including audio books. And I don’t think that users of audiobooks are the same market as users of e-book devices (though I have no empirical evidence for that). It seems to me that the wrong term is in quotation marks in your question: it’s “book” that will eventually be antiquated. Those publishers who can convert their practices as the “book” itself converts will survive — we all assume this, but none of us knows what that conversion will be or how quickly it will happen. This is because the people who are developing the technologies are not the publishers. What other industry runs that way? What other industry yields R&D up to outsiders?
9. Putting aside the hype, does the Internet provide a real opportunity to publishers? If so, how?
The practical uses it offers in the editing and production of books aside, in the current reality, the Internet is a tremendous tool for publishers to reach those readers who want something besides the designated book of the season. This will become even more the case so long as review inches are shrinking in the print media (which I fear will be right to their complete disappearance). And as the influence of the literary bloggers grows — as I think it will once they convince those readers who are not bloggers that the blogs are the source of information about What to Read — that is, once readers recognize that bloggers have an authority that the reader reviews on Amazon do not — then the Internet will be an even more powerful tool for publishers. Of course at the same time as all of this is occurring, the Internet is becoming a more valuable tool for readers and authors. Whether this will ultimately result in its replacing publishers is something we all wish we knew.
10. And what role can traditional, venerable institutions such as libraries and English Departments play in reversing the decline in sales of literary fiction?
I think this is asking the same institutions that are threatened by the forces of change to resist these developments in the same way that publishers are resisting them. And I don’t think that will work. Libraries are already something other than wholly “book” oriented. They’ve already redefined themselves. And if American literature must move onto the Internet to survive, literature programs at the university level won’t have much to do with the continued existence of publishing. (Whether a book sells or not has never been a concern of the Academy.) Certainly it would be fascinating for English Departments to turn their attention from underscoring the literary canon to fostering an ongoing national literature. I suppose it could happen. But it would endanger the canon, and it would be a burdensome addition to the curriculum in Departments that have suffered decreasing numbers of majors for decades.
11. What projects are you working on now that you are excited about?
Each season we have titles that invigorate us, and the 2007 Spring season is no different. We promise our readers a good reading experience and I think Andrea Portes’s courageous debut, Hick, and Timothy Schaffert’s charmingly human Devils in the Sugar Shop both will do that. M. Allen Cunningham also returns with the lyrical Lost Son, a gorgeous novel on the life of Rilke. And Elise Blackwell’s eloquent The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish is an evocative story about the 1927 flooding of New Orleans that rewards the reader line by line. We’re also proud of the books in our current season: beautifully wrought novels by William J. Cobb (Goodnight, Texas), Carolyn Turgeon (Rain Village), and Lise Haines (small acts of sex and electricity), Marc Estrin’s provocative and outrageous Golem Song, and the delicate second memoir of Mireille Marokvia — Sins of the Innocent.
But what I’m immersed in now is Marc’s next project, an annotated edition of a dishonest novel by William Hundwasser. It’s called The Annotated Nose and, I think, exists in the narrative tradition of Nabokov. My task as editor is to make the physical artifacts of the original novel, the annotations by “its subject, Alexei Pigov”, and Estrin’s editorial notes all chime together in what is a singular, playful, and again outrageous reading experience. This will be the fourth Estrin book to be published, with three more in the works. He’s an absolutely brilliant author I hold onto and hope I don’t get tossed off in the ride.
12. Unbridled Books is a literary publishing house that places a lot of emphasis on audio versions of books. Given the recent release of electronic book platforms such as the Sony Reader, how do you think audio books will combine with a technology such as this? In other words, do you foresee the audio book and electronic book as merging?
Thanks for noticing. We’re currently producing a series of interviews by Kay Callison under the collective name of Unbridled Aloud. We think that Kay — the formidable force behind the American Audio Prose Library — is one of the most perceptive readers and insightful literary interviewers at work today. And her interviews with our authors have revealed aspects of the works that I was unaware of even when I was the editor. All of these productions are available for free both as podcasts and as audio cds. In addition, we have a complete version of Estrin’s Golem Song read by the author, which we serialized on our website, and we’re hoping to produce more author-read, unabridged recordings of our books.
But your question gets back to the value of the Internet to publishers in the current reality. Literary titles have never been widely available as audiobooks — this may be because of an actual separation between of the audiobook market from the traditional reading market, but it may, instead, be the cause of that separation. I don’t know. But now that we can use our website to deliver audio versions of quality fiction, especially in the downloadable form of the podcast, we have an opportunity to see whether readers of literary fiction commute to work.
But I want to get back to the assertion that addressing the issues publishers now face is not identical with the need to focus on technology. The issues seem to me, instead, to be behavioral. The leisurely pace of reading (whether on a paper page or on some imaginable, eye-friendly screen) is an essential part of the experience of written narrative. Heard narrative is not paced by the reader. I know that sounds quaintly McLuhanesque, but it remains true. Audio versions of narrative are received. Written versions are taken. So, whatever happens in the delivery of literature, it’s hard to imagine the ipod replacing the book. Something else will, I suppose, but, no, I don’t think that the audiobook market and the e-book market will merge.
Bio: Fred Ramey is Co-Publisher with Greg Michalson of Unbridled Books, a decentralized publisher of quality fiction and narrative nonfiction. Known for debuting literary talent, Unbridled’s books make frequent appearances on the Book Sense lists and in the Discover program at Barnes & Noble. Ramey and Michalson have been publishing together since 1992 when they opened the fiction line at MacMurray & Beck. Among many other award-winning writers, they have handled the debut novels of Susan Vreeland, William Gay, Steve Yarbrough, Patricia Henley, Nancy Zafris, Rick Collignon, and Frederick Reuss. Take a look at www.unbridledbooks.com .
[note: this interview first appeared Dec. 10/06]
1. Ever since Sept. 11, there has been a decline in book sales, particularly sales of literary fiction. And since that time, it's been common in publishing circles to explain Sept. 11 as the main "cause" of this phenomenon. Do you agree? Or have other, equally important factors been driving the decline in sales?
Speaking here of fiction publishing only, there is little doubt that the events of September 11 changed the equations. At first, it appeared that serious work in literature would return to a more prominent place as Americans looked for meaning. And I think that, aside from their obvious literary value, the critical attention such works as Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America and Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead , among other books, received when we were finally getting back on our feet may owe something to a desire in the American reader to read that which explains who we are, a desire that has risen in the political air since 9/11. This is the same desire, I think, that has moved nonfiction titles about the Founders and about the Revolutionary War and World War II onto the best-seller lists.
But September 11 had another effect on literary publishing: It increased the corporate drive toward fiscal caution in the publishing of fiction. This led to an increased focus on the fiction that appears most nearly a sure thing and ultimately resulted in the sense now that at any given moment everyone is reading the same novel. (I think the one-city/one-book programs are furthering this.) Book sales overall have not dropped as dramatically as your question implies, but fewer books seem to reach the readers’ consciousness now and literary fiction has taken a hit in that process.
This may have begun with the caution 9/11 introduced, but that caution itself seems to me the real source. If everyone is reading the same book, newspapers see less need to review books, a handful of books in the big-box stores will cover the reading habits of their customers who don’t now frequent bookstores, the reality of fewer book-only retail outlets make it easier to keep the readers’ attention focused on a manageable inventory of an artificially finite number of titles, etc. The cause of the decline in literary book sales is complex (though it is not untraceable).
2. The publishing industry has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being pushed out?
The art side of the business is being cornered perhaps, but it’s not because of the Deal. Certainly the two-book deal that Spiegel & Grau made for Sara Gruen’s next works would indicate that the Big-Deal thinking you refer to is still operational. But high-profile, high-dollar deals seem to me far less frequently reported these days. What is shadowing the art of literature seems, rather, to be a combination of the corporate need for a sure thing and the instant availability of sales numbers. Of course booksellers have always been able to access their own sales records and to know how an author’s previous book has sold. And they’ve always used that information to guide their buys. But now a chain fiction buyer can instantly tell how many copies of an author’s first book sold through hundreds of stores, and acquiring editors can get a pretty good look at the author’s sales record even if they weren’t the publisher for the earlier titles.
As a result of this, an author’s second novel might be under-stocked in the chains — that is, IF he or she is able to sell that second book to a publisher in the first place. This makes it far more difficult for authors to develop across long careers, to gain an expectant readership while developing their art, to expand their literary reach. I consider this use of numbers as though they were predictive a real threat to American literature. We all know that sales records of past books do not indicate what an author’s next will sell — unless that next book is not acquired or is under-stocked to make the prediction self-fulfilling.
3. Many major publishers now refuse to accept "unsolicited" work; that is, they will not even consider work unless it is agented. Is this a sound policy from point of view of finding the best new literary voices? Isn't there a chance good writing will be squeezed out?
There is a chance, of course, that an unagented book could be good. But, first, there is a sea of independent presses to handle that and, second, this big-house policy has allowed to develop an editorial role for agents — which the large publishers apparently need.
4. Alternatively, for small presses that do accept unsolicited work, is the problem that the majors are squeezing the small houses at the distribution/retail marketing end? In other words, even when good writers get published by small houses, do they have a fair chance of winning an audience? Or are the major houses introducing an overly corporate, overly aggressive mentality to the book trade?
I think my preceding answers probably imply the answer to this one.
5. Returning to the question of agents -- are they too powerful? If so, in what ways? Or are they a largely beneficial and necessary element of contemporary publishing?
Once we did battle with agents. We no longer do much of that. The changes we’ve been discussing here that have arisen from the caution of the larger houses and the focusing of readers upon a smaller number of titles at any given moment have changed that relationship for the kinds of books we handle. (As an aside here, we had to delay publication of one of our books in 2006 for two weeks because of how much print capacity the latest Harry Potter took up that month. This indicates the world agents now work in, too.)
Now, agents know that while the smaller houses may not be able to put much money down for advances, they will take good care of the authors and their books, give the books a chance, invest in them and the authors over a longer period of time. In this context, the remaining problem for independents seems to be the agents’ inability to resist the big-house offer once an independent publisher has succeeded with an author’s first or second or third book. That can at times be dangerous to the author’s career, but it isn’t always. I suppose it’s just part of the small-press reality.
7. Does America have too many publishers? Or too few?
The marketplace dictates that. If one new publisher survives over the long haul, I suppose there aren’t too many. A better question is whether collectively we publish too many books. Where are we now? 175,000 titles a year? If we publishers focused on what is good, would more people be able to find what they like and thereby read more books on their own rather than waiting for a single book to be anointed by this taste maker or that one?
8. In your opinion, how will new technologies such as the e-book or audio books affect the "form" of the book?
It is my opinion that, while new technologies will certainly — but only eventually — change the delivery of the text, the answers to the issues that face publishing are not technological. Again, I’m speaking here only as a publisher of quality fiction and speaking only about fiction. People need narrative.
For a long while yet, I imagine, the artifact of the book will be necessary to those people who read narrative rather than get it only through media — including audio books. And I don’t think that users of audiobooks are the same market as users of e-book devices (though I have no empirical evidence for that). It seems to me that the wrong term is in quotation marks in your question: it’s “book” that will eventually be antiquated. Those publishers who can convert their practices as the “book” itself converts will survive — we all assume this, but none of us knows what that conversion will be or how quickly it will happen. This is because the people who are developing the technologies are not the publishers. What other industry runs that way? What other industry yields R&D up to outsiders?
9. Putting aside the hype, does the Internet provide a real opportunity to publishers? If so, how?
The practical uses it offers in the editing and production of books aside, in the current reality, the Internet is a tremendous tool for publishers to reach those readers who want something besides the designated book of the season. This will become even more the case so long as review inches are shrinking in the print media (which I fear will be right to their complete disappearance). And as the influence of the literary bloggers grows — as I think it will once they convince those readers who are not bloggers that the blogs are the source of information about What to Read — that is, once readers recognize that bloggers have an authority that the reader reviews on Amazon do not — then the Internet will be an even more powerful tool for publishers. Of course at the same time as all of this is occurring, the Internet is becoming a more valuable tool for readers and authors. Whether this will ultimately result in its replacing publishers is something we all wish we knew.
10. And what role can traditional, venerable institutions such as libraries and English Departments play in reversing the decline in sales of literary fiction?
I think this is asking the same institutions that are threatened by the forces of change to resist these developments in the same way that publishers are resisting them. And I don’t think that will work. Libraries are already something other than wholly “book” oriented. They’ve already redefined themselves. And if American literature must move onto the Internet to survive, literature programs at the university level won’t have much to do with the continued existence of publishing. (Whether a book sells or not has never been a concern of the Academy.) Certainly it would be fascinating for English Departments to turn their attention from underscoring the literary canon to fostering an ongoing national literature. I suppose it could happen. But it would endanger the canon, and it would be a burdensome addition to the curriculum in Departments that have suffered decreasing numbers of majors for decades.
11. What projects are you working on now that you are excited about?
Each season we have titles that invigorate us, and the 2007 Spring season is no different. We promise our readers a good reading experience and I think Andrea Portes’s courageous debut, Hick, and Timothy Schaffert’s charmingly human Devils in the Sugar Shop both will do that. M. Allen Cunningham also returns with the lyrical Lost Son, a gorgeous novel on the life of Rilke. And Elise Blackwell’s eloquent The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish is an evocative story about the 1927 flooding of New Orleans that rewards the reader line by line. We’re also proud of the books in our current season: beautifully wrought novels by William J. Cobb (Goodnight, Texas), Carolyn Turgeon (Rain Village), and Lise Haines (small acts of sex and electricity), Marc Estrin’s provocative and outrageous Golem Song, and the delicate second memoir of Mireille Marokvia — Sins of the Innocent.
But what I’m immersed in now is Marc’s next project, an annotated edition of a dishonest novel by William Hundwasser. It’s called The Annotated Nose and, I think, exists in the narrative tradition of Nabokov. My task as editor is to make the physical artifacts of the original novel, the annotations by “its subject, Alexei Pigov”, and Estrin’s editorial notes all chime together in what is a singular, playful, and again outrageous reading experience. This will be the fourth Estrin book to be published, with three more in the works. He’s an absolutely brilliant author I hold onto and hope I don’t get tossed off in the ride.
12. Unbridled Books is a literary publishing house that places a lot of emphasis on audio versions of books. Given the recent release of electronic book platforms such as the Sony Reader, how do you think audio books will combine with a technology such as this? In other words, do you foresee the audio book and electronic book as merging?
Thanks for noticing. We’re currently producing a series of interviews by Kay Callison under the collective name of Unbridled Aloud. We think that Kay — the formidable force behind the American Audio Prose Library — is one of the most perceptive readers and insightful literary interviewers at work today. And her interviews with our authors have revealed aspects of the works that I was unaware of even when I was the editor. All of these productions are available for free both as podcasts and as audio cds. In addition, we have a complete version of Estrin’s Golem Song read by the author, which we serialized on our website, and we’re hoping to produce more author-read, unabridged recordings of our books.
But your question gets back to the value of the Internet to publishers in the current reality. Literary titles have never been widely available as audiobooks — this may be because of an actual separation between of the audiobook market from the traditional reading market, but it may, instead, be the cause of that separation. I don’t know. But now that we can use our website to deliver audio versions of quality fiction, especially in the downloadable form of the podcast, we have an opportunity to see whether readers of literary fiction commute to work.
But I want to get back to the assertion that addressing the issues publishers now face is not identical with the need to focus on technology. The issues seem to me, instead, to be behavioral. The leisurely pace of reading (whether on a paper page or on some imaginable, eye-friendly screen) is an essential part of the experience of written narrative. Heard narrative is not paced by the reader. I know that sounds quaintly McLuhanesque, but it remains true. Audio versions of narrative are received. Written versions are taken. So, whatever happens in the delivery of literature, it’s hard to imagine the ipod replacing the book. Something else will, I suppose, but, no, I don’t think that the audiobook market and the e-book market will merge.
Bio: Fred Ramey is Co-Publisher with Greg Michalson of Unbridled Books, a decentralized publisher of quality fiction and narrative nonfiction. Known for debuting literary talent, Unbridled’s books make frequent appearances on the Book Sense lists and in the Discover program at Barnes & Noble. Ramey and Michalson have been publishing together since 1992 when they opened the fiction line at MacMurray & Beck. Among many other award-winning writers, they have handled the debut novels of Susan Vreeland, William Gay, Steve Yarbrough, Patricia Henley, Nancy Zafris, Rick Collignon, and Frederick Reuss. Take a look at www.unbridledbooks.com .
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Gavin Grant -- publisher (Small Beer)
Gavin Grant of Small Beer Press:
1. Literature is in trouble -- that is, more trouble than usual. Why do you think this is? The increasing prevalence of TV? The distractions of narcotic subcultures such as video games? Sept. 11? Or is talk of the "death of literature" simple exaggeration?
Don't agree with the premise so I'll go with the exaggeration. We're all going to have TV and the net wired into our brains as in innumerable science fiction novels (and M.T. Anderson's excellent Feed) so why would anyone need to read? Putting that aside, until the cable company comes to (ahem) jack me in there are so many advocates for reading, for books, books in translation, magazines in print and online, that I am somewhat sanguine about at least the near future. Some of the publishers I respect will fail (maybe including us!), some of the authors I love will stop writing or selling books. But new publishers will appear, new authors, new ways for the authors I love, to get their work out.
2. And what is literature, anyway? Should the traditional novel be considered the prime example of it?
Literature is the printed version of the ever-popular narrative dream state induced by such primary sources as storytellers, poets, Hyde Park orators, (some) TV, film, and video game writers, the Interblognet, the couple fighting quietly behind you on the bus, and so forth.
The novel is a 300-year-old historical bubble that recently achieved primacy and is now suffering the popularity of the short story collection. (Or was it TV?)
3. Prizes and awards are playing an increasing role in determining an author's career-trajectory. In short, winning a major literary prize can win a writer a large audience overnight (not to mention, considerable fame and financial remuneration). But, as British critic Jason Cowley has observed, what is lost is the the ability for readers to think in a critically complex fashion.
Are literary prizes dangerous in this regard? Do they convey to the public the message that "this book is worth reading and all these others aren't"?
Don't agree with your first sentence. No one is publishing books thinking, "This author better win a National Book Award or Impac Prize soon or I'm dropping them." Prizes can work as a short hand way to find a good book, but readers are smart and they won't buy something _just_ because of the sticker. They will buy if the book with that sticker was good last year. They'll buy if the cover is good. If the first two pages grab them. If page 53 has the word yellow in it or whatever criteria they use. I trust readers in general to cut through the crap and find good books because the readers I know are always talking about books (often ones I've never heard of).
Also: books are not a one-time choice. Today's reading choice of Ian McEwan doesn't forever exclude Ursula K. Le Guin, or vice versa.
4. Literary publishing has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being pushed out?
The really big deals for new authors dropped off after the 1990s. Sales figures are harder and harder to get around -- the ubiquitous peek Bookscan is part of the consideration of any ms now.
Publishers can afford to take some chances, but it's harder with the accountants looking over your shoulder. If a book costs ~$25,000 to do decently then it had better sell more than 1,000 copies. Finding a way to make it sell more: challenge!
Art and commerce are intertwined and nowhere does it say that art is something anyone should be paid for. The writer should ask themselves what they want to do: amuse a reader? Puzzle them? Confuse? Inspire? Having answered that question they can then consider who will be willing to pay them what amount for the job of sending that work out into the world.
5. Many major publishers now refuse to accept "unsolicited" work; that is, they will not even consider work unless it is agented. Is this a sound policy from point of view of finding the best new literary voices? Isn't there a chance good writing will be squeezed out?
We don't take unsolicited work as we would be buried under manuscripts from writers who had not researched our press. We don't have the time for that kind of sorting. We are open to queries -- which produces a self-selected pool of work that we are happy to look at.
Unless a brilliant writer is living in complete isolation and is not submitting their work, then their work will find its way to a publisher. Editors, writers, agents, and so on are always going to conventions, bars, conferences, and talking with each other. If someone persuades them there's a fantastic new literary voice out there, there's a good chance the editor/agent/publisher will seek them out. Publishing is in the business of finding new work -- we can't get away with selling the same widgets every year -- so there's an advantage to keeping an eye out for good new work.
6. Returning to the question of agents -- are they too powerful? If so, in what ways? Or are they a largely beneficial and necessary element of contemporary publishing?
Agents seem necessary so that editors and writers can maintain happy working relationships. We're a tiny indie press so some agents ignore us, some are happy to deal with us.
7. Does America have too many publishers? Or too few?
Is there too much air? Too little?
8. In your opinion, how will new technologies such as the e-book or audio books affect the "form" of the book?
I like the idea of dropping downloaded books into a book-shaped gadget with epaper where you can choose your fave font and so on. There could be standard layouts and then typographers could have a new career of designing books for individuals (as well as, not instead of, for publishers -- we'll still need books designed).
I expect nonfiction books especially to change forms with links and popups and so on. And that too would be set reader's preferences. Want your reader to scrape the text you just downloaded and link it to Wikipedia or look for links. Go for it. In the near future there's always going to be a need for the book as we know it, but if and when someone introduces epaper, the world: your oyster.
9. Putting aside the hype, does the Internet provide a real opportunity to publishers? If so, how?
In the past couple of years it's provided about 5% of our sales -- this is better than it sounds as a lot of the sales are of low-price things like zines and chapbooks. Having them always available for midnight searches by fiction-hungry readers is probably invaluable. The instant action and reaction of the web is fun, so that when there's a good or bad review or an event and it's suddenly all over Blogistan. Sure, people's attention is more fractured; so is mine! -- but I still read.
10. And what role can traditional, venerable institutions such as libraries and English Departments play in reversing the decline in sales of literary fiction?
I hope that libraries continue to buy books and that English depts. keep paying for books (ebooks might be even better for the latter as there wouldn't be any returns!). I am a huge fan of libraries and still use our local library -- I can't buy (or shelve!) all the books I read in one year. The AWP conference and the CLMP magazine fairs are a great way for students to see publishing in the wider world. The English departments can sponsor readings and help keep writers in beer and bon bons.
11. What projects are you working on now that you are excited about?
Apart from my monkey face sketch book which I'm carrying around with me, we're publishing Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand which has a nicely unsympathetic character who gets caught up in some unpleasant art- and photography-related events in Maine. John Crowley's Endless Things is the fourth of his Aegypt novels -- it is amazingly exciting to be involved in publishing that. We're publishing Laurie J. Marks's Water Logic in June -- it's an out-and-out fantasy novel that's subversive and political: completely addictive and satisfyingly smart. Last, we're publishing an anthology for the Interstitial Arts Foundation, Interfictions -- this is the first project we've done with someone else this way. We're also working with Del Rey on a book from the first ten years of our zine, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. The title is a bit in flux but will be something like The Best Fiction in the World (So Far). Or maybe The Best of LCRW. We'll see.
Bio: Gavin J. Grant runs Small Beer Press. With his wife, Kelly Link, he publishes a zine, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and co-edits the fantasy section of St. Martin's Press's The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror. With Ellen Datlow he co-hosts a monthly reading series at KGB Bar. All by himself he has written for the LA Times, BookPage, Strange Horizons, Herbivore, Monkey Bicycle, &c. He is typing this in Brisbane but generally can be found in Northampton, MA.
1. Literature is in trouble -- that is, more trouble than usual. Why do you think this is? The increasing prevalence of TV? The distractions of narcotic subcultures such as video games? Sept. 11? Or is talk of the "death of literature" simple exaggeration?
Don't agree with the premise so I'll go with the exaggeration. We're all going to have TV and the net wired into our brains as in innumerable science fiction novels (and M.T. Anderson's excellent Feed) so why would anyone need to read? Putting that aside, until the cable company comes to (ahem) jack me in there are so many advocates for reading, for books, books in translation, magazines in print and online, that I am somewhat sanguine about at least the near future. Some of the publishers I respect will fail (maybe including us!), some of the authors I love will stop writing or selling books. But new publishers will appear, new authors, new ways for the authors I love, to get their work out.
2. And what is literature, anyway? Should the traditional novel be considered the prime example of it?
Literature is the printed version of the ever-popular narrative dream state induced by such primary sources as storytellers, poets, Hyde Park orators, (some) TV, film, and video game writers, the Interblognet, the couple fighting quietly behind you on the bus, and so forth.
The novel is a 300-year-old historical bubble that recently achieved primacy and is now suffering the popularity of the short story collection. (Or was it TV?)
3. Prizes and awards are playing an increasing role in determining an author's career-trajectory. In short, winning a major literary prize can win a writer a large audience overnight (not to mention, considerable fame and financial remuneration). But, as British critic Jason Cowley has observed, what is lost is the the ability for readers to think in a critically complex fashion.
Are literary prizes dangerous in this regard? Do they convey to the public the message that "this book is worth reading and all these others aren't"?
Don't agree with your first sentence. No one is publishing books thinking, "This author better win a National Book Award or Impac Prize soon or I'm dropping them." Prizes can work as a short hand way to find a good book, but readers are smart and they won't buy something _just_ because of the sticker. They will buy if the book with that sticker was good last year. They'll buy if the cover is good. If the first two pages grab them. If page 53 has the word yellow in it or whatever criteria they use. I trust readers in general to cut through the crap and find good books because the readers I know are always talking about books (often ones I've never heard of).
Also: books are not a one-time choice. Today's reading choice of Ian McEwan doesn't forever exclude Ursula K. Le Guin, or vice versa.
4. Literary publishing has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being pushed out?
The really big deals for new authors dropped off after the 1990s. Sales figures are harder and harder to get around -- the ubiquitous peek Bookscan is part of the consideration of any ms now.
Publishers can afford to take some chances, but it's harder with the accountants looking over your shoulder. If a book costs ~$25,000 to do decently then it had better sell more than 1,000 copies. Finding a way to make it sell more: challenge!
Art and commerce are intertwined and nowhere does it say that art is something anyone should be paid for. The writer should ask themselves what they want to do: amuse a reader? Puzzle them? Confuse? Inspire? Having answered that question they can then consider who will be willing to pay them what amount for the job of sending that work out into the world.
5. Many major publishers now refuse to accept "unsolicited" work; that is, they will not even consider work unless it is agented. Is this a sound policy from point of view of finding the best new literary voices? Isn't there a chance good writing will be squeezed out?
We don't take unsolicited work as we would be buried under manuscripts from writers who had not researched our press. We don't have the time for that kind of sorting. We are open to queries -- which produces a self-selected pool of work that we are happy to look at.
Unless a brilliant writer is living in complete isolation and is not submitting their work, then their work will find its way to a publisher. Editors, writers, agents, and so on are always going to conventions, bars, conferences, and talking with each other. If someone persuades them there's a fantastic new literary voice out there, there's a good chance the editor/agent/publisher will seek them out. Publishing is in the business of finding new work -- we can't get away with selling the same widgets every year -- so there's an advantage to keeping an eye out for good new work.
6. Returning to the question of agents -- are they too powerful? If so, in what ways? Or are they a largely beneficial and necessary element of contemporary publishing?
Agents seem necessary so that editors and writers can maintain happy working relationships. We're a tiny indie press so some agents ignore us, some are happy to deal with us.
7. Does America have too many publishers? Or too few?
Is there too much air? Too little?
8. In your opinion, how will new technologies such as the e-book or audio books affect the "form" of the book?
I like the idea of dropping downloaded books into a book-shaped gadget with epaper where you can choose your fave font and so on. There could be standard layouts and then typographers could have a new career of designing books for individuals (as well as, not instead of, for publishers -- we'll still need books designed).
I expect nonfiction books especially to change forms with links and popups and so on. And that too would be set reader's preferences. Want your reader to scrape the text you just downloaded and link it to Wikipedia or look for links. Go for it. In the near future there's always going to be a need for the book as we know it, but if and when someone introduces epaper, the world: your oyster.
9. Putting aside the hype, does the Internet provide a real opportunity to publishers? If so, how?
In the past couple of years it's provided about 5% of our sales -- this is better than it sounds as a lot of the sales are of low-price things like zines and chapbooks. Having them always available for midnight searches by fiction-hungry readers is probably invaluable. The instant action and reaction of the web is fun, so that when there's a good or bad review or an event and it's suddenly all over Blogistan. Sure, people's attention is more fractured; so is mine! -- but I still read.
10. And what role can traditional, venerable institutions such as libraries and English Departments play in reversing the decline in sales of literary fiction?
I hope that libraries continue to buy books and that English depts. keep paying for books (ebooks might be even better for the latter as there wouldn't be any returns!). I am a huge fan of libraries and still use our local library -- I can't buy (or shelve!) all the books I read in one year. The AWP conference and the CLMP magazine fairs are a great way for students to see publishing in the wider world. The English departments can sponsor readings and help keep writers in beer and bon bons.
11. What projects are you working on now that you are excited about?
Apart from my monkey face sketch book which I'm carrying around with me, we're publishing Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand which has a nicely unsympathetic character who gets caught up in some unpleasant art- and photography-related events in Maine. John Crowley's Endless Things is the fourth of his Aegypt novels -- it is amazingly exciting to be involved in publishing that. We're publishing Laurie J. Marks's Water Logic in June -- it's an out-and-out fantasy novel that's subversive and political: completely addictive and satisfyingly smart. Last, we're publishing an anthology for the Interstitial Arts Foundation, Interfictions -- this is the first project we've done with someone else this way. We're also working with Del Rey on a book from the first ten years of our zine, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. The title is a bit in flux but will be something like The Best Fiction in the World (So Far). Or maybe The Best of LCRW. We'll see.
Bio: Gavin J. Grant runs Small Beer Press. With his wife, Kelly Link, he publishes a zine, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and co-edits the fantasy section of St. Martin's Press's The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror. With Ellen Datlow he co-hosts a monthly reading series at KGB Bar. All by himself he has written for the LA Times, BookPage, Strange Horizons, Herbivore, Monkey Bicycle, &c. He is typing this in Brisbane but generally can be found in Northampton, MA.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Bev Daurio -- author, publisher (The Mercury Press)
Bev Daurio of The Mercury Press:
[note: this interview originally appeared Nov. 27, 2006]
1. Ever since Sept. 11, there has been a decline in book sales, particularly sales of literary fiction. And since that time, it's been common in publishing circles to explain Sept. 11 as the main "cause" of this phenomenon. Do you agree? Or have other, equally important factors been driving the decline in sales?
It'd be interesting to know the sources of numbers indicating a decline in book sales (in dollar value or numbers of copies?), and if these are U.S., Canadian, or English numbers. What we're finding is that sales of a very few very popular, mainly from the U.S., books (like Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and similar popular non-fiction titles) are doing fine, and sales of Mercury titles have been steady or increasing-- two ends, perhaps--the largest and the smallest-- of the puzzle to which you're alluding.
I've not really heard the link with September 11 raised in more than passing as a Canadian issue, though others may feel differently. The feeling is more that we're seeing a reduction in the number of independent bookstores, who are excellent at hand-selling and knowing literary titles. Though the internet is helpful in making literary titles more available, we're witnessing a gap between that wide and predictable availability of titles that used to happen with the independents before an increase in web traffic and sales can make up for that. But I'm optimistic.
2. The publishing industry has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being squeezed out?
There is enormous pressure on literary presses to publish less challenging and ostensibly more saleable work. These pressures, whether negative (fewer sales, or bookseller reluctance, BookNet) or positive (Department of Canadian Heritage funding through Book Publishing Industry Development Program based directly and solely on sales without regard to quality or cultural significance) are, well, difficult.
Literary houses are not idiotic; they are making literary acquisition choices based on different parameters from the hope for straight sales, and if they weren't, they'd be different kinds of organizations. Never mind the fact that, for the most part, NOBODY knows what will sell, in advance (viz the huge bestseller from Cormorant, a small press, Lives of the Saints by Nino Ricci, which had been, I understand, turned down by most of the majors).
One question you raise implicitly, I think: is it worth publishing difficult, challenging, interesting, edge-pushing work, in terms of thought, form, ideas? I think it is, because it extends and affects the ways people think and understand the world, and I think it will continue to happen, even if it tends to be more concentrated in specialty presses (viz. Dalkey, Green Integer, and City Lights in the States). The Cult of the Deal is an interesting facet of current, mostly American, publishing practice. Those huge multinational publishers have their own pressures, of course, from paying for Fifth Avenue offices to satisfying shareholders. How this relates to literary publishing can be a two-edged sword-- as they say, anything that gets people talking about books may not be all bad-- but on the other hand can unrealistically raise demands and expectations for Canadian writers, particularly literary writers, when Canadian literary book sales usually range between 150 to 1000 copies-- not Deal Cult fodder. And really, these problems and issues are not new. A scan of books about Unwin, Faber, and The Hogarth Press, in England, pre-TV in the 1920s and 1930s, quickly demonstrates that, as you suggest, the balance of art and commerce in publishing has always been a tricky one. And the literary title sales numbers weren't all that different then in England from today in Canada, despite the population difference in England's favour. We really are doing pretty well, comparatively.
3. Are there ways the book marketplace could be tilted more in Canadian publishers' favour? For example, should book stores be required by regulation to devote a conspicuous amount of store-front shelf-space to Canadian work? Should Canada Council funding be significantly increased? Or is cultural nationalism of this sort passe?
While the idea of legislating Canadian titles into bookstores-- frankly all we'd be asking for in such a case is equal treatment with foreign works-- could be appealing, the practice of charging co-op for upfront shelf space isn't going to go away, and it would be a very hard sell; practically speaking, it would likely be an awful burden, both administratively and in terms of suggesting to independent booksellers how to run their businesses. I wouldn't blame them for being more than a bit distressed about such a possibility. I don't think this would be something pursuable beyond support for booksellers and moral suasion.
What might make great sense would be to legislate the purchase of Canadian works by public libraries, who are supported by Canadian public funds, and are in a position to be on the vanguard of proselytizing for Canadian literature. Canada Council funding, if increased to book publishers, would massively help to soften the lived reality of what is basically a burnout business, to reduce staff stress, and create stability and much stronger presentation and promotion for Canadian writers. Nationalism may be as important as remembering who we are, and how nationalist we are may depend on how badly we do or don't want to know or remember ourselves. Canada already has hugely open cultural borders: just look at our magazine stands, or our film industry. I try to watch the Genie Awards every year to find out what Canadian films were produced, because with very few exceptions they sure didn't appear on my local Cineplex screen, even here in Toronto.
4. Many major publishers now refuse to accept "unsolicited" work; that is, they will not even consider work unless it is agented. Is this a sound policy from point of view of finding the best new literary voices? Isn't there a chance good writing will be squeezed out? Alternatively, for small presses that do accept unsolicited work, is the problem the majors squeezing the small houses at the distribution/retail marketing end?
I can't speak for major publishers or their internal acquisitions policies, but I do think that really good work will eventually find a home, if a writer improves the work, makes sure it's edited, and perseveres-- because in my experience, there is far more unsolicited work all the time coming through the mail, but really strong work is rare. I'd differentiate, too, between international major publishers, who may or may not continue to have an interest in producing Canadian literary fiction, depending on head offices, or how the winds may blow financially, and Canadian major publishers with roots in and care about Canadian writing. Canadian publishers actually, despite their occasional fights, are pretty collegial. The problems tend to be funding (large or small and literary, we're competing with US overruns that are very very cheap to produce for the Canadian market, and behemoth promotional machines, also American), desperately thin to nonexistent profit margins, and changes in book retailing.
5. And speaking of agents -- are they too powerful? If so, in what ways? Or are they a largely beneficial and necessary element of contemporary publishing?
We don't deal with agents, so it's hard to say. Speaking as a writer, though, it'd sure be helpful and appreciated to have an agent in my corner if I were negotiating with, say, Penguin.
6. Does Canada have too many publishers? Or too few?
Canada has too few publishers, in my opinion, though new and exciting publishers are starting up all the time, which is encouraging. I think we sometimes get mixed up because of the influx of American and British books in English. It may seem like an awful lot of new books, but few of them are Canadian.
7. In your opinion, how will new technologies such as the e-book or audio books affect the "form" of the book?
Audio books will continue to be used and useful, but e-books-- it's hard to say-- though on-line access to archive, historical and reference materials as well as specialty journals and the like is growing and seems appropriate. My feeling is that there will be more displacement into video-related and game leisure activity-- and perhaps it'll be a couple of generations before we find out how books as they are now will fare and in what forms.
8. Putting aside the hype, does the Internet provide a real opportunity to publishers? If so, how?
There are useful aspects, for sure. Anyone anywhere with access to an on-line computer with a search engine can find The Mercury Press, for example, and have access to our list, author bios, as well as submissions and ordering information. So Mercury's specialties in mysteries, highly literary works in fiction and poetry, jazz books, are easily trackable; or, people looking, for example, for other titles by a Mercury author, can do so very quickly and easily. However, the web is a changeable, strange, place. In some ways open and democratic, it's also a flashing neon flood of information. The trick becomes how to find those people who are interested in what's going on in literature, or to help them find Mercury, and for us to understand what's useful to offer. A bit like the old days, really...
9. And what role can traditional, venerable institutions such as libraries and English Departments play in reversing the decline in sales of literary fiction?
Libraries could buy widely and deeply in Canadian literature, and universities could teach more Canlit. More readings, and writers in residence at institutions could really help in both spreading the word, exposing students and people to living writers and ways of writing, and supporting writers with time to work.
10. What projects are you working on now that you are excited about?
New fall books for 2006: Mark Miller's A Certain Respect for Tradition (jazz), David Lee's The Battle of the Five Spot: Ornette Coleman and New York (jazz), AVATAR, poetry and visual art by Sharon Harris, Double Helix, fiction by Jay MillAr and Stephen Cain, Cathedral Women, a novel by Carol Malyon, and two new mysteries, Terry Carroll's Body Contact and Mobashar Qureshi's R.A.C.E.... more information at www.themercurypress.ca. In forthcoming books, working on co-editing The Closets of Time, an anthology of experimental fiction, with Richard Truhlar, is a delight-in-progress.
---------------
Bio: Beverley Daurio is the author of three books, the most recent of which is Hell & Other Novels (Coach House/Talon), and has published poetry and short fiction widely (the latter including in the U.S., England, and Australia). In 2005 she participated in the William Gass writing residency at The Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida. She has edited more than a hundred books (including many shortlisted for or winning awards, including the Governor General's Award for Poetry, as well as awards for page design), several short fiction anthologies, and two collections of literary interviews. She also works as a book reviewer and literary journalist (Globe and Mail, Books in Canada, and many others), some-time freelance editor, creative-writing teacher and multidisciplinary collaborationist, and is the former editor of Poetry Canada Review and Paragraph Magazine, currently publisher of Word Magazine, and, since 1985, publisher and editor-in-chief of The Mercury Press, Toronto.
[note: this interview originally appeared Nov. 27, 2006]
1. Ever since Sept. 11, there has been a decline in book sales, particularly sales of literary fiction. And since that time, it's been common in publishing circles to explain Sept. 11 as the main "cause" of this phenomenon. Do you agree? Or have other, equally important factors been driving the decline in sales?
It'd be interesting to know the sources of numbers indicating a decline in book sales (in dollar value or numbers of copies?), and if these are U.S., Canadian, or English numbers. What we're finding is that sales of a very few very popular, mainly from the U.S., books (like Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and similar popular non-fiction titles) are doing fine, and sales of Mercury titles have been steady or increasing-- two ends, perhaps--the largest and the smallest-- of the puzzle to which you're alluding.
I've not really heard the link with September 11 raised in more than passing as a Canadian issue, though others may feel differently. The feeling is more that we're seeing a reduction in the number of independent bookstores, who are excellent at hand-selling and knowing literary titles. Though the internet is helpful in making literary titles more available, we're witnessing a gap between that wide and predictable availability of titles that used to happen with the independents before an increase in web traffic and sales can make up for that. But I'm optimistic.
2. The publishing industry has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being squeezed out?
There is enormous pressure on literary presses to publish less challenging and ostensibly more saleable work. These pressures, whether negative (fewer sales, or bookseller reluctance, BookNet) or positive (Department of Canadian Heritage funding through Book Publishing Industry Development Program based directly and solely on sales without regard to quality or cultural significance) are, well, difficult.
Literary houses are not idiotic; they are making literary acquisition choices based on different parameters from the hope for straight sales, and if they weren't, they'd be different kinds of organizations. Never mind the fact that, for the most part, NOBODY knows what will sell, in advance (viz the huge bestseller from Cormorant, a small press, Lives of the Saints by Nino Ricci, which had been, I understand, turned down by most of the majors).
One question you raise implicitly, I think: is it worth publishing difficult, challenging, interesting, edge-pushing work, in terms of thought, form, ideas? I think it is, because it extends and affects the ways people think and understand the world, and I think it will continue to happen, even if it tends to be more concentrated in specialty presses (viz. Dalkey, Green Integer, and City Lights in the States). The Cult of the Deal is an interesting facet of current, mostly American, publishing practice. Those huge multinational publishers have their own pressures, of course, from paying for Fifth Avenue offices to satisfying shareholders. How this relates to literary publishing can be a two-edged sword-- as they say, anything that gets people talking about books may not be all bad-- but on the other hand can unrealistically raise demands and expectations for Canadian writers, particularly literary writers, when Canadian literary book sales usually range between 150 to 1000 copies-- not Deal Cult fodder. And really, these problems and issues are not new. A scan of books about Unwin, Faber, and The Hogarth Press, in England, pre-TV in the 1920s and 1930s, quickly demonstrates that, as you suggest, the balance of art and commerce in publishing has always been a tricky one. And the literary title sales numbers weren't all that different then in England from today in Canada, despite the population difference in England's favour. We really are doing pretty well, comparatively.
3. Are there ways the book marketplace could be tilted more in Canadian publishers' favour? For example, should book stores be required by regulation to devote a conspicuous amount of store-front shelf-space to Canadian work? Should Canada Council funding be significantly increased? Or is cultural nationalism of this sort passe?
While the idea of legislating Canadian titles into bookstores-- frankly all we'd be asking for in such a case is equal treatment with foreign works-- could be appealing, the practice of charging co-op for upfront shelf space isn't going to go away, and it would be a very hard sell; practically speaking, it would likely be an awful burden, both administratively and in terms of suggesting to independent booksellers how to run their businesses. I wouldn't blame them for being more than a bit distressed about such a possibility. I don't think this would be something pursuable beyond support for booksellers and moral suasion.
What might make great sense would be to legislate the purchase of Canadian works by public libraries, who are supported by Canadian public funds, and are in a position to be on the vanguard of proselytizing for Canadian literature. Canada Council funding, if increased to book publishers, would massively help to soften the lived reality of what is basically a burnout business, to reduce staff stress, and create stability and much stronger presentation and promotion for Canadian writers. Nationalism may be as important as remembering who we are, and how nationalist we are may depend on how badly we do or don't want to know or remember ourselves. Canada already has hugely open cultural borders: just look at our magazine stands, or our film industry. I try to watch the Genie Awards every year to find out what Canadian films were produced, because with very few exceptions they sure didn't appear on my local Cineplex screen, even here in Toronto.
4. Many major publishers now refuse to accept "unsolicited" work; that is, they will not even consider work unless it is agented. Is this a sound policy from point of view of finding the best new literary voices? Isn't there a chance good writing will be squeezed out? Alternatively, for small presses that do accept unsolicited work, is the problem the majors squeezing the small houses at the distribution/retail marketing end?
I can't speak for major publishers or their internal acquisitions policies, but I do think that really good work will eventually find a home, if a writer improves the work, makes sure it's edited, and perseveres-- because in my experience, there is far more unsolicited work all the time coming through the mail, but really strong work is rare. I'd differentiate, too, between international major publishers, who may or may not continue to have an interest in producing Canadian literary fiction, depending on head offices, or how the winds may blow financially, and Canadian major publishers with roots in and care about Canadian writing. Canadian publishers actually, despite their occasional fights, are pretty collegial. The problems tend to be funding (large or small and literary, we're competing with US overruns that are very very cheap to produce for the Canadian market, and behemoth promotional machines, also American), desperately thin to nonexistent profit margins, and changes in book retailing.
5. And speaking of agents -- are they too powerful? If so, in what ways? Or are they a largely beneficial and necessary element of contemporary publishing?
We don't deal with agents, so it's hard to say. Speaking as a writer, though, it'd sure be helpful and appreciated to have an agent in my corner if I were negotiating with, say, Penguin.
6. Does Canada have too many publishers? Or too few?
Canada has too few publishers, in my opinion, though new and exciting publishers are starting up all the time, which is encouraging. I think we sometimes get mixed up because of the influx of American and British books in English. It may seem like an awful lot of new books, but few of them are Canadian.
7. In your opinion, how will new technologies such as the e-book or audio books affect the "form" of the book?
Audio books will continue to be used and useful, but e-books-- it's hard to say-- though on-line access to archive, historical and reference materials as well as specialty journals and the like is growing and seems appropriate. My feeling is that there will be more displacement into video-related and game leisure activity-- and perhaps it'll be a couple of generations before we find out how books as they are now will fare and in what forms.
8. Putting aside the hype, does the Internet provide a real opportunity to publishers? If so, how?
There are useful aspects, for sure. Anyone anywhere with access to an on-line computer with a search engine can find The Mercury Press, for example, and have access to our list, author bios, as well as submissions and ordering information. So Mercury's specialties in mysteries, highly literary works in fiction and poetry, jazz books, are easily trackable; or, people looking, for example, for other titles by a Mercury author, can do so very quickly and easily. However, the web is a changeable, strange, place. In some ways open and democratic, it's also a flashing neon flood of information. The trick becomes how to find those people who are interested in what's going on in literature, or to help them find Mercury, and for us to understand what's useful to offer. A bit like the old days, really...
9. And what role can traditional, venerable institutions such as libraries and English Departments play in reversing the decline in sales of literary fiction?
Libraries could buy widely and deeply in Canadian literature, and universities could teach more Canlit. More readings, and writers in residence at institutions could really help in both spreading the word, exposing students and people to living writers and ways of writing, and supporting writers with time to work.
10. What projects are you working on now that you are excited about?
New fall books for 2006: Mark Miller's A Certain Respect for Tradition (jazz), David Lee's The Battle of the Five Spot: Ornette Coleman and New York (jazz), AVATAR, poetry and visual art by Sharon Harris, Double Helix, fiction by Jay MillAr and Stephen Cain, Cathedral Women, a novel by Carol Malyon, and two new mysteries, Terry Carroll's Body Contact and Mobashar Qureshi's R.A.C.E.... more information at www.themercurypress.ca. In forthcoming books, working on co-editing The Closets of Time, an anthology of experimental fiction, with Richard Truhlar, is a delight-in-progress.
---------------
Bio: Beverley Daurio is the author of three books, the most recent of which is Hell & Other Novels (Coach House/Talon), and has published poetry and short fiction widely (the latter including in the U.S., England, and Australia). In 2005 she participated in the William Gass writing residency at The Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida. She has edited more than a hundred books (including many shortlisted for or winning awards, including the Governor General's Award for Poetry, as well as awards for page design), several short fiction anthologies, and two collections of literary interviews. She also works as a book reviewer and literary journalist (Globe and Mail, Books in Canada, and many others), some-time freelance editor, creative-writing teacher and multidisciplinary collaborationist, and is the former editor of Poetry Canada Review and Paragraph Magazine, currently publisher of Word Magazine, and, since 1985, publisher and editor-in-chief of The Mercury Press, Toronto.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Lidia Yuknavitch -- author, co-publisher (Chiasmus Media)
Lidia Yuknavitch of Chiasmus Media:
1. Literature is in trouble -- that is, more trouble than usual. Why do you think this is? The increasing prevalence of TV? The distractions of increasingly narcotic subcultures such as video games? Sept. 11? Or is talk of the "death of literature" simple exaggeration?
well, i agree and i don't. on the SURFACE, you are of course correct. i'm forever swayed by the question "when is art" rather than "what is art," and the current zeitgeist is at best clusterfucked and at the bottom of the barrel totally sucking the dick of capitalism.
sigh.
and yet.
these PRECISE times have brought us unbelievably cool books. for example:
lance olsen / nietzche's kisses
steve tomasula / vas
lynn tillman / american genius
debra diblasi / the jiri chronicles and other fictions...and all the books WE publish...heh.
2. And what is literature, anyway? Should the traditional novel be considered the prime example of it?
absolutely not. but neither should it disappear. i think it should hold its ground, for there are truly remarkable phrasings happening even inside market driven forms--jeanette winterson's LIGHT HOUSEKEEPING and mary gaitskill's VERONICA come to mind. anne carson and carole maso. lydia davis and a couple of less know writers, steve tomasula and debra diblasi...
so i guess what i'm saying is that the DIALOGUE made between the traditional novel (the LITERARY novel and NOT the commercial grisham type deal) and the non-traditional novel is alive and well and worth taking a look at.it's a big ocean, the literary. trust me when i say it is capable of holding the traditional novel, the non traditional novel, and all the new forms emerging which challenge the dominant mode of production (which is of course film).
3. Prizes and awards are playing an increasing role in determining an author's career-trajectory. In short, winning a major literary prize can win a writer a large audience overnight (not to mention, considerable fame and financial remuneration). But, as British critic Jason Cowley has observed, what is lost is the ability for readers to think in a critically complex fashion.
Are literary prizes dangerous in this regard? Do they convey to the public the message that "this book is worth reading and all these others aren't"?
probably. you now what virginia woolf said. give em back. don't accept them. and yet, some truly activist writers have been awarded "prizes" that have helped them move around in the world--leslie silko, rebecca brown, mary gaitskill...i'm mentioning women that matter to me...so i guess i'd say it's a double edge sword.
the award system in general is a crock of shit, and yet when important activist people score them, what i tend to think is, yeah, go get that, go take that, run with it, you've gone underneath things and hoodwinked the market and now is your chance to open a door for the outsiders. it's too simple to just say that awards stink. two of my favorite non-mainstream kick toukas authors just won NEA's--lance olsen and michael mejai..i feel no need to piss on that. i feel like their winning sort of pee pees on the whole system.
4. Literary publishing has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being pushed out?
yes, without question.
art in my sense of the word and concept and passion actually stands in direct oppostion and resistance to the market.
5. Many major publishers now refuse to accept "unsolicited" work; that is, they will not even consider work unless it is agented. Is this a sound policy from point of view of finding the best new literary voices? Isn't there a chance good writing will be squeezed out?
no it is not a sound policy. it is driven by the market and capitalism. yes it completely obliterates good writing and squeezes it out.
but it also designs a good edge for real artists to define themselves against.
6. Alternatively, for small presses that do accept unsolicited work, is the problem that the majors are squeezing the small houses at the distribution/retail marketing end? In other words, even when good writers get published by small houses, do they have a fair chance of winning an audience? Or are the major houses introducing an overly corporate, overly aggressive mentality to the book trade?
well, they have a more than fair chance of winning an audience. they just don't have much of a chance to win a MASS market audience. but then i honestly believe that authors who make the independent press choice are, to some extent, CHOOSING to let go of the mass market audience in favor of the small but more important readership. at least those authors who have integrity and who have bothered to educate themselves about what it is that indie presses "do."i also think independent presses like chiasmus, starcherone, clear cut, spuytin duyvil, etc... are doing vital underground work--carving out paths underneath the commercial machine. counter-culture work. this is then by its very nature against the grain of the market.
7. Returning to the question of agents -- are they too powerful? If so, in what ways? Or are they a largely beneficial and necessary element of contemporary publishing?
they are necessary to mass-marketed writing. apparently.
8. Does America have too many publishers? Or too few?
i don't think it matters what we think about this, because we are currently lodged in a state of high capitalism, so there isn't much stopping the publishing proliferation. i guess i'd say we have too many book-as-product for the market ventures and not enough make way for art efforts.
9. In your opinion, how will new technologies such as the e-book or audio books affect the "form" of the book?
it's all good. ha. what i mean is that all new forms, all new modes of production keep literature alive, noisy, unflinching. new forms come along and they open up or interrogate the traditions, and sometimes they last and sometimes they don't but even the failures are glorious, since they create fissures for art with a pulse to say something or do something. even if it's short-lived.and god damn it, the "form" of the book OUGHT to be in a state of constant infiltration, else the market WILL win.
10. Putting aside the hype, does the Internet provide a real opportunity to publishers? If so, how?
well it puts the mode of production into the hands of the masses. this makes most people nervous. they worry about things like quality and standards and hierarchies and rules of the game. it disrupts all kinds of systems meant to "order" literature. which is why i like it--even with its warts.
11. And what role can traditional, venerable institutions such as libraries and English Departments play in reversing the decline in sales of literary fiction?
i'm not that interested in the "sales" part of the question--i mean i'm not an idiot, i know we have to eat and take care of our families. i just think making art trumps making money. but to take the sass off, english departments should order and teach independent press books. period. if they had any self respect or integrity, that's what they'd do, instead of sucking the member of the market and cult of big name author poo.
12. What projects are you working on now that you are excited about?
two experimental novel projects (one snuck up on me while i have been finishing my first), a collection of non-fiction, and a short story collection. all hybrids. and my son and i have been painting and drawing together.
Bio: Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of three collections of short fictions-- Real to Reel (FC2, 2002), Her Other Mouths (House of Bones Press, 1997) and Liberty's Excess (FC2, 2000)-- and a book of criticism, Allegories of Violence (Routledge, 2000). Her writing has appeared in Postmodern Culture, Fiction International, Another Chicago Magazine, Zyzzyva, Critical Matrix, Other Voices, and elsewhere, and in the anthologies Representing Bisexualities (NYU Press) and Third Wave Agenda (University of Minnesota Press). She has been the co-editor of Northwest Edge: Deviant Fictions and the editor of two girls review. She teaches fiction writing and literature in Oregon.
1. Literature is in trouble -- that is, more trouble than usual. Why do you think this is? The increasing prevalence of TV? The distractions of increasingly narcotic subcultures such as video games? Sept. 11? Or is talk of the "death of literature" simple exaggeration?
well, i agree and i don't. on the SURFACE, you are of course correct. i'm forever swayed by the question "when is art" rather than "what is art," and the current zeitgeist is at best clusterfucked and at the bottom of the barrel totally sucking the dick of capitalism.
sigh.
and yet.
these PRECISE times have brought us unbelievably cool books. for example:
lance olsen / nietzche's kisses
steve tomasula / vas
lynn tillman / american genius
debra diblasi / the jiri chronicles and other fictions...and all the books WE publish...heh.
2. And what is literature, anyway? Should the traditional novel be considered the prime example of it?
absolutely not. but neither should it disappear. i think it should hold its ground, for there are truly remarkable phrasings happening even inside market driven forms--jeanette winterson's LIGHT HOUSEKEEPING and mary gaitskill's VERONICA come to mind. anne carson and carole maso. lydia davis and a couple of less know writers, steve tomasula and debra diblasi...
so i guess what i'm saying is that the DIALOGUE made between the traditional novel (the LITERARY novel and NOT the commercial grisham type deal) and the non-traditional novel is alive and well and worth taking a look at.it's a big ocean, the literary. trust me when i say it is capable of holding the traditional novel, the non traditional novel, and all the new forms emerging which challenge the dominant mode of production (which is of course film).
3. Prizes and awards are playing an increasing role in determining an author's career-trajectory. In short, winning a major literary prize can win a writer a large audience overnight (not to mention, considerable fame and financial remuneration). But, as British critic Jason Cowley has observed, what is lost is the ability for readers to think in a critically complex fashion.
Are literary prizes dangerous in this regard? Do they convey to the public the message that "this book is worth reading and all these others aren't"?
probably. you now what virginia woolf said. give em back. don't accept them. and yet, some truly activist writers have been awarded "prizes" that have helped them move around in the world--leslie silko, rebecca brown, mary gaitskill...i'm mentioning women that matter to me...so i guess i'd say it's a double edge sword.
the award system in general is a crock of shit, and yet when important activist people score them, what i tend to think is, yeah, go get that, go take that, run with it, you've gone underneath things and hoodwinked the market and now is your chance to open a door for the outsiders. it's too simple to just say that awards stink. two of my favorite non-mainstream kick toukas authors just won NEA's--lance olsen and michael mejai..i feel no need to piss on that. i feel like their winning sort of pee pees on the whole system.
4. Literary publishing has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being pushed out?
yes, without question.
art in my sense of the word and concept and passion actually stands in direct oppostion and resistance to the market.
5. Many major publishers now refuse to accept "unsolicited" work; that is, they will not even consider work unless it is agented. Is this a sound policy from point of view of finding the best new literary voices? Isn't there a chance good writing will be squeezed out?
no it is not a sound policy. it is driven by the market and capitalism. yes it completely obliterates good writing and squeezes it out.
but it also designs a good edge for real artists to define themselves against.
6. Alternatively, for small presses that do accept unsolicited work, is the problem that the majors are squeezing the small houses at the distribution/retail marketing end? In other words, even when good writers get published by small houses, do they have a fair chance of winning an audience? Or are the major houses introducing an overly corporate, overly aggressive mentality to the book trade?
well, they have a more than fair chance of winning an audience. they just don't have much of a chance to win a MASS market audience. but then i honestly believe that authors who make the independent press choice are, to some extent, CHOOSING to let go of the mass market audience in favor of the small but more important readership. at least those authors who have integrity and who have bothered to educate themselves about what it is that indie presses "do."i also think independent presses like chiasmus, starcherone, clear cut, spuytin duyvil, etc... are doing vital underground work--carving out paths underneath the commercial machine. counter-culture work. this is then by its very nature against the grain of the market.
7. Returning to the question of agents -- are they too powerful? If so, in what ways? Or are they a largely beneficial and necessary element of contemporary publishing?
they are necessary to mass-marketed writing. apparently.
8. Does America have too many publishers? Or too few?
i don't think it matters what we think about this, because we are currently lodged in a state of high capitalism, so there isn't much stopping the publishing proliferation. i guess i'd say we have too many book-as-product for the market ventures and not enough make way for art efforts.
9. In your opinion, how will new technologies such as the e-book or audio books affect the "form" of the book?
it's all good. ha. what i mean is that all new forms, all new modes of production keep literature alive, noisy, unflinching. new forms come along and they open up or interrogate the traditions, and sometimes they last and sometimes they don't but even the failures are glorious, since they create fissures for art with a pulse to say something or do something. even if it's short-lived.and god damn it, the "form" of the book OUGHT to be in a state of constant infiltration, else the market WILL win.
10. Putting aside the hype, does the Internet provide a real opportunity to publishers? If so, how?
well it puts the mode of production into the hands of the masses. this makes most people nervous. they worry about things like quality and standards and hierarchies and rules of the game. it disrupts all kinds of systems meant to "order" literature. which is why i like it--even with its warts.
11. And what role can traditional, venerable institutions such as libraries and English Departments play in reversing the decline in sales of literary fiction?
i'm not that interested in the "sales" part of the question--i mean i'm not an idiot, i know we have to eat and take care of our families. i just think making art trumps making money. but to take the sass off, english departments should order and teach independent press books. period. if they had any self respect or integrity, that's what they'd do, instead of sucking the member of the market and cult of big name author poo.
12. What projects are you working on now that you are excited about?
two experimental novel projects (one snuck up on me while i have been finishing my first), a collection of non-fiction, and a short story collection. all hybrids. and my son and i have been painting and drawing together.
Bio: Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of three collections of short fictions-- Real to Reel (FC2, 2002), Her Other Mouths (House of Bones Press, 1997) and Liberty's Excess (FC2, 2000)-- and a book of criticism, Allegories of Violence (Routledge, 2000). Her writing has appeared in Postmodern Culture, Fiction International, Another Chicago Magazine, Zyzzyva, Critical Matrix, Other Voices, and elsewhere, and in the anthologies Representing Bisexualities (NYU Press) and Third Wave Agenda (University of Minnesota Press). She has been the co-editor of Northwest Edge: Deviant Fictions and the editor of two girls review. She teaches fiction writing and literature in Oregon.
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