This is part two of my conversation with author and critic John Harris. To see part one, go here.
2. Reports of declines in book sales have
become widespread. How bad are the declines? And do you think they are only a
cyclical phenomenon, or do they represent a permanent negative change for print
book sales?
The Economist, 17 Aug 2013, reported that total spending on books “is not likely
to rise.” But there is a shift in that e-book sales are rising and print-book
sales falling. Worldwide, e-books account for 14% of book sales. In America,
which serves also as a measure of over-all, first-world consumption, that
figure is 30%, and HarperCollins is figuring on an increase to 40% in three
years. According to this report, profits for publishers are “fatter” as
printing, distribution and storage costs go steadily down when sales of e-books
rise.
The implication is that publishers are
doing fine. The fact that profits from e-books are compensating for losses from
print-books suggests that, while overall book sales might be slipping, it is
not by much.
Likely, most literary writers would see the
Economist figures as irrelevant to them, because it’s conceivable that
overall sales of books could be stable while sales of literary books are in
free-fall. So far as I know, no one’s tried to collect figures on this,
possibly because you’d have to establish a definition of “literary.” You could
set up rough parameters by assuming that 90% of poetry books or collections of
literary criticism are literary, that only a small amount (say 5%) of “genre”
fiction (sci fi, romance, porn, western, mystery) is literary, and that a
certain percent of adventure-travel is literary etc, then track sales of novels,
memoirs, and books of poetry and essays since the advent of the web.
This might provide some insight into
whether the e-book phenomenon is giving a special advantage to crap novels over
literary ones. I myself doubt this is happening. I sense there’s a fixed ratio between
novels sold by Arnold Bennett and those sold by James Joyce that would apply to
paperback novels sold by Harlequin (over 100 million per year since the
mid-nineties, by Danielle Steel (800 million to date) and by Margaret Atwood
(?). That ratio likely applies to e-books too.
It may be that sales of literary books in
the schools are down, and school sales are a big factor for literary writers. Again,
I don’t think anyone’s collected any figures, but there’s been a shift in
schools towards Creative Writing exercises and courses, which require fewer
books and anthologies, and technical and journalistic (writing on public issue)
courses, which require none. The “English Department” in the schools, colleges
and universities is now teaching writing rather than writing through
literature. It may be too that fifty years of deconstructionist and
postmodernist attacks on the canon and questioning of the possibility of a
canon (i.e. of anthologies, class reading lists, courses on literary genres and
writers etc) has had an effect.
The Economist reports happier
authors as well as happier publishers: “Royalties from e-books are about 25% of
net receipts, compared with an average of around 16% in print. Careers can take
off faster.” The sole example given is E. L. James’s bondage-buster, Fifteen
Shades of Grey, which went from online to print. The book is part of a trilogy
that has sold 70 million copies, in paperback, to date.
Again, James’s experience might not seem
relevant to writers of literary novels — I haven’t read her so I don’t know how
she would be regarded. But she represents possibilities for literary writers if
they decide to approach e-book publishers or engage in self-publishing on the
web. It may be that, as the Economist implies, it’s easier (cheaper) to
advertise on the web as well as to publish. If you self-publish, you can with a
little practice and minimal expense create as attractive a product as any
mainline publisher. In print, this is impossible.
3.
What area of book publishing is suffering most? More specifically, are novel
sales suffering more than other kinds of books?
See #2. There’s no evidence that any area
of book publishing is in decline or that novel sales, specifically, are down.
Whether sales of “literary” books, including novels, is down depends on the
definition of “literary.”
4.
Are the declines linked to woes in the bricks-and-mortar retail sector, for
example, bankrupt/near-bankrupt independents and teetering book chains, or are
troubles in the retail trade the result, not the cause, of declining book sales?
Paul McNally’s article on this in Canadian
Notes and Queries 83 was a revelation to me. He was responding to CNQ’s
theme, “who killed CanLit?” His answer, based on his own experience running his
McNally-Robinson chain on the prairies, was that CanLit is “robust” and that small
brick-and-mortar stores can be profitable if they sell e-books as he does
(through Google’s Canadian e-bookstore) and serve as focal points for “regional
and literary [there’s that word again] books” that are self-published or
produced by small, local presses: “As a community institution, the independent
bookstore . . . has a lovely, serendipitous feel and sometimes, when the right
network of authors, friends, family, neighbors and colleagues gets together to
launch the book (and buy it), there’s a wonderful sense of work fulfilled and a
new beginning.”
In my own town, Prince George, we have a
small Coles in the mall and a fairly large independent downtown bookstore
called Books & Co. Books & Co. doesn’t sell e-books but is an outlet
for small-press books about the region or by local authors (from Caitlin Press,
Heritage, New Star, Repository, Gorse St. and Creekstone) or for a large array
of self-published books from students in the two creative writing courses (at
the college and the university) and from local writers. It has that feel that
McNally describes, augmented by the availability of food and coffee (Café
Voltaire) and by an endless series of musical events, plays, poetry readings,
and power-point presentations by photographers and travelers in the upstairs
theatre that can seat 100. Their website conveys the essence of what McNally is
talking about and allows customers to check events, arrange to put on their own
events, find out what books are in stock, participate in local causes (most
recently, to keep the print edition of the Globe and Mail coming into town)
etc.
Books and Co. also features a huge array of
remaindered books. I believe this feature has to do with the tax benefits
publishers receive when they get rid of their print runs. It’s also a great
service to readers. As often as not, I’m in the store to pick up books of
fairly fresh Canadian poetry (a weakness) for a dollar or two per copy.
