February 11, 2009
Blah Blah publishing is in it's death throes… Comments Off
Collins, the confused stepchild of HarperCollins, grandson and last avatar of the venerable publisher William Collins, and relic of a more optimistic time in America – the year 2004 – died today at the age of 4. The causes were multiple: neglect, mixed messages, gluttony, and an epidemic of stagnation that has decimated American book publishing.
- Jessa Crispin
Personally, I think the publishing industry has been teetering on the brink of disaster for a lot longer than this. It’s been propped up by mega-stores, aggressive business practices, and “tentpole” bestsellers that covered for the sad fact that 90%-99% of everything in a modern bookstore is complete crap. Which is nothing new in the slightest, but if you’re going to hop around bemoaning the death of modern publishing, you’re gonna have to give me a better excuse than things have only recently gone to hell in a handbasket.
I say this as someone who loves books, loves reading, and has no problem with B level genre work; but authors are far too often getting paid to produce crappy books. When I was a young’n I had no problem paying for crappy books (genre and otherwise) because a) I could get four “stripped” books for a buck at the local flea market and b.) I did not have the internet. The internet gives me my fill of low to mid quality writing (and some stunningly high quality gems here and there) delivered right to my desk (and ebook reader) with perfect convenience, has the benefit of coming with a whole community of like minded folks, and is almost free. (Not counting the cost of the computer and ‘net access, which I’d be paying anyway, seeing as I use said computer and internet every single day anyway.) With that in mind, why do publishing companies seriously expect me to pay money to read work that I wouldn’t give a second glance in a fic community?
When I say crap work, I don’t mean that the story bored me or the characters failed to interest me (though that does happen). No, I mean grammar and sentence quirks for the hell of it. (You are not the second coming of William Faulkner, and even if you were I’d have a problem with turning a sentence into origami ’cause I hate Faulkner like burning.) I mean plot points appearing out of thin air and disappearing into black holes. I mean overuse of maguffins, slipshod research, editors with no spine who think that making sure there are no misspellings constitutes doing their job and 300 page stories expanded into 3 volume “trilogies” just because that’s what everyone else is doing.
I mean the only redeeming feature of the book being the jacket art. I mean mary sues all over the damm place. I mean cultural appropriation that would start a gosh-darn flame war. I mean sex scenes that would have posters questioning if the author was still a virgin. I mean battles that would have posters wondering if the author even knew which end of a sword or gun went in one’s hand.
I mean every single waste of a dead tree that makes me want to cry every time I walk into Barnes and Noble. (And let me note, the first time I walked into a mega-bookstore at the wee age of 17, I thought I’d reached the promised land. Not so anymore.)
Every time I see shelves laden with these modern publishing miracles, the only thought in my head is someone got paid to write this. Someone got paid to market this. How stupid do they think we are?. You wonder why the publishing industry is dying now? I wonder how it survived until now. Publishers need to stop whining about declining sales, ebook readers, and text to speech devices. Consumers can start screaming for better books… or we can take ourselves over to das internets and find the better writing our owndamnselves. Which, if you haven’t noticed, is what we’ve been doing all along. And it’s working out pretty well. Unless some huge sea change happens to happen, it’s what I plan on doing well into the future.