Let us not quibble about definitions. Writers and readers know what I mean. These are the novels that offer an experience that cannot be slotted into any genre category, stories that move the mind and the heart, and explore the human condition by authors whose need to tell these long stories of the imagination is a sacred calling.
Read more: Are the Rules of Engagement for Serious Novels Changing?
It may be time for the media that covers the book business to stop publishing best seller lists. They are, in today’s book choosing environment, disorienting, unhelpful and confusing, a valiant but failed attempt to make sense out of disorder.
Read more: Are Best-seller Lists Irrelevant?
For fiction writers in search of a publishing outlet, these are the best of times. For fiction writers in search of readers, this is the worst of times. For fiction writers in search of monetary rewards it is, for most, a disaster.
The challenges for genre fiction writers, those who fashion their stories within the confines of categories such as mysteries, romance, fantasy, zombies, vampires, erotic, and all the subgenres within them, are enormous. If such writers are unbranded and unknown, the odds of finding readership traction in an arena where thousands enter the fray daily are daunting.
Read more: Fiction in Flux
Don’t believe all that hype about government interference that is designed to foster an Amazon monopoly of the ebook business. What the six major publishers were alleged to have done was collude in fixing prices that, if true, was a desperate act that they must have known would fall afoul of anti-trust laws.
The new ploy by book publishers is to characterize Amazon as a monopoly poised to take over and dictate terms and run rampant over those who create ebook content. That is like saying Starbucks is a monopoly because it currently dominates the coffee retail business.
Read more: Don’t Believe the E-Book Monopoly Ploy
It is no small thing to write a book. It takes dedication, concentration, discipline, singleness of purpose, long hours of isolation and, above all, ideas. Years ago, before the rise of the Internet and the ease of digitization and the proliferation of e-readers, those who self-published were considered the bottom of the publishing barrel, rejected by mainline and established publishers, ignored by agents and dismissed as ego-centric wannabes.
For many who had hopes and dreams of obtaining authorial credentials by being taken on by the publishers who controlled the marketplace and the distribution chain, the prospects were grim to nil. Publishers and agents relegated their manuscripts to what the industry referred to as the “slush pile” and most, if not all manuscripts, were returned unread by clerks who inserted printed rejection slips and returned the manuscripts in self-postage ready envelopes.
Read more: Let’s Hear it for the Self-Published Author
You’ve spent months, perhaps years, composing your novel. You’ve read and reread it hundreds of times. You’ve rethought it, rewritten it, and revised it, changed characters, dialogue, and plot lines. Writing it is the most important thing in your life. The writing of your novel has absorbed your attention, almost exclusively. Both your conscious and your subconscious mind have been obsessed with it. You have read parts of it to your friends, family, former teachers. Most think it’s wonderful.
You have finally considered it finished. Armed with optimism and self-confidence, you obtain a list of agents on the Internet and begin to canvas agents. You agonize over whether to send your precious manuscript to one agent at a time or to a number of agents. You choose the first option.
Read more: On Rejection and Renewal: A Note to Aspiring Novelists
For centuries, the author of a book has been a revered figure, a symbol of intellectual achievement, wisdom and wit, brilliance and, above all, prestige. Indeed, the book, whatever its contents, has been an item of iconic significance.
It is no wonder that a large percentage of people want to write a book. Some have motives that their composition in the covers of a book, however defined as a physical entity or a cyber product, will make them rich and famous; some see such an achievement as an expression of their persona, their point of view, their record of a life lived, a work of the imagination and the fulfillment of a secret wish for immortality.
Read more: Author, Author
The electronic punditry, with their technological, elitist mindset, is now making noises that the single-use e-readers like Kindle, Nook and the SONY Reader are merely stopgap devices that will one day merge into the tablet, offering immersion reading, like the novel requires, as merely one of a million other ways to gain “information” and fill leisure time.
They argue that a single-use device is inherently obsolete in the face of the multitasking onslaught of the tablet, which packages in one carry-around-gadget everything one needs for the fulfillment of most communication activities from video to gaming to record keeping, scheduling, shopping and most other entertainment and information requirements.
Read more: Will the Tablet Kill the Novel?
Lost in the conversation of the impact of eBooks is the plight of the mainstream novelist, who writes books that fit no genre category but nevertheless represent the crown jewels of the authorial world, the lynchpin of the trade publishing business.
It is these long form fictional compositions that will eventually be lost in the shuffle during the giant tsunami of material in this non-genre category that is now engulfing the Internet.
Read more: The Plight of the Mainstream Novelist
So, Amazon is to become the official publisher of its own books. It was, of course, bound to happen, too tempting to resist. After all, it does represent a large chunk of the retail book business and does operate its own production and distribution facilities both through its Kindle and print sites.
In effect, it now competes not only with its suppliers (meaning other publishers), large and small, but also with other authors, both traditionally published and a giant wave of self-published authors.
Read more: The Publishing Civil War
After years of agony, the demise of Borders was as predictable as the sunset. It was like the horse and buggy murdered by the horseless carriage. It is sad and hurtful to many people who worked there but no crystal ball was needed. Its time had come.
The brick and mortar chain stores are probably doomed and what remains will contract and eventually succumb as more and more readers morph to screen reading on devices.
Read more: Beyond Borders
While I have often patted myself on the back for recognizing more than fifteen years ago that e-books would one day surpass the printed book as the ultimate first choice of dedicated readers everywhere, I had not reckoned on the unintended consequences of an unfiltered tsunami of self-published books that would one day overtake the traditional distribution patterns of the publishing industry.
The number of self-published e-books has surpassed and will continue to surpass, by far, books published through the time-honored process of editing and distribution that has been the practice of publishing companies for centuries.
Read more: E-Books: Unintended Consequences
The announcement that Penguin Books is getting into the self-publishing genre fiction game was inevitable. Under the guise of a talent search, a la “American Idol,” Penguin and other publishing entities, including many startups soon to overload the field, the promise of so-called “literary” fame and fortune will be the lure and the goal of the sponsors, as always, will be profits.
In general terms, here is the way it will work. Authors with hopes and dreams of becoming known genre writing brands will post their work in the various genres and sub-genres in the fields of romance, detective, fantasy, science fiction, vampires, zombies and on and on into numerous subcategories within subcategories.
Read more: A Dose of Realism for Aspiring Authors
In another few weeks, I will be moving to another apartment in the same building in Manhattan where I have spent the past few years. While moving in itself is a traumatic event as everyone knows, my principal problem is books.
I have a huge collection of books. In the three or four major moves in my lifetime I have culled, boxed, given away and donated thousands of books. During each nesting experience, however, I have acquired yet more books and have repeated the culling process each time. I could never pass a bookstore without buying one or more books.
Read more: My Book Problem
I am a great fan of Apple products, own an Apple computer and an iPhone, but I am not yet convinced that the upcoming iPad will dominate as the reading device of choice for e-books. This does not mean that it won’t find its place for all the other applications, especially games and movies and the avalanche of coming iPad apps. Indeed, the technical aspects of the reading experience might even be somewhat superior, albeit temporary, to what is now available in reading devices exclusive to e-books e.g. Kindle and the SONY reader.
Read more: The iPad and the Dedicated Reader
