I'm Not Happy to Serve You: Authors and the New Publishing by Consensus
Perhaps I'm typical in that I became a writer because I don't feel like dealing with you. I certainly don't feel like doing what you say. Well, not you, but You. You know what I mean, don't You?
Am I alone in my sense that writing for a living is partly about enjoying the act of writing, and partly about an inability (unwillingness?) to tether your efforts to the larger efforts of larger interests -- The Agency, The Firm, the Glossy Magazine -- for which you will not get credit? Unless you get a byline. In which case, you do it for the clip. But you do so grudgingly, if you are like most people who write; we (I hate to presume, but in this case I can) tend to play best alone.
Sure, there are other writers and editors, and your agent and your publicist who are, thankfully, "people people." And I think I speak for a lot of people who write when I say, nothing personal, but that's enough.
And so a recent article in the New Yorker about Alloy Entertainment nearly made me choke on my Skittles. These people are ruining the lives of extremely-non-bestselling authors everywhere -- by doing it all backwards. Instead of a writer deciding, "I'll spend the next three years writing about this topic that may compel millions, or may compel them to ignore me and buy the new Dean Koontz novel," then selling her agent and a publisher on the idea, Alloy dispenses with the quirky writerly obsessions all together. And the writers.
They do this by figuring out what their audience wants to read, and then delivering it. Alloy -- which "packages about thirty books a year for publishers, and also generates television shows ... and ideas for feature films" -- starts with loads of market research about their audience (teen girls). Armed with that understanding, they have pitch sessions for books that are described as "a swine-flu-meets-Lord of the Flies scenario thing" and "a Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants version of Marley and Me" and "a reverse Taken and a dark, grounded Nancy Drew." Once a book that combines the best of Marley and Me and swine flu is approved for "production," the executives and underlings sketch out a detailed "treatment." Finally, those pesky details: they hire a writer to whip something up on spec. The writer is not a big idea person; the writer is not someone with a passionate desire to tell a story. The writer isn't even a craftsman. The writer is the content provider. Well, a content provider.
It's not for me to say that this particular model is good for the publishing industry, or the way of the future, or Satan's spawn. All I can say is that it makes me want to throw up. Because I didn't become a writer so that I could be a market researcher who tailors my thinking and writing to the interests of the people who made fun of me in high school. I became a writer so I could try to bend people to my will -- Wow, this topic is so interesting! -- or at the very least work on something that I cared about enough to finish, to promote, and believe in sufficiently to spend my days talking to readers and potential readers about it.
Meanwhile, I have sold something like 43 books while 18 of Alloy's 28 titles from last year became best sellers. So perhaps we should all try this writing by consensus thing, and maybe then J.K. Rowling and that woman who wrote Twilight will teach us the secret handshake and say, "Aren't you glad you came over to this side?" "Yesssss," my husband will shout with an arm pump. "Now I can be a househusband!"
Oh, you're thinking, What's the big deal? Is the Alloy method so different from everyone sitting around at a woman's magazine meeting pitching features while the EIC shoots some down and farms some out and dreams of mega circulation? Or from the author who doesn't want to write a tenth book that nobody reads asking her agent, "Do you think X is a topic that might get some attention?"
Maybe Alloy's formulaic approach is nothing new. And maybe it's against all logic and all realities of the current market that I want so badly to retain my admittedly romantic concept of book writing: that it is an undertaking in which the writer serves not exactly what she thinks others want, but also what she wants to write about. And she and her idea and the reader manage to find each other -- against the odds, online and in bookstores and thanks to the meddling of friends and siblings and mothers and book groups and rabbis -- because they are meant to. I imagine this coming together as the torrid affair that turns into the passionate and committed love of a lifetime, to Alloy's cunningly arranged and cynical marriages. But then, I'm a writer.
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I don't see how anyone can make the argument (as someone does below) that quirky writers owe their livelihood to publishers who would take an approach like Alloy's.
More like Elizabeth Shroud's unpredictably break-out bestsellers and other huge, unexpected hits with heart pave the way for writers to continue doing what they do. Or even Jonathan Kellerman, and others like him with big sales like him who make it possible for publishers to take more risks with first time writers or less obviously marketable works. But as for the Alloy type model, I concur with Martin that it would do the opposite--ultimately make the author expendable. There's no authorship if we completely jettison the concept of the auteur as Alloy does when they cook up a concept and farm it out to a writer. And having worked in publishing I have to laugh at anyone who thinks that not becoming a bestseller means a book "isn't as good as you think it is."
It's more like the concept of the "tentpole" movie in Hollywood: stuff like TRANSFORMERS sets the studio's bottom line for the year and consequently lets them make stuff that isn't expected to do big business like SIDEWAYS.
I, too, am a writer, but what I took away from the article was the fact that more than half their books are bestsellers, ergo half their writers are bestselling authors. How many of us can say the same? I think many writers who have slaved over a novel to never have it sell would love to have those years of their lives back. Dismissing a book because a committee came up with an idea is just snobby.
Last time I checked publishing was a business, and it sound like the folks at Alloy are pretty good business people. If people want to buy their books, what's the problem? If you think the only way people will buy your book is if it exists without some pulpy alternatives, maybe your book isn't as good as you think it is.
According to the New Yorker article, most of that money goes to Alloy, not the writers they hire. The money is good, but not great compared to how much the company makes.
A lot of people also make the argument that blockbuster books enable publishers to take risks on less marketable titles. But I don't see that happening. It seems to me the publisher's reasoning would be--well, if that schlocky book made us a fortune, why not create another one and double our fortune? It would take a very altruistic publisher to use a cash cow to pay for a bunch of risky books.
So the problem is, as long as readers are willing to make bestsellers out of books by Dan Brown and Sarah Palin, there will be less variety, less range of literature published and made available to the reading public.
Dan Brown got to where he is by telling an entertaining story, which is ultimately what people want.
Nicholas Sparks got to where he is today by doing a little market research: he looked at the New York Times Bestseller List, noted that Tom Clancy, Stephen King and Michael Crichton almost always occupied the top five slots, and intentionally chose to steer clear of their genres.
Stuart Kaminsky also did work-for-hire books.
See Wednesday Martin's Profile
Black JAC,
You have to do some market research to sell a book, of course! The longest section of a book proposal is often the marketing section and publishers really want to make sure a writer has done her research. I used to work in market research, and don't have any problem with the idea that you have to prove a book is going to sell to the publisher you're pitching it to.
As for work for hire, thank goodness for it. It's a long tradition and often the only way for a writer to make a buck.
Alloy's up to something new and different, though--producing books to demand with the writer counting least in many ways. We'lll see what happens...
Back around 1999, when THE X-FILES was The Show, this one crime drama was making the rounds of the major networks. It was set in a somewhat isolated tourist town with a major case of Cabot Cove Syndrome in a landlocked Flyover state without any major league sports teams. It had no car chases or gun battles. The hero wasnt some grizzled ex-narc living in some cool place like a loft or a boat but a science nerd living in a townhouse. Further, that science nerd wasn't even a cop, and needed some paunchy, balding cop from New Jersey to tag along and do all the stuff a non-cop can't do like arrest people The guy who created it was not a cop or an entrenched producer but a tram driver from that same tourist town, and his wife was a cocktail waitress. Pretty much all the networks shot it down, very likely on the grounds of its snoozefest title of CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION.
Ya just don't know what's going to set the trend.
Personally, I'd love to read a dark, grounded Nancy Drew. But your point is well made, and though not a writer (except at The Agency), I am as a reader appalled by this trend. Thanks for writing. I enjoy your take on things (so far).
Wednesday, you have captured the essence of so much that is wrong with mainstream American culture: community-mindedness has become hijacked by commodity-mindedness. The celebrity tale or Alloy style creation holds center stage. The passion and commitment of independent writers willing to stretch themselves - by telling a story that without first culling approval for their topic through market research -- is increasingly relegated to the margins. The silver lining: market research can never ascertain what will excite the public imagination NEXT. Nor can pablum sate the hunger readers feel for information and perspectives that the media - market researched thoroughly as it is - withholds. I love your piece. Thank you for posting it!
Marty Babits, LCSW
Author, The Power of the Middle Ground
*NOBODY* knows what's going to generate interest in something. It's usually a perfect storm of what's already going on in the world in general, what's going on with yourself in particular, and how the light just happens to hit something at just the right angle.
However, this method does help set the publishers' bottom lines so they can afford to take risks on new stuff.
Thank you for a very funny blog about a very serious topic. The disempowerment of writers undermines our culture in profound ways.
I, too, felt that article left a bitter taste in my mouth. As a child of the eighties, I devoured the Sweet Valley series, and well remember watching the short-lived Saturday morning live-action spinoff. While I was always an avid reader of all kinds of books, my older sister was not, and those books gave us something we could share. I was annoyed by the flippancy with which one of the writers describes writing an entire book in a weekend, but honestly not surprised. Anyone who has read these books, or remembers them from their youth, surely recognizes that they are essentially the same story line over and over, predictable, and unmemorable. While anything that gets children these days to read should be appreciated, it would certainly be nice if more marketing attention was focused on books of substance and quality, as these are the books most likely to get children to really think and engage with the book. The kind of books being promoted by Alloy seem to be little more than transcribed soap operas for young adults, and do very little to stimulate critical or analytical thinking. While I privately mourn the loss of Reading Rainbow, and other efforts to get children exciting about reading good books, I also recognize that the success of these packaged fluff books helps to keep the struggling publishing industry afloat, and perhaps even enables more examples of truly fine literature to continue to reach bookshelves.
I recall the "Especially for Girls" book club I also recall serial books you could pick up at the mall bookstore like The Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley High, Sweet Valley Twins, Animal Inn, and then all the horror types of RL Stine and Christopher Pike. And that market continues to thrive with GossipGirl, Traveling Pants, and such these days. It doesn't seem that different from the pulp romance or pulp action books, just the audience is younger. When its just a feelgood cheap book I don't know if it matters who came up with the concept.
Just like junkfood is plentiful but a good healthy diet takes work, finding quality reading is an endeavor. I would think the following site is a start for YA books that are not drivel, the Young Adult Library Services Association. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/
See Wednesday Martin's Profile
em-reader,
love your memories of the series that got you going as a reader. I am wondering who will be the next Judy Blume--who wrote about things girls really cared about, and is an author our mothers might have deemed a little "trashy," but who connected us not just to the issues but to reading itself. She made reading feel like being understood.
thanks for commenting,
wednesday
I agree with Pastore about this not being that big a threat.
Originality is always needed by film and publishing because the rest constantly need something to imitate. The imitators are too cowardly and cheap to take those chances themselves, and they never get the rewards of making a cultural breakthrough as a result.
Alloy's pulp drivel is bread and butter revenue, I hope it is put to good use. If other publishing houses did this, assuming they aren't already, they could better fund their really good debut novels and other works that need all the marketing help they can get.
You know what I am disheartened by? The "anyone who gets famous gets a book deal" trend that just got worse in the reality TV and 24 hr. sensational news decade.
See Wednesday Martin's Profile
Hacuna,
Truly, the book deals for famous people trend is squeezing writers out of existence. It is SO hard to sell a book without a big media hit--like national television--in spite of all the promise of internet marketing, blogging, etc., which is so labor intensive a strategy for writers who have just finished a book. We can't get on TV to promote them, increasingly, since the shows mostly want to profile and cover books written by--you guessed it--celebs.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
-wednesday
Wednesday, excellent commentary about the fast book industry of book publishing. I can feel indigestion coming on.
As a writer - and avid reader - I'm not sure whether to simply roll my eyes at Alloy, or 'be afraid, very afraid'. What's frightening is simply the question of what the written word means to people, and our culture's view of literature's value. I'm not naive enough to believe that a publisher will pick a book without profit as a priority. So what do people want to pay for?
For myself, I can say that I became a writer because I believe words can reinvent the world, a different prism from each individual pen. Idealistic, yep. But if Alloy's such a success, then how monotonous, how palatable and empty do we want our stories to be?
Shoot...
Ms. Martin, I agree with you. But I found the article about Alloy amusing. It really isn't that different from the production of a line like Nancy Drew, back in the day. What is hilarious about Alloy is that two 40-something men sit around acting like Boy Wonders while a bunch of young women do their bidding and refine their ideas--and probably fetch coffee--while the boys figure out what teen girls want to read. As long as women put boy wonders on pedestals, this will go on.
My fiction was written by me, alone, and published for free with a grant from the London Arts Council. But because it's publish-on-demand and doesn't kill as many trees as a bestseller, I can't get big time reviewers to even look at it. The snob factor leaves authors like me--with literary magazine publication credits and MFA and all--right out in the cold. But I bet they'll be glad to review the next Alloy title.
S.P. Miskowski
RED POPPIES: Tales of Envy and Revenge
See Wednesday Martin's Profile
Miss Misk,
Touche. And thank you for that visual of the girls fetching the guys the coffee...
So true as you say that it's plus ca change and that you have to publish books that sell. But like you I worry about disappearing! Great book title, btw...
-wednesday
Thank you.
I'll keep reading your posts here--we certainly need a dash of bitter wit to cut the PR book talk.
Best of luck to all of us!
I actually admire book packagers. I think they're very smart people. But if you don't want to work for them, you don't have to!
Soon, all these kinds of books will be researched, marketed, and written by software: writers won't be needed at all.
The pure metals are always more valuable than the artificial alloys.
Thanks for your essay. I share your concerns for the integrity of books, and for the genuine work of the writer.
Michael Pastore
50 Benefits of Ebooks
This just sounds so "Harlequin Romance Novel" gone totally out of control! I love reading (and writing, when I have time! lol....) but to think that the scourge that has happened to Hollywood is now going to be invading my BOOKSHELF options... um, I don't think so! I want to read real, interesting, creative novels, not something that some "mucky-muck" has decided that women in my age bracket enjoy. Truth be told, I don't usually like those books. I like random books that can't neatly be placed into one genre. I like Sci-Fi, and Mystery, and Suspense, and Slice of Life fiction. I LOVE the classics, but stay away from Asian Lit, mostly because I really don't have a good frame of reference for most of the stories. But, that is just me! I sincerely hope all the writers out there will revolt against this type of formulaic device for creating sudo-art! It's like paint by numbers, and it's wrong! I'm totally disgusted as a reader (and a wanna-be writer!).
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