10 Shocking Truths about Book Publishing

[AlexH]

She was 8 - loads of kids want to be famous when they were eight. I'm sure I did at one point. And the irony for the family - and the reason they mentioned it, iirc - is that she is now well known - the comment broke my heart.

The father was proud of her singing and dancing and her life - that's what shone through.

Ah, if it was the same interview which it seems to be - I didn't get that about the irony. I have to admit I didn't hear the beginning and was only half-listening to the radio when it was on. I got the impression it was someone in their teens for some reason.

 

[Ihe]

Man, this whole post from beginning to end is grim. So here's a vid that always cheers me up:

That article all but discourages serious authoring attempts--didn't like it one bit. I don't know how much truth/exactitude there's in its info, but golly, it reads like it was written by a struggling writer in a bid to discourage competition.

Maybe what we need is a "book detox" -- a law to prohibit new publications for a decade, to de-stress the market, let readers catch up with the unprecedented amount of books currently gathering dust, and get them hungry for the next wave of publications. This is to be repeated every 15-20 years. Grim indeed, because this idea actually makes sense to me, to some extent, haha...ha...

 

[MWagner]

There was a report on the radio a day or two ago that stated that, in the UK at least, kids now spend more time on the internet than watching TV. I almost think that is actually an improvement as with social media at least they are interacting in some way rather than just sitting watching the box like a vegetable

My kids barely watch TV, but they're on Youtube a lot. Basically, Youtube is TV to them. Which means all sorts of unedited, DIY content that can be inspiring, awful, or simply annoying. It has shown them that kids and young adults can create their own content for others to enjoy without jumping through a lot of hoops. It's an incredibly powerful tool.

I probably read less than 10 books from high school to my mid to late 20s - it's only the last few years I've started to read most days (I feel I've been missing out). Similarly with school friends - quite a few of my friends didn't start reading books regularly until their 20s. One who had never shown an interest as far as I was aware, suddenly started reading in his 30s. The three books I enjoyed most at high school were recommended by a friend, not any that were decided with the curriculum in mind, so that didn't help. Although we still had to read these three books, it just so happened we had a choice (it was Terry Pratchett my friend recommended). So if young adult is one of the biggest genres, who is reading them?

From what I understand, that is not a typical trajectory for reading. IIRC, if you haven't started reading for pleasure by 16, it's unlikely you ever will.

I know you guys are talking about a lot of kids not reading, well I know a lot of 30-60 year olds that never read. A lot. Hardly any one I know reads frequently, and I find it very strange. So I think it has to do with upbringing. My mom was always seen sitting in the sun with her nose in a book, so I picked up on it. And out of 4 boys, I by far read the most, while the others may be casual readers at best.

The stats bear that out. From the surveys I've seen, the peak reading years are 12 to 27. And most of the people over 30 who still read only read 1 to 3 books year. The key to a book becoming a blockbuster is getting it into the hands of those 1 to 3 books a year readers.

 

[Cathbad]

From the surveys I've seen, the peak reading years are 12 to 27. And most of the people over 30 who still read only read 1 to 3 books year.

Great! I'm finally an over-achiever!

 

[Justin Swanton]

My $100 000 question is this: of the mountain of published material coming out, how much is actually any good? Good characters, good plots, good writing? More than before?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Man, this whole post from beginning to end is grim. So here's a vid that always cheers me up:

That article all but discourages serious authoring attempts--didn't like it one bit. I don't know how much truth/exactitude there's in its info, but golly, it reads like it was written by a struggling writer in a bid to discourage competition.

Sadly not. I did a lot of research last year for a course on the writing business that I was running and this article is accurate. Worse, it understates some of the situation - like that Bookbub is featuring fewer indie authors, reducing visibility stil further, and the truly horrific fall off of sales by traditionally published debut authors. Career wrecking fall off.

 

[Vaz]

To be fair when I was eight, all I ever wanted to be was a Veliciraptor. (Thanks, Spielberg.)

I'm still working on my roar. Although my toenails on my big toes are massive!

Brian, can we have a dinosaur emoticon?

v

 

[Jo Zebedee]

To be fair when I was eight, all I ever wanted to be was a Veliciraptor. (Thanks, Spielberg.)

I'm still working on my roar. Although my toenails on my big toes are massive!

Brian, can we have a dinosaur emoticon?

v

Tmi, vaz. Tmi. Your toes are your own business.

 

[tinkerdan]

I'm always leery of these kinds of statistics::

The stats bear that out. From the surveys I've seen, the peak reading years are 12 to 27. And most of the people over 30 who still read only read 1 to 3 books year. The key to a book becoming a blockbuster is getting it into the hands of those 1 to 3 books a year readers.

:: However being nearly 66 and being married to someone 69 who reads at the minimum a book a day and thanks to e-books that's fewer trips the the library.
I read 3 books a week when I'm not writing and sometimes I can squeeze in more.
I suspect anyone reading 1-3 books a year is not going to be your blockbuster setter. In fact I know a few of those and they tend to either read non-fiction or literary works more than they would anything that I'd read or author. Those people have always read that much and in that manner.
Go to the library and collect your statistics and I think you might be able to improve those numbers.
I know plenty of people our age who can be found consistently at the library on those days the library sells off their older cast-off books and they leave with sacks full of books.(I don't think they buy them to use as food; however if that's so then maybe I should consider....)

Right now there is a glut of e-books and that more than anything is what might influence the statistics. There are more books available in the free to 99c block and despite the fact that those books are not considered as being runners in the market(because they seriously don't make the author money)that doesn't mean that they are not read(despite how horribly bad some of us think they are--and they are bad). I would almost guess when people start looking at the statistics they are missing a whole section of the market because of the notion of what might constitute a book and how much self published works are taken seriously by those collecting the statistics. However I also think that the readers of those might not even have ever shown up in statistics before inexpensive e-books.

These are people who would more likely borrow books or find them at yard sales rather than go out and purchase them new and possibly even some who just never wanted to waste money on books in the past.

Still I don't think things are as bad as pictured; or at least no more so than usual. I can recall several of my favorite traditional authors who have admitted --when giving interviews--that there was a long period of time where they could not rely on their income as an author as their only means of support. Some of them still have times when they struggle.

 

[Vaz]

Sharing is caring, Jo.

 

[Venusian Broon]

My $100 000 question is this: of the mountain of published material coming out, how much is actually any good? Good characters, good plots, good writing? More than before?

I think you'll find looking at any year most of the books will be, according to your taste, not good.

A while back I found a list of all the published books in the UK, from about 1800-1900 or so, I think. For a long period of time the greatest volume of books seemed to be discussions of the bible (spiritual or religious manifestos, rants???) Needless to say, they have all been forgotten. Occasionally in that list, once in a blue moon, you'd recognise a tiny sprinkling of classics in amidst the dross!

Now I suppose you could argue there is even more dross nowadays, however being brutally frank my system for cutting out a great deal of this is to rarely trust authors I don't know that are self-published, so taking that into account, the ratio of 'good' to 'dross' is probably the same as it has always been for me.

 

[MWagner]

:: However being nearly 66 and being married to someone 69 who reads at the minimum a book a day and thanks to e-books that's fewer trips the the library.
I read 3 books a week when I'm not writing and sometimes I can squeeze in more.

There are still heavy readers out there. I used to work in a used book store and we had regulars who bought multiple books a week. But most people read 0 to 5 books a year.

I suspect anyone reading 1-3 books a year is not going to be your blockbuster setter.

Hardcore readers have their favourites and their genres. They'll read the most popular books in their genre, and also support what's left of the mid-list. However, for a novel to really sell, it has to break out beyond that relatively small number of hardcore readers. A book needs a huge profile to make it onto the radar of those 1 to 5 book a year readers, who basically only read during holidays. Next time you're at an airport, beach, or pool, look at what people are reading. It's almost always a mega-seller. One year on vacation I counted no fewer than 12 people around the pool reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

 

[Parson]

Interesting thread. ---- I don't think that there's any doubt that a smaller percentage of people are reading for enjoyment. Nor, is there any doubt that there are a lot more offerings out there. So, the net result is that more people will make a few dollars, but few will make a living. There will always be a microscopic few who will do very well for themselves.

Being an author is not likely to do much for you financially unless you are extraordinarily lucky. ---- I'm unconvinced that being good at it has much to do with success at all. A lot of the Indie stuff I read (and I read a lot of it) is every bit as good as those on the best sellers list (and I read some of those). But the first will be very lucky to sell more than a thousand copies, and the second will have initial runs in the 10,000's (or more).

 

[Justin Swanton]

I think you'll find looking at any year most of the books will be, according to your taste, not good.

A while back I found a list of all the published books in the UK, from about 1800-1900 or so, I think. For a long period of time the greatest volume of books seemed to be discussions of the bible (spiritual or religious manifestos, rants???) Needless to say, they have all been forgotten. Occasionally in that list, once in a blue moon, you'd recognise a tiny sprinkling of classics in amidst the dross!

Now I suppose you could argue there is even more dross nowadays, however being brutally frank my system for cutting out a great deal of this is to rarely trust authors I don't know that are self-published, so taking that into account, the ratio of 'good' to 'dross' is probably the same as it has always been for me.

True, but the question is whether the proportions between dross and good stuff are the same. Is there more good stuff coming out that doesn't make it because there's too much of it, or is it just a case of a whole lot of people deciding they can write when they can't?

 

[tinkerdan]

When all is said and done though::

Hardcore readers have their favourites and their genres. They'll read the most popular books in their genre, and also support what's left of the mid-list. However, for a novel to really sell, it has to break out beyond that relatively small number of hardcore readers. A book needs a huge profile to make it onto the radar of those 1 to 5 book a year readers, who basically only read during holidays. Next time you're at an airport, beach, or pool, look at what people are reading. It's almost always a mega-seller. One year on vacation I counted no fewer than 12 people around the pool reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

:: It's the 11 plus and the 6-10 readers who is setting the bar for what books are popular and the 1-5 are using that to select theirs because they don't want to wade through so many books to find the trend setting books--they buy the cream of the crop and then push it further up, but don't necessarily determine it.

So even if the percentage shifts as they have that doesn't push the 1-5 into the power position. However the interesting part of the whole chart is that the percentage of uncommitted and non-readers has doubled over the years. However depending on growth in population the actual number of readers might still be growing.

 

[Ihe]

My $100 000 question is this: of the mountain of published material coming out, how much is actually any good? Good characters, good plots, good writing? More than before?

I assume that self-publishing authors are what fluff up the numbers of books out, in which case it's normal for the overall quality of material out there to drop. I'm not saying all self-pub is rubbish, and I'm not saying all trad-pub is good, but in the grand scheme of things, drawing averages, self-pub is much less regulated, and there are no real quality standards to uphold. So without being an expert, it seems logical to me that the surge in quantity would decrease overall quality, no question. The "good" book/"bad" book ratios cannot be the same as they were "back in the day". Disclaimer: it is worth noting that a "good" book is not necessarily a "successful" book, but you get my point.

I suspect anyone reading 1-3 books a year is not going to be your blockbuster setter. In fact I know a few of those and they tend to either read non-fiction or literary works more than they would anything that I'd read or author.

The 1-3 book-a-year-crowd don't really seem like genre readers to me (I know quite a few of them), so I don't know how skewed these stats are towards SFF in particular. 1-3s, they're happy to read the flavour of the month or best-selling cop thriller/rom. They follow trends, they don't set them. I would think genre garners, generally, more avid/loyal readers than the less-escapist lit. Then again, I'm assuming. Are there any stats on this?

How about crossing over from one genre to another? To me, SFF readers are every bit as exclusive in their choices as non-SFF readers. They won't usually mix. The average reader enjoying Mieville will never pick up Jane Austen, and vice-versa (probably not a good example though). I've always thought that general book sales and stats don't accurately reflect the patterns/problems/successes of SFF. But again, I'm talking outta my arse. If you've got more palpable data on this, please do show.

IMO, the rate of growth in numbers will eventually kill the industry as it is now. It seems clear to me there needs to be an evolution of platforms. We're in the dying Blockbuster age, and we need Netflix to come around and change the way business works. This all feels unsustainable long-term. I just hope this surge of books is just a cyclical phenomenon (as a writer and reader, I realize that's not very nice to say, but there's just so much fluff out there). Picking out a book to read nowadays has become such a lottery...

 

[MWagner]

The 1-3 book-a-year-crowd don't really seem like genre readers to me (I know quite a few of them), so I don't know how skewed these stats are towards SFF in particular. 1-3s, they're happy to read the flavour of the month or best-selling cop thriller/rom. They follow trends, they don't set them. I would think genre garners, generally, more avid/loyal readers than the less-escapist lit. Then again, I'm assuming. Are there any stats on this?

That's about right. The A Song of Ice and Fire books were about as popular as you can get in SFF, but they didn't really break out until Feast of Crows, which was the first to debut on the NY Times bestseller list. The word of mouth from the previous books had reached the 1-5 books a year crowd, who aren't fans of any particular genre. It was at this time that the publishers released the ASoIaF books in generic, non-nerdy cover editions. They knew they were reaching into the mass-market of readers who didn't want to be seen on the subway reading a book with a wolf and a guy in chainmail on the cover.

How about crossing over from one genre to another? To me, SFF readers are every bit as exclusive in their choices as non-SFF readers. They won't usually mix. The average reader enjoying Mieville will never pick up Jane Austen, and vice-versa (probably not a good example though). I've always thought that general book sales and stats don't accurately reflect the patterns/problems/successes of SFF. But again, I'm talking outta my arse. If you've got more palpable data on this, please do show.

That matches my experience working in a bookstore for several years. We had customers who bought 2-4 SFF books a week, customers who bought 2-4 romances a week, and customers who bought a couple mysteries a week. But very few who would walk up to the counter with a SFF, a romance, and a mystery.

 

[Venusian Broon]

True, but the question is whether the proportions between dross and good stuff are the same. Is there more good stuff coming out that doesn't make it because there's too much of it, or is it just a case of a whole lot of people deciding they can write when they can't?

My personal views on this are (i.e. no evidence)...there is probably more good stuff coming out now, but, at least for me, the explosion of self-published work that in many cases would have been stopped in the slush pile a few decades ago, is not the reason that I don't get to all this stuff. I think I can pick a good read using a variety of different sources, knowledge and experience.

The reason I'd say new good stuff coming out might not be signposted and possibly be as successful as it deserves is that the market is saturated by all the old good stuff that I haven't got round to reading yet. Which unfortunately as a list of books to read, can only get larger and larger as I get older

 

[Cathbad]

I have found myself "happily vindicated", regarding an argument I had decades ago, with some very good friends. It was my contention that there are an overabundance of good writers out there - if they would only be given the chance. Their counter was that "the cream rises to the top", supporting the contention that only "The Best" get published. Yet, I've seen a lot of novels come out of the big publishing houses that belonged in the trash.

Even Stephen King has some bowsers out there that sold only because of his name.

Since self-publishing became easy, I have read over a hundred novels from self-published authors. The vast majority of them have offered well-told stories. A handful have been superior. And in a few cases, I have found authors who are at least as good as the Big Money Authors. The only area I've seen suffer a bit is the quality of editing. Most authors - including myself - aren't great editors of their own work. But save for a few cases, these editing errors didn't take away from my reading pleasure.

I know it is disturbing how many books are being published now - for authors trying to make a living off their writing. But we can't dismiss these books as "faulty", or out of hand say they're of lesser quality - because for the most part, it just isn't so.

I have mixed feelings, but for the most part, as a reader, I'm happy with the increased offerings.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I must be in the minority then - I read sff, crime, thriller, general fiction, biographies, the back of the cereal packet, YA - all sorts, magical realism, Irish, the postcode book, non fiction, horror, Amish romance

I might have lied about one....