Tayari's Blog: The Business End...
Posted by TayariJones on August 2, 2005 10:52 AM
Filed under
The Writing Life
I was listening to NPR today-- that's nothing new. Those of us who don't own televisions spend a LOT of time listening to public radio. Anyway, there as a movie critic on complaining that people talk more about the business of the movies rather than the movies themselves. And I thought, Holy Smoke. That's true for books too!
The movie guy said that people talk about the box office haul when talking about whether a movie is good. Or people say, "I want to see this movie. I heard they spent X million on it..." He lamented that there is little talk about the CONTENT of the films.
And this made me think about the "buzz" around books which are not yet published. Most of the buzz involves how much the publisher paid for it, how much the publisher plans to spend on publicity.
Before I knew what THE HISTORIAN was about, I knew that the author got a 2 million dollar advance. And this advance is the only reason that the book is on my radar at all. This happens again and again.
Not that I want to spend the day complaining about this, but it's really disturbing.
I know someone who got a two-book deal based on ten pages she had written. Everyone is going around saying she is a brilliant writer although the book doesn't yet EXIST. Maybe she IS a brilliant writer. Who knows? The book doesn't EXIST. But the hype exists and that is because the business end of things is having way to much influence on the discourse about writers and writing.
I long for the day which is rumoured to have taken place "before my time", whatever that means. Wasn't there a time when memnber of the writing community read all sorts of books-- books from small presses, weird experimental books, books that sold maybe half a dozen copies in hardcover. Wasn't there a time when writers and the reading community knew that lots of good books were hype-less?
This is not to say that books with lot sof buzz are not good books. This is my take on it:
Many bad books get lots of hype.
Many bad books get no hype.
Many good books get lot of hype.
Many good books get no hype.
So my point here is that we, as writers, particularly, must get beyond this thing of reading just the books that are just published, that are getting lots of press. Sure we can read them, but it is our obligation (hell, our DUTY), to read other things as well. And since these are not the books that are shoved down our throats, we have to go out of our way to find them. And that's not convenient, but so what. It's important.
Okay. I am climbing off my soap box and fixing myself some lunch.
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There are 1 comments on "The Business End...". If you'd like to leave a comment, click here to jump down to the comments entry form.
Comment #1, by deborah
I think your points are on target. It's a challenge to sift through the "hype" and marketing methods to find a good book or film. I do think that there's such a strong monopoly in both industries that over-shadows less promoted works. As you mentioned, the hype factor isn't always an indicator of quality. I guess my complaint is that the hype is so influential that it feels like I'm being brainwashed into consuming whatever is being fed to me! If we don't look beyond the bestseller lists we will miss out on many good works. We all should take some risks, here and there, and experiment with different sources for our art fixes. There are pleasant surprises out there!
August 4, 2005 10:51 AM