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4:04:00 PM EST
The Horror, The Horror
Because I subscribe to writing magazines, I receive a lot of unsolicited mail about writing and publishing. I received some mail the other day that troubled me.
It is a pamphlet that purports to contain "Everything you need to know to get your work accepted by a commercial publisher." Inside the pamphlet is much advice but one piece of advice in particular angered and saddened me. It says that an author should never claim that "his book is unique."
First of all, how difficult would it have been to structure the sentence in such a way as to avoid the gender bias? We teach our students at the university a very easy way--use the plural form of pronouns and verbs--Authors should never claim that their ...
That nonwithstanding, I was dismayed at the suggestion that uniqueness is not prized by commercial publishers. This is what the brochure says about an author claiming that "his book is unique":
"This statement is the kiss of death because editors don't want a unique book. They want a book that fits into an existing category and meets the needs of an existing audience. At the very best, this statement implies that the author doesn't understand the market for his book. At the very worst, it indicates that the book is, indeed, unique--and therefore either has no audience, or has an audience that is difficult to reach."
I understand the very human need to categorize, I do. Having categories is useful, even necessary. But strict adherence to categories can be the "kiss of death" for art. Do we really want to live in a world in which the publishers have already pre-decided that unique books will not be of interest to readers?
Over the weekend, Allen and I went to Toledo to have a bite to eat. Afterwards, we decided to take in a movie. I'd been wanting to see Capote, so we went to the four movie houses near us, only to find that all of them offered the same movies, all of them of the mass-audience genre. Capote was not playing at any of the theaters. There were many choices at the 18-theater cineplex, yet to my mind, there were no choices. I didn't wish to see any of those movies.
There are more books being published today by the commercial presses than ever before. But if writers and publishers follow the advice in the brochure I recently received, what are the readers' choices?
The "advice" in the brochure I received in the mail dismayed me. But it won't change what I want to write. Writing in order to satisfy a pre-existing category is not something I'm interested in doing. Each poem, story, essay, or novel I write--or want to write--is a voyage of discovery. Otherwise, my thinking is, why do it?
I know there are many writers who are perfectly happy writing within a given category or genre. That is okay for them. That is great for the readers who enjoy that kind of writing.
But writing with a certain "category" in mind feels cramped and "smothery," as Huck Finn would put it. It lacks purpose for me because I'm not that kind of writer. I wonder how many writers, for the hope of getting published, will heed this "advice," which I feel is killing to the soul.
Believe this: for everything you write, there is someone in the world who needs to read it. Barry Lopez said that sometimes a person needs a story more than food.
To thine own self be true. In doing that, you contribute something of value to the world.
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I don't normally pay attention to those brochures you speak of. I was burned a few years back when an agent said he'd represent me if I paid all those 'mailing' fees up front. I don't trust anyone anymore, which might be half my publishing problem. I frankly wonder where some of these companies get their writers from. Not all of them are 'outstanding examples' of what we aim to be.
Jude
http://journals.aol.com/jmorancoyle/MyWay -
In Boswell's famous autobiography of Samuel Johnson, I found it thought provoking that Dr. Johnson remarked. "Everybody writes, but nobody reads." And books that have become classics are definately unique -- and usually not appreaciated in the authors lifetime.
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Success and Art are too often inimical, I'm afraid. Danielle Steele will ALWAYS outsell James Joyce. The primary goal of commercial publishers is to make money ... NOT to spread the enlightenment. Unless it jibes with a lucrative and prevailing orthodoxy, publishers couldn't care less
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And then, I followed it up with this extra credit project.
http://journals.aol.com/ckays1967/myjourneywithMS/entries/1 130
11/6/05 8:09 PM