What business do writers think they are in?

I leave for the Frankfurt Book Fair on the 30th of September, hoping to interest the world in some of our wares. This fair, the biggest and the most influential on earth, is more than 500 years old, the first one organised by local booksellers soon after Johannes Gutenberg invented printing in movable letters around 1439 CE. In a sense, the book industry can be forgiven for thinking that it will go on as it is forever, that books as we know it will never die.

Nothing in all the promotional literature for Frankfurt I have received so far suggests that the debate this year is going to be different. It is not whether books will survive, but how they will survive: digitally or in print. In many ways, what happens in Frankfurt may become a non-debate. 7000 exhibitors, from over a 100 countries will meet, talk and worry about the same things they have done for centuries. I have a strong suspicion that the song will remain the same.

But, will it? We’ve heard it before: the television did not kill the radio, and the internet did not kill television, and neither one of them has killed off books.

Books are still, by far, the most influential, if not the most glamorous, cultural medium. Leading writers still attain demigod status in most societies, even in Myanmar and North Korea where they are often sent to jail. Actors and movie stars come and go. They get mentioned in footnotes of history sometimes, but they are seldom elevated to godhood anywhere (apart from India). Dancers are even more ignonimous. Only musicians come close to writers (including poets and playwrights) in their reach towards the gods.

Some form of writing has been in existence since the dawn of civilization. Before that it is reasonable to assume that all communication existed only orally, with stories told, possibly, in grunts and groans. Musicians came in and started telling their stories in songs, giving them some sort of permanence. (Many of these songs are sung even today.) Cave paintings and stone tablets gave us the phrase “cast in stone”. The Gutenberg press made it possible to mass-produce writings for everyone to read (and to kill one another in pogroms as a result, in some cases).

Still, “Why is Indie OK for Musicians and Filmmakers…But Not for Writers?” asks Amy Edelman, who believes that self-published books deserve more attention from readers and retailers, in an article in Publishing Perpectives. Is that really true? She mentions movies like Hurt Locker and indie bands like The Shins winning tons of praise. Then she goes on to mention the success of indie books like Tolstoy’s War & Peace to Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad. So, what’s her point, one is tempted to ask. Well, her point is she is trying to sell her service called IndieReader, the submission fee for which is USD149.00 per title for review and inclusion into the database. The money (less USD25.00) will be refunded if the book is not accepted. IndieReader wants to be the home for good quality self-published books. What it amounts to is that services like IndieReader will become the new gatekeepers – perhaps, they would prefer the word curators -- in the book industry who will decide what people read. Amy Edelman wants to be the one to discover the next War and Peace.

The book industry in moving along like it used to, business as usual, as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Frankfurt will be a fair for publishers and the gatekeepers -- readers will only be allowed in on the last two days. (Seems like no one asks them anything.) But that’s okay; businessmen need a place to meet and talk shop.

Maybe, there is nothing big happening to be too concerned. Maybe, there is. There was a time when newspapers ruled. Now, they are struggling to survive, let alone remain relevant.  (I get my news off the net.) Several magazines have disappeared, while others are discovering a whole new delivery system and experience, thanks to devices like the tablet. Will books be next? Will bestseller books become indistinguishable from blockbuster movies and video games? Will traditional books not be relevant anymore? Will all discussions due to take place in Frankfurt be, ultimately, futile due to events taking place outside the sphere of influence of the industry? Something they have no control of? Something they do not have the vision to see? The industry thinks it is immune to change, but, methinks there is a brave new world out there.

It is a scary thought, at least in the short term. And Amy Edelman is right: Times are a changing. But, not necessarily in the way she thinks.

Publishing Perspectives

Frankfurt Book Fair

Like everything else in life, no matter how long one has to prepare for something, there will always be a last minute rush. Maybe the problem is that we take on too much, or maybe that is the nature of things. I am now rushing for Frankfurt, though I have little idea what I’m rushing for -- all I need to do is to get on the plane on the 30th of September. But no, I need to make a good enough impression, I must not let the side down, the side being Malaysia.

That is the main reason I have not done it earlier, participate in the Frankfurt Book Fair, that is. People (in the industry) have been telling me for almost ten years now (ever since I started publishing) that I should go to Frankfurt -- it will be an experience, it will be interesting, you will not regret it, etc, etc, they assured me. I suppose they would have been correct, except that I felt I didn’t have anything to show, apart from a few collections of uneven short stories. Sure, it was groundbreaking; sure, it unearthed some talent, and I suppose many people would have attended the fair with less. Unfortunately, (or fortunately), I felt that I could (or would) participate in such events only with a fairly respectable list -- the book industry jargon for a catalogue. Anything less would have been too malu-fying, too embarrassing. (Maybe, I’m too sensitive.)

I will be taking with me books by seven authors that I feel are of international standard. (I have several more manuscripts that would fall into this category, unfortunately, I have not had the time to work on them.) I dare say, they are better, much better, then many out there. But then we are third world, right? We need to be twice as good even to be noticed. That is the barrier, the reality we have to face. Can the natives even write? Can they even read? Did they not just come down from the trees very recently? Or, when they discover the natives can write: why are all the characters so happy? Everyone knows how miserable their lives are. Women lead terrible lives, all native fathers rape their daughters, and uncles their boys. No, this cannot be authentic, this not how natives live. Asian women are not like that. Have they not seen that Suzie Wong movie? Slumdog Millionaire? Thank God, we know better. (Unfortunately, these sentiments are also expressed by many ‘natives’ who think they are not like the rest of us.)

The barrier faced by authentic ‘native’ authors in the international marketplace is quite daunting. One can only try, without selling out to the stereotype, the cliche, the market. Silverfish is committed to developing Malaysia’s own literature (albeit, in English), our own canon, our own stories, our own history. We are committed to producing books we can live with, maintain our dignity and not cringe in shame at its very mention a few years from now.

Frankfurt will have participants from over a hundred countries. Surely, not all will be blinkered? We live in hope.

Doom and boom

It’s no longer news that the book industry is in a frenzy over ebooks. Many have already started on their obituaries for the ‘dead tree’ book. Others are steadfast in the refusal to accept any other form and insist it will last for a long time more. Both are probably right. It  depends on which book industry one is talking about -- text, reference, academic, or general. Text books will probably be the first to go digital; the weight of a students’ backpack should decide that. As for reference material, when was the last time you opened a printed dictionary? Mine happened about five years ago. Academics really don’t need to kill trees to put forward their arguments. So the discussion is really only about general books.

The biggest positive news to come out of the book world in recent times is Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, which I have pre-ordered despite learning that it is over 500 pages long. (That’s how desperate I am for some good news.) The last time anyone heard of Franzen was during the Oprah Winfrey kerfuffle in 2001. How dare this pipsqueak of a writer insult their media darling, the media screamed although he, actually, didn’t. Perhaps there is a measure of guilt involved in media circles for the way they reported the incident despite the fact that it was not Franzen who unfriended Oprah but the other way round. (For those interested, some of the stories are still online.)

Maybe the media needs something to write about (and Franzen is a name the public is familiar with), and America needs a new literary hero for its own revalidation, after Iraq and the economic crisis, and to take his place alongside Salinger, Nabokov, Morrison, Wolfe, Roth and Updike. After all, he is a proven writer and a recluse -- ah, that great American literary tradition. A recent Time magazine report about his new book caught my attention. This is his first novel in nine years. “He writes six or seven days a week, starting at 7am. He’s often hoarse by the end of the day because he performs his dialogue aloud as he writes ... Franzen works from a rented office ... stripped of all distractions. He uses a heavy, obsolete Dell laptop from which he has scoured any trace of hearts or solitaire ...”

And, because he believes one can’t write serious fiction on a computer that’s connected to the Internet, he has removed its wireless card and super glued shut its Ethernet port. It is an obsession one can only admire. I have to read that book.

Then in the other corner, we have James Patterson, currently the author who makes the most money in the world. This is interesting because, by his own admission, he does not even write his own books. His name is on the front cover of thrillers, young adult and children’s books, and he churns them out year after year, but he does not write them as much as “he relies on a team of five to help him bash out the plots”, according to a report in The Independent. Now, with the dawn of the iPad like devices, is there a limit to what Patterson can do? He could hire another five (or fifty) people and turn his into a production house ala Hollywood.

When we talk about the general book industry, we always think there is only one. There are several. The one that has adapted itself best to social networks is probably sci-fi and horror. These people collect books by numbers, editions and book covers, so I can’t see how the e-book is going to affect them. There are many other segments. But, for what is commonly known as the general fiction market, Franzen and Patterson represent two different sides of it. Though these two are largely run by the same people, the two operate quite differently. Patterson represents the sugared-water side of the business and, just as, Coke will always outsell fine wines, the likes of him will clobber the Franzens financially.  Seriously, in future, which publisher will bother to wait nine years for a blockbuster, even if it is a cultural phenomenon, when someone else can churn out nine books a year? (Not quite yet, but it will come to that.)

That, perhaps, is the true future of books: big production houses churning out ‘3-D’ versions of books. Will they still be called ‘books’, though? Will the ‘dead tree’ book die, then? Me thinks not. It will survive, like indie or art-house movies, or music. It will not make too much money (except occasionally -- like now) but it will have its connoisseurs. It will be largely produced by independents with the passion. It may become a cultural good once again -- like in Europe -- and be treated like fine wine.

And fewer trees will die, too.

Time
The Independent