Independent Hell

Everyone is always telling readers and authors to support their local bookshops. ‘They’re run by people who are truly passionate about the written word!’, they cry. ‘The large chains are evil, corporate monsters who only care about screwing profit from writers and publishers’. Well, I’ve tried to support my independents, I really have, but apart from a few notable exceptions, I seem to be hitting a brick wall.

Eager to get my book into more brick and mortar shops, I pitched up at a local independent this week, my bag full of pristine copies of Dunraven Road. Now, I don’t expect every bookshop to kneel before me and beg to stock my novel. Besides the fact that would be both disturbing and inappropriate, I am fully aware that I’m an unknown, first time author trying to distinguish myself in a world crammed to the rafters with unknown authors. Give me a cheery thanks, but no thanks, and I’ll be on my way. Simple. But what happened at this particular shop has left me reeling.

After asking what my book was about, the owner took the copy I offered her (practically between forefinger and thumb), before announcing, “It contains the words ‘bitch’ and ‘fucking’”. (After flipping through some more pages) “We don’t stock this sort of thing”.

At this point, I would have been happy to leave. Ignoring the belittling fact that she called my work “this sort of thing”, I can appreciate that Dunraven Road isn’t for everyone. There’s gore. There’s sex. Swear words are sprinkled about with wild abandon. My uncle told me he needed a stroll in his garden after reading some particularly distressing passages (which I took as solid proof that I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do!) I was therefore not offended by the shop owner’s rejection. That was, until she continued…

“What genre is it?”

“Well, it’s categorised as dark fantasy.”

“Hmmm (still peering at my book and riffling through the pages), we don’t stock dark fantasy. I would only stock what I’m comfortable with and I can’t even watch horror films. My customers like the fact that any book in here can be read by anyone of any age.”

“So you don’t stock vampire fiction?” I asked, rather incredulously.

“Oh no, no, nothing like that,” she retorted with the sort of superior smile I assume she reserves for customers asking to order The Big Book of Breasts or Blowjobs For Dummies (okay, I made those up )

She then launched into a lengthy spiel about the sort of book they do stock – mysteries (“They have to be well written. Style is important to me because I was an English teacher for thirty years”) and children’s books that can also be enjoyed by adults (i.e. Sir Harry of sodding Potter). While she was talking, I was still finding it hard to reign in my shock over her disregard for vampire fiction. She obviously didn’t know about the current Twilight madness gripping the entire planet, or the fact that two major US TV shows have debuted this year, both based on bestselling vampire fiction (L.J. Smith’s The Vampire Diaries and Charlaine Harris’s The Southern Vampire Mysteries). But she knew about Harry Potter. Sheesh, nothing gets past her! I wonder what she would make of these novels seeing as the Twilight series and The Vampire Diaries are both written for young adults. There may be no ‘fucking’ or ‘bitch’ involved, but the frankly disturbing birth of Bella’s child in Breaking Dawn would probably give her nightmares for weeks – yet these books were written by a mormon and are hailed as a shining literary example of how to hang onto your virtue. Would the shop owner have told Stephanie Meyer they “don’t stock this sort of thing”?!

Just as I was about to ask for my book back, turn on my heel and run like the wind, the shop owner noticed the £11.99 retail price. Cue another lengthy spiel about how people don’t like paying that sort of money for a book. All this while looking as if I’d just hopped up on her counter and dumped a load next to the till. That sort of multi-tasking is a genuine talent.

Seeing as she was shocked to hear that I’d found the address of her shop on the internet, I should have told her: If you’re worried about staying competitive against the major bookshop chains, I’d be less concerned about price and more concerned about not having a web presence (let alone an online ordering system), or not keeping up to date with current trends in fiction. If you don’t stock “this sort of thing”, I suppose that also vetoes Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, Anne Rice… I could go on and on… All extremely successful, bestselling authors. How is this shop making money?!

Just as I was losing the will to live – the shop owner pulled one more gem out of her sleeve: “Would you consider writing something more suitable for the shop?”

What?!

Yes, certainly. I’ll go home right now and whip up 100, 000 words of nice, fluffy mystery story starring annoying middleclass children with ridiculous names, convince someone to publish it, wait for it to be printed; and run it up to your shop just as fast as I can.

Idiot.

Ebooks Linked to Brain Reconfiguration

I saw an ebook reader for sale in Waterstones this week. This Sony ebook reader, to be precise. Waterstone’s deal with Sony was announced in July, but this was the first time I’d noticed the readers in the shop. I was pleasantly surprised actually, because ebooks have been around for years and never really took off. I always assumed they were the future of publishing, but the electronic dream failed to happen. To be honest, I can see why people were dubious. It meant the end of tactile books, of cover art and author photographs. Plus, how can you read an ebook in the bath? Or on the beach, covered in sand and foul-smelling factor 50? In the early days, I think ebooks also suffered from the same snobbery used to demean print-on-demand services. If you had to resort to publishing through an ebook publisher, your book wasn’t worth jack. Which is a shame, because it was basically another outlet for new authors struggling to break into the mainstream, battling against the big publishing houses’ love affair with the cack (ghost)written by ‘celebrities’ such as Katie Price, A.K.A. Jordan (if you’re from across the pond and haven’t heard of the UK’s silicone filled, horse riding “glamour” girl, knock yourself out – or literally, if you happen to be standing near her and she turns around suddenly).

So, ebook publishing is finally being taken seriously (the Waterstones in Exeter had actually sold out of readers, which is impressive in this current economic crapstorm considering they cost £199 each). Improved ebook readers have certainly helped. The Sony reader can be read even in bright sunlight and holds up to 160 standard books (I have gadget lust!) I’ve read that current ebooks are hideously pricey though. Most mainstream novels can now be purchased as ebooks, but they retail at almost as much as the paper versions.

You might have guessed that I like the idea of ebooks. The future is digital, and knowing that novels and the authors who write them are going to be a part of that future is comforting.

The Independant recently ran an article by John Walsh called Can intelligent literature survive in the digital age? (I found the link on Fiction Bitch). According to Mr Walsh a “…transatlantic debate is currently raging about whether a decade of staring at computer screens… and having our research needs serviced instantly by Google and Wikipedia, has taken a terrible toll on our attention, until our brains have been reconfigurated and can no longer adjust the tempo of our mental word-processing to let us read a book all the way through.”

He argues that ebook readers will cement this reconfiguration of our brains (like in The Matrix!) The screen provides “…don’t-be-scared page dimensions (two-thirds the size of a standard paperback)”, because the modern iPod-listening, BlackBerry-loving public will only read novels if it’s in one bite-sized piece at a time. We’re not only short on time, but on patience too, so no one would ever read Tolstoy (!!) on one of these newfangled ebook contraptions. They might, however, use one to read a book “…big on plot and incident, short on interior monologue – the sort of titles that the Richard and Judy Book Club strenuously promotes.” (For non-UK peeps, that’s akin to Opera’s Book Club).

Mr Walsh doesn’t stop there: “Can this, then, be the future of reading: an increasing number of low-brow, plot-driven works will flood the market, consigning works of literary merit to a watery grave, while the low-brows vie with each other for the attention of readers so badly affected by the moving stream of internet info-processing, that they can no longer focus their attention for longer than a few pages?”

How incredibly insulting! People don’t read “intelligent” novels anymore? Horse shit. And what exactly, in Mr Walsh’s world, constitutes a “work of literary merit”? Perhaps the novel as a form has simply moved on. Perhaps writers no longer write the way Henry James or Tolstoy did because… it’s 2008! The novel has constantly evolved. Was Virginia Woolf ever branded “low-brow” because she didn’t write like Jane Austen? Yes, there is some impressive crap littering our book shops, but should decently written, plot driven novels be swept aside by literary snobs, labelled “low-brow” and only deemed suitable to be read on ebook readers by wannabes with dried-up, reconfigured brains?

Incidentally, the first book Mr Walsh installed on his very own Sony ebook reader was Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Is Ms Christie now considered to be the pinnacle of high-brow literature?! I think I, as a reconfigured brainee, should be told.

Just to change the subject… the copy of American Gods by Neil Gaiman I’d ordered arrived today. The Author’s Preferred Text edition, no less! It’s one of those books I’ve wanted to read for ages – it was first published in 2001 – and never got around to buying (until now!) I was surprised by how big it is, you could probably build houses with it (you’d need more than one copy for this… and possibly some sort of quick-drying cement). I’m sure that Mr Walsh would consider it low-brow, but it’s considerably longer than the 70, 000 words he decided the modern reader could no longer stomach and was a bestseller in the US and the UK. Must have been a fluke. Obviously.