Imagine a World of Literary Spewage...
Hey, remember when about five years back books were considered the cool thing to give somebody, and literature seemed to be making a hard-fought comeback, clawing its way up the crumbling hillside of mass entertainment? Well, guess who lost their footing and fell all the way back down the cliff? Guess who's lying, bleeding and broken, in the ravine again?
Lately I've been setting up book signing events for my latest novel, Shadowbridge. In the past, that's been a fairly easy thing to do around here, surrounded as we are with megamassivegigantotwostoreybookchainenclosures. There was a CRM at the Bryn Mawr Barnes & Noble named Kathy Siciliano who was simply one of the goddess of the writing craft. She scheduled event after event there, all kinds of literature, poetry, non-fiction--if you wrote, she gave you a place to promote. When I hosted the Sycamore Hill writing workshop up here, we did a panel of the whole workshop there one night and packed the store. They were standing on the escalators to watch...and that's no mean feat. Not surprisingly I suppose, B&N decided to close that store. Ostensibly, they wanted to replace it with a bigger store full of CDs and movies and the kind of spapoop you find in Borders everywhere. But they're not building a new store. It's been nearly a year. Really, they just wanted to get rid of it. I suspect it was giving them a headache, promoting all that--you know--reading.
So here I am, trying to set up signings at B&Ns and Borders all across the Delaware Valley. And what I've found is that, in the stores where the CRMs have not actually quit or the position itself has been eliminated, the remaining staff and managers couldn't give two shits on a Tuesday. Talking to them, giving them a business card, a promotional flyer, a (fill in your PR kit here) gets a smile, a handshake and no returned phone calls, no emails, no letters, no proposed reading event, nada. The book, ladies and gentlemen, is no longer a cool gift. It is an artifact. Bereft of life it rests in peace--if we hadn't nailed it to the shelf it'd be pushin' up the daisies!
Bookstores now exist to sell you movies and music and audiobooks and the namebrand magazines and Hallmark cards and little gooey bits of chocolate and plastic bric-a-brac and, oh, fuck, I almost forgot...some books. Signings? They ain't happening--not unless your publisher's PR person is willing to make those calls and spend their time fighting to get you into the stores. I thought, you know, this was just me and maybe I'd forgotten to bathe or something. But I queried folks on the sfnovelists list and found my experiences replicated. Some shift has taken place in the last couple of years. Someone has decided that there's no point in doing readings and signings unless some big name bestselling author (who doesn't really need the help in the first place) is on a tour. Writers must now become more aggressive, I guess. We'll have to band together and hire a PR person to book us. Maybe tour in clusters, push ourselves as bookstore panel events rather than as writers with a good book out. Hang out in bars and look wistful or wait for Open Mic night.
Of course, I've left out the Independents, where readings still matter, where an audience will come and listen to you and buy your book because they like what you've read, what you've written. The indies--where creativity yet thrives. So, as consumers, do the world of literature a favor and buy your books from independents. Screw the 30% discounts from Borders and B&N. Pay full price for the book because you really want the book in the first place. Piss on the selling machine that treats all books like cans of Lesueur Peas (I mean, have you ever eaten those mushy things?). Otherwise, canned craptacular entertainment is all you're going to find left, real soon now.
Imagine a world where all you could read is the indigestible garbage scrawled by Dan Brown. Yeah, that made your hair stand up like Buckwheat's on The Little Rascals, didn't it?
We gotta get out of this place--
gf
Lately I've been setting up book signing events for my latest novel, Shadowbridge. In the past, that's been a fairly easy thing to do around here, surrounded as we are with megamassivegigantotwostoreybookchainenclosures. There was a CRM at the Bryn Mawr Barnes & Noble named Kathy Siciliano who was simply one of the goddess of the writing craft. She scheduled event after event there, all kinds of literature, poetry, non-fiction--if you wrote, she gave you a place to promote. When I hosted the Sycamore Hill writing workshop up here, we did a panel of the whole workshop there one night and packed the store. They were standing on the escalators to watch...and that's no mean feat. Not surprisingly I suppose, B&N decided to close that store. Ostensibly, they wanted to replace it with a bigger store full of CDs and movies and the kind of spapoop you find in Borders everywhere. But they're not building a new store. It's been nearly a year. Really, they just wanted to get rid of it. I suspect it was giving them a headache, promoting all that--you know--reading.
So here I am, trying to set up signings at B&Ns and Borders all across the Delaware Valley. And what I've found is that, in the stores where the CRMs have not actually quit or the position itself has been eliminated, the remaining staff and managers couldn't give two shits on a Tuesday. Talking to them, giving them a business card, a promotional flyer, a (fill in your PR kit here) gets a smile, a handshake and no returned phone calls, no emails, no letters, no proposed reading event, nada. The book, ladies and gentlemen, is no longer a cool gift. It is an artifact. Bereft of life it rests in peace--if we hadn't nailed it to the shelf it'd be pushin' up the daisies!
Bookstores now exist to sell you movies and music and audiobooks and the namebrand magazines and Hallmark cards and little gooey bits of chocolate and plastic bric-a-brac and, oh, fuck, I almost forgot...some books. Signings? They ain't happening--not unless your publisher's PR person is willing to make those calls and spend their time fighting to get you into the stores. I thought, you know, this was just me and maybe I'd forgotten to bathe or something. But I queried folks on the sfnovelists list and found my experiences replicated. Some shift has taken place in the last couple of years. Someone has decided that there's no point in doing readings and signings unless some big name bestselling author (who doesn't really need the help in the first place) is on a tour. Writers must now become more aggressive, I guess. We'll have to band together and hire a PR person to book us. Maybe tour in clusters, push ourselves as bookstore panel events rather than as writers with a good book out. Hang out in bars and look wistful or wait for Open Mic night.
Of course, I've left out the Independents, where readings still matter, where an audience will come and listen to you and buy your book because they like what you've read, what you've written. The indies--where creativity yet thrives. So, as consumers, do the world of literature a favor and buy your books from independents. Screw the 30% discounts from Borders and B&N. Pay full price for the book because you really want the book in the first place. Piss on the selling machine that treats all books like cans of Lesueur Peas (I mean, have you ever eaten those mushy things?). Otherwise, canned craptacular entertainment is all you're going to find left, real soon now.
Imagine a world where all you could read is the indigestible garbage scrawled by Dan Brown. Yeah, that made your hair stand up like Buckwheat's on The Little Rascals, didn't it?
We gotta get out of this place--
gf