(In which we institute another occasional series, this one devoted to taking second, more considered looks at articles previously linked.)
There is much that is sensible, if scarcely groundbreaking, in Lev Grossman’s recent Time Magazine essay on publishing and the digital age. To be sure, the business of publishing has always felt the effects of technology; and there is a good deal that is wrong – ridiculous, even – about the way parts of the business of publishing are conducted.
But in his defense of self-publishing, Grossman makes what seems to me a fundamental error when he conflates sales with quality:
In theory, publishers are gatekeepers: they filter literature so that only the best writing gets into print. But Genova and Barry and Suarez got filtered out, initially, which suggests that there are cultural sectors that conventional publishing isn't serving.
Grossman tries to hedge things here a bit, suggesting that “best” might not speak to all “cultural sectors,” but one can reasonably argue with the overriding implication that the self-published success stories to which he alludes deserved a place among what he calls “the best writing” (a designation loose enough to be nearly meaningless but one we can take at face value for the purpose of this discussion to mean writing of the highest quality, cavils about cultural sectors notwithstanding).
But a look at any week’s best seller list is unlikely to turn up much in the way of “the best writing” – commercially successful writing, yes – but, as often as not, it’s writing that provides easy and familiar consolation, and after the financial rewards are spent, these works are unlikely to be remembered for the quality of their writing.
From everything I have seen, when agent or an editor chooses to take a chance on a book, it represents a calculation of some sort, a best-bet hunt for that elusive nexus of creative and commercial value – with a large dose of gut check. Given the costs of publishing, and the often small rewards, it’s understandable all sorts of authors, including those Grossman notes, might get passed over. But to sign someone who has successfully self-published is not necessarily a validation of overlooked good writing (though it’s possible) – it can simply be a no-brainer business decision, publishing's closest thing to a sure bet..
As I said at the outset, there is much that rings true in Grossman’s essay, and no one doubts that the next ten years in publishing will be, in the words of the apocryphal Chinese curse, an interesting time. But the biggest problem with Grossman’s essay is that he sidesteps almost entirely questions of quality. There are passing nods to “gatekeepers” but he seems to suggest that cell phone novels, fan fiction and other self-published efforts should be taken as seriously as, say, Ian McEwan and Zadie Smith, simply because there are people willing to read these things (and sometimes pay for the privilege). He doesn’t even gesture toward the notion that all books are not created equal, doesn’t once concede that much of his “wild diversity” consists of dreadful writing. When he suggests that “Novels will compete to hook you in the first paragraph and then hang on for dear life,” he is describing Hollywood, not literature – and certainly not “the best writing.” And with his formulation of Old Publishing – read: hidebound corporate behemoths – versus New Publishing – read: agile digital niche marketers – he leaves out a vital center. Companies like Soft Skull and Europa, to name only two, do not follow his model – they eschew big advances and are flexible in ways closer to their digital counterparts. There’s nothing “entrenched” about them.
I do agree with Grossman that the future will be found in various digital formats. I see it in my nephew and niece who text and surf and are wholly at home in an online world. But I’ve also seen the pleasure with which they kick back and open the pages of a physical book – “bespoke, art-directed” all the way – and I know that there is more to publishing’s future than is dreamt of in Grossman’s philosophy.
Big advances are not the impediment to publishing quality fiction. The impediments are: 1. Low demand, 2. A marketplace in which giant, cartel-like retailers dominate 3. High overhead/plant costs associated with book manufacturing. Soft Skull, Europa, and their counterparts and not immune to any of these. Of course they don't compete with the corporate giants for high advances - it doesn't even enter their calculations, or the calculations of the agents who submit works to them. A publisher may easily lose a fortune - and small houses are terribly susceptible to this - on a book (if it produces a lot of them and sells few) for which they pay no advance at all.
The other day I went to Alibris to purchase an out-of-print title that by quality standards ought never to have gone out of print. The Alibis copy cost over $200, so I exercised the only other option I had: I went to the main brach of the New York Public Library, requested copy from the stacks, and, after about 5 minutes at the copy machine, left with a perfect xerox copy of the book. It cost me about $15.
My question, though, is: why should any quality book be unavailable right now? Of course, Harry Mulisch and De Bezige Bij got gipped out of a royalty, but l'll make it up to them somehow. In fact, had I bought the book new, say as a $14 paperback, he would most likely make a $1 royalty off me, and Harry himself, as the beneficiary of a 75/25 split, would receive .$75. lf we add on the publisher's costs, which in this case would only entail only the royalty, costs of scanning (which I accomplished in 5 minutes with crappy public equipment), and making the digital version available on the internet (in a new title there would be editorial, typesetting, and translation costs, but none of these should adhere to the reissue of an out of print book), it would seem that the publisher could make a healthy profit by selling this title digitally for $4 or $5. (For a print edition there is no way that they could make a profit - at a $14 retail price - unless they sold a few thousand copies.) In my ideal ideal world this would be so.
Also, though Grossman's examples seem to equate quality with commercial success, it is true that works of undeniable merit are excluded from the marketplace for commercial reasons.
This is all to say that Old Publishing is in fact currently doing much less to vindicate your definition of "quality" as Grossman's.
Posted by: Dagger DiGorro | February 03, 2009 at 10:11 AM
Grossman also ignores the fact that publishing is doing no worse that just about every other industry in America, and far better than many.
I'm not sold on digital reading in the immediate future, not completely — not while used books are $2/per and libraries provide free books, but an digital device costs $200. Reading becomes no easier or more attractive to the majority of consumers just because it is suddenly in digital form. If it were, PDFs would have overturned publishing already. There's no real incentive for a culture-wide shift, at least not soon; and even when it comes, what about children's books and art books? The physicality and the printing are half the point.
Posted by: Daniel E. Pritchard | February 03, 2009 at 11:10 AM
I wonder if that Chinese curse was to do with 'written times' and those vital talks on, 'saving planet earth'. Recycle, recycle, recycle.
Digitally speaking, that is.
Posted by: Lit Media Reviews | February 03, 2009 at 12:58 PM
I think even the staunchest defenders of print ought to concede that, in the year 2009, for the publishing industry to have developed no significant electronic market for their products places them somewhere in the strata beyond lame where only GM execs reside.
It's just a good thing they excel in their role as "cultural gatekeepers."
Posted by: Dagger DiGorro | February 03, 2009 at 01:12 PM
For quality literary fiction that sells in low volume, print-on-demand paperbacks present a viable option. The quality of POD is very good and if you go with the right vendor(Lightning Source - owned by Ingram book distributors) then the per-print cost to the publisher is very low.
Everyone is talking about digital alternatives but I suspect most readers of literary fiction would prefer to have a printed book in hand. As a book designer I can confirm that the quality of POD paperbacks for a text-only book such as a novel is more than acceptable. And, of course, POD-produced books never go out-of-print.
Posted by: Jeff | February 03, 2009 at 04:42 PM
The notion of large house publishers as gate-keepers is not exact; big publishers are part of corporate entities. Their goal is profit. The books they decide to publish are geared towards the bottom line.
That's a big difference from say twenty to thirty years ago where there were publishing houses like FSG, or bigger houses that owned smaller imprints, where these companies were known for publishing the best - especially in terms of literary fiction. I don't think you can say that now about Knopf.
Gate-keepers are essential to a reader; like a library, they choose and edit book selections; that alone is a huge help to a reader. However, their choices, and the reasons behind their choices, are different today. Publishing houses are more like movie studios; they publish books motivated by what they believe(via marketing and advertising group-think) the readers want. They don't necessarily publish the best.
Posted by: Vince Montague | February 03, 2009 at 06:29 PM
Great post. There was a lot I liked about Grossman's piece and a lot I found lacking, and you've neatly unpacked the latter here. Thanks.
Posted by: Doug Seibold | February 04, 2009 at 09:07 AM
Mark, as you noted, the essay would have been more accurate if it described publishing houses as gatekeepers of commercially viable books rather than great writing. For a preview of publishing's future, look no further than newspapers -- or newsweeklies such as Time. Their audience and revenue streams have been carved up by sites ranging from Huffington Post to Craigslist, so they're scrambling to redefine themselves. "Quality" becomes an almost irrelevant term in the new world, where everyone has a personal itch and can easily acquire digital information to scratch it.
Posted by: Dave at Read Street | February 04, 2009 at 11:33 AM