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State of Publishing 2001
If you have published two or three novels but sales are thin, that might well be the end of the writing road for you unless, in a deft sleigh of hand, you combine the business wisdom of re-branding coupled with the self-creation of a fictional persona, credible name included. Let me explain. If your first two novels don't roll in a significant profit, no matter how potent or latent your writing proves to be, publishers will balk: they're likely to reject your third novel, even if it's better than its predecessors. It's a scenario that illustrates the tribulations of the current state of the publishing industry - many mainstream publishers these days only churn out books that they calculate would generate a turnover of at least œ50,000. If your first or second novel struggle with this financial test, you could change publishers, or move to another country, or hail your third novel as a first novel. Or you might opt for an alias.
Victoria Barnsley, CEO of HarperCollins, had been insinuating this business strategy, otherwise called re-branding, when someone in the audience asked, "Do you recommend that a writer changes his name in those circumstances?" Her answer was immediate and emphatic. "Yes."
This cruel situation provoked in me a sense of loathing, but also a sense of sardonic zest; already, I started rolling names in my imagination, fanciful names that might become future bylines or pen-names. All around me, the evening had pitched to a din of animation, the hushed and breathless moments ripped by the clamour of collective dry sniggers and occasional jeering. There were about 200 hundred of us crowding the hall for the Society of Authors event that rose to the occasion of its title - Survival Tactics for Authors - which suggested some type of guerrilla-style drill. The panel, too, fizzed with promise; besides Barnsley, there was the senior literary agent Giles Gordon, and Nick Perren, John Murray's managing director.
The event started by each member of the panel delivering a prelude of five to ten minutes. Barnsley spoke about the changes in how the industry makes business in the last decade, about the publisher mergers (the "conglomerates"), and the emergence of large, chain booksellers, coupled with the demise of independent and specialised bookshops. She pointed out that bookshops now expect to turn out books rapidly: like clothes, it seems, books are now perishables with short shelf-life, subject to fads and quirky cultural blips. It's these developments that are driving the current obsession with notorious, brand-name authors whose names are plastered on the cover in more prominent typography than the title itself, and whose books grace every shop-window of every bookshop up and down the country; the authors, in other words, bestowed by six-figure advances and unlimited champagne. Barnsley hinted that the big-name writers allow publishers the leeway of profit to publish less profitable writers, the "midlist authors" that skulk on the verges of obscurity - This is the service we can afford you, she seemed to be implying. Her denouement: "It's tougher to get published today than five years ago, but if you come up with new writing, with original writing, you will be published." Hardly anything new in that statement, but the fact remains that sales of fiction are flat, and that's worrisome for writers as well as publishers.
Nick Perren, next on the panel, comes from a different league. He owns one of the few surviving family-run, small, independent publishers. The good news is that his outfit is netting its fair share of the market; as a dwarf among giants, it thrives still; its business viability is not threatened. One of the main reasons for this, he said, is the accessibility created by the advancements of publishing technology that gives small publishers the same logistical and technological capabilities as the conglomerates. Indeed, the cost of publishing is constantly falling, and the technology that is leading to print-on-demand has, in a way, opened the door for fringe authors that don't slot into the mass market category. He said, "Your challenge as writers is to be guided to the publishers who are the best for you." This is an apt point: our tendency is to knock on the doors of well-known, large and prestigious publishers, but inevitably large publishers only wean and promote the big titles or big writers, while small publishers, unencumbered by bureaucracy, are more likely to cultivate promising, emerging writers.
Even before he beats out a rapid salvo of anecdotes, you sense in Giles Gordon's perky mannerism and the way he flounces his head in the habit of a flitting bird that he was a rebellious kid. A literary agent for thirty-six years, he pitched his introduction with incisive wisecracks mocking everyone in the industry: the publishers for fawning top writers, for their inaccessibility, and for their bewildering bureaucracies; agents for their mediocrity; and writers for their self-absorption and triteness. He said, "Most books published are completely unnecessary." He dismissed agents as a "necessary evil" who could wriggle through publishers' monstrous bureaucracies; he instructed us to send a manuscript to three agents. And he provoked ruptures of gleeful giggles, but no one laughed when he said, "If you can't find an agent or a publisher, have the courage to give up writing." Later, he let drop that, "I am a failed writer."
Among the questions that followed the introductions, there were the usual mundane, commonsensical time-wasters. "Do author's web sites help?" "How can writers promote their own books better?" Perhaps inevitably given writers' perception of injustice, the discussion at times degenerated into the usual hounding game: writers mobbing the publishers for better deals and recognition and understanding of writers' dilemmas, much like factory floor-workers may pester their employer for better wages. "How do we survive when we are waiting for a publisher to reply to a submitted manuscript?" "What happened to publishers' readers?" There is an element of justification in these protestations; unless you're a well-known writer, you're dispensable. At times it seems that publishers and editors are closeted in their towers while we're out in the cold, hoping to get a foot in the door or sneak in through the window or piggyback on networking - partly, this perception is true; partly, it's one of the myths that sustain one of the inherent anxieties of this profession. Sadly, there are still persistent misunderstandings between publishers and editors versus writers; editors find writers self-absorbed fiddlers, randomly swinging from moods of inflated egos to seizures of anxiety; writers find editors cold, insensitive and hard to pin down. "Publishers need writers," someone in the audience asserted. We need publishers too, and if you're an overworked editor, it's impossible to meticulously sift through the fifty unsolicited manuscripts that land on your desk every week.
Throughout the evening we coalesced in the recognition that we are - publishers and writers - in the same boat, or at least in the same sea. If writers' income is pitiful, so are most editors' wages; plumbers (I don't mean condescension here) make more money, but then again none of us are in this industry for lavish earnings. What's this thing about making a living from creating meanings by stringing words together? Or by reading books and deciding which ones are publishable, which ones are brilliant, and how to improve each one of them, how to make the words sing and a character blaze across the page? It's art, and if there is a contradiction in the current state of publishing, it is that publishers and booksellers are trying to be more scientific, more cautious, more methodical, treating books as consumer products rather than pieces of art; perhaps, instead of asking why a book shouldn't be published, they need to ask why a book should be published. We should also strive to see writing as an art, and that means everyone has an opinion about a piece of writing, and that it's erratic, random, difficult, unfair - it's talent, but it's also a fluke.
At the event there was unanimity on three points. One, too many books are published; just under 120,000 last year, including 10,000 fiction titles. That's equivalent to 27 works of fiction in the UK every day - how can we expect even a fraction of them to register commercial success? How many novels does the average reader consume every year? Two, too many mediocre books are published. Three, we need less writers and more readers. "Every second person wants to be a writer," said Giles Gordon. But no one mentioned that a significant percentage of readers are either writers or wannabe writers, the most voracious of all readers; indeed, the swell of readers who sustain the industry in loyalty and servility.
© Victor Paul Borg
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