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23rd February 2010

Rant About the State of Publishing

Okay, so I'm no expert, right? But I still have the right to an opinion, hmm? I'm a regular visitor to the Bookseller.com website, Bookseller being a trade magazine for bookshops (I have fond memories of working in my University's bookshop at Buckinghamshire Chiltern's University, Hi Dave, if you're reading this!) and came across an article by a chap called Naim Attaullah, a writer and the Chairman of Quartet Books. The article was called something to the effect of 'Are Agents Needed?' and touched on the problems with the publishing industry today, which has got me on the soapbox too!

Now anyone in the know will tell you that all the big publishers are interested in at the moment is celebrity titles; ghost written biographies like 'Jordan' or rambling rants about stuff like 'Jeremy Clarkson', amongst others. Try getting a cookery book published in a genre dominated by celebrity chefs and you'll know what I mean. The other main trend that we've grown familliar with is the Attack of the Clones model (not the Star Wars movie), i.e. Harry Potter clones (Percy Jackson and the Lighting Thief, etc) and Twilight clones (Vampire Diaries, etc). Basically, these two models make a lot of money for publishers, agents and the handful of authors lucky to be selected for cloning.

What this is doing to the writing and publishing is destroying opportunities for new voices and the rare one off gems that occasionally appear in bookshops, like J D Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Even those writers who are lucky to get published find themselves desperately trying to get noticed whilst all the publicity and market share is horded for the authors that have money minting presses instead of inkjet printers. The biggest culprit in this picture is you (and me, and us) the reader for unwittingly feeding this machine by buying up all these clones and celeb titles, drawn in by the glitz and fooled by the glamour spell cast over them to make you desire them more than their literary merit, or even storytelling ability.

Here is my challenge, look out for new authors and pick up books that you wouldn't normally read, something different to what is currently the craze. Keep reading, keep writing.

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