Sure Thing

I was recently reading a piece by a New York Times best-selling author.  It was a bit discouraging.  Best-sellers, he noted, are often decided on the basis of hundreds, not thousands, of sales.  The book-buying public is small.

Reading, this author averred, is hard work.  Most people would rather watch TV or surf the net.  Anything but read.

My friend Steve works in the publishing industry.  He told me once that studies show only about 5% of the US population buys books.  While that’s a low percent, it is a high enough number to keep the industry going.  Still, it does make it harder for writers.

A publishing industry feeling stressed will try more and more for “a sure thing” rather than to take a chance on something new.  The runaway success of Andy Weir’s  The Martian and Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train—both passed by major houses as too outré until they started making money—show that editors often have no idea what people like.

Those who write for commercial success, I think, often lose their souls.  As soon as a new trend hits, the publishers will be screaming for more like those sure things.  “Give me a book about somebody stranded on Jupiter, for God’s sake!” I can hear them screaming.

Stephanie Meyer nearly single-handedly kickstarted the neo-vampire craze.  One agent told me back then, “want some advice?  Write a vampire book.”  For years the industry craved knock-offs and imitators.  Anything for a buck.

Those who have literary talent could probably write a “sure thing” fairly easily.  The problem is that sure things aren’t likely to be around a century from now on the classics list.  Those books that move literature forward are new, innovative.  They take chances.  Publishers don’t like taking chances.

Life has no guarantees.  So it is that I write to be who I am.  Probably I’ll remain obscure my whole life—I’m in good company if I do.  Meanwhile I’ll keep on doing what I’m good at—writing what no one else does, or can.