The announcement of the Amazon breakthrough novel award perfectly presents what I think is wrong with literary culture today. It is this: Amazon customers choose the winner. That is, it's a popularity contest. It's American Idol for books.
Literature, it seems to me, should lead, not follow. Yes, this is an elitist position. I happen to believe that the arts, no more than the sciences, should not play to the lowest common denominator, nor to the most popular perceptions of the audience. The sciences are more rigorous because it's easier there to measure what is good and bad. Baby, if you can't solve the equation, you can't solve it! You can't fake your way out of being wrong. There's an equivalent to this in the arts. Yes, there is such a thing as bad writing. Yes, there is such a thing as boring storytelling.
Pop arts have their place. In the marketplace. And maybe everyone accepts that this Amazon award is a pop culture award -- but today, "the literary novel" has become a pejorative term. Serious literature has a harder time finding a home than in the past because in the past publishers accepted that literary novels weren't big sellers. They published them because the books were good, it was their cultural duty to publish them. But then publishing companies were run by book people. Today they are run by bottom-line multinational corporations.
I firmly believe that the novels that are most true are never the ones that are most popular because popular audiences want entertainment first, not truth about human experience. If the latter comes along, fine, but entertain me first.
However, not to entertain is not to be boring! For those interested in understanding the human condition, human experience, there are serious connections to work that is better described as engaged than entertained. To get everything at once is best, and the great writers sometimes do this. But not often.
Is a great novel like Greene's THE QUIET AMERICAN or THE END OF THE AFFAIR properly called "entertaining"? I think not. Engaging, yes. But "entertaining" gets attached to lighter fare. And the Amazon award, I feel certain, will go to a popular, entertaining work, which in fact won't be breakthrough but the opposite, another pop work emphasizing tried and true pop values.
So why don't they call it what it is? The Amazon Popular Novel Award. Of course, you'd have to have an interest in the accuracy of language to do this. Ad makers never do.
Believe me, we can use some "breakthrough literature" in our culture! But you'll never find it in a popularity contest because it's going to be work that leads the way, not follows the comfortable, pre-existing values of a large audience. It will be light shining into the darkness, not an American Idol bowing on a stage. It will hit us like Ginsberg's HOWL, in the gut. And we'll never be the same afterwards.
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24 comments:
Even if you're right, this contest isn't going to stop 'serious' books getting published. This is an extra, so why not welcome it?
I've read a lot of books, all of them for entertainment. Including Graham Greene, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray, Orwell: though I admit, not James Joyce or Proust.
It's asking a hell of a lot of a reader to read a book that's NOT entertaining in some way. Why should he?
Let's keep an open mind about this contest, and see how it pans out.
What I said is, it's ridiculous to think "breakthrough" literature is discovered in a popularity contest. What I said is, they should call it the Amazon Popular Novel Award.
I stand by my distinction between entertainment and engagement, and I think your response to Joyce and Proust makes my point.
I'm not against the contest. I'm against the hype that distorts what it actually is, which is, irrelevant with regard to literature.
I entered my manuscript yesterday. I am a writer who has never been published in any significant way, though I have been writing since second grade. My teacher assigned us a project to write a story. I wrote one page about a man who could fly because he could turn into a bat. Maybe my writing just hasn't progressed...
I had a sh!*ty childhood, full of neglect and abuse, and I found literature to be a means of escape. I read voraciously and wrote quite a bit for a kid, but I never really thought of trying to go pro until the last few years. At one point in my life I was punished for writing. My mother, a strict Jehovah's Witness, found my notebooks and was aghast to find them full of stories about unicorns, dragons, and magical swords. She asked the "elders" to talk to me regarding this "taboo magic" material, and then she disciplined me by taking all of my notebooks.
In middle school and high school, I was accused by more than one teacher of being a plagiarist. A kid with long hair and a Metallica T-shirt couldn't possibly have written that essay...
So maybe its partly my fault, that I let these people give me mental blocks about my writing. Maybe I should have worked through it all sooner. It doesn't matter, because this is what I have to work with, this is what I am.
I am a 36 year old man with three children and two mortgages, and as of this summer, unemployed. I've written at least one novel per year in the last six years, since deciding I really wanted to pursue this dream. Writing a novel a year, even a short one, is not easy with a family and a career (well that part's not a problem anymore). Those first few books were not great, not even good, but I know my skills have grown, and I have had some acknowledgment of this. For the first time, an editor from a major publishing house responded to one of my queries. Upon reading the entire manuscript, she sent me a general rejection, with no real indication as to why she was at first interested, or later was not. Therein lies the problem.
Major publishers won't look at a manuscript unless it's submitted by an agent. An agent won't look at it unless you're already published. The slush pile presents you a one-in-a-million chance, but either you're JK Rowling or you're not. Most of us are not. Even beating the odds, having an editor ask for my manuscript, in the end provides no valuable insight.
I've got an old car that I restored, and some things I can put up on eBay. I'm going to do whatever it takes to avoid getting another job for at least a year. This will allow me to write semi-full time, and to hone my writing skills so that hopefully I can correct those things lacking in my work. In the meanwhile, I have an opportunity to have my manuscript read by dozens -perhaps hundreds- of professionals, and to potentially get a review in a major publication. At the same time, other writers (and readers) will have a chance to offer up their opinions.
For a published author, I can imagine how cheesy this contest must seem. I mean after all, the people judging this contest will be the same ones that made JK Rowling, Chris Paolini, and Stephen King. Granted, King was published long before becoming successful, but I'm guessing most people would lump him in with that same "pop" writing culture.
Admittedly I am not, and probably never will be, Shakespeare. But maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll be that lowest common denominator that gets the prize. If not, I'll go back to work in a year and return to writing through my lunch breaks, evenings, vacations, and holidays, hoping and praying that out of the millions of manuscripts in the slush pile, mine hits the right editor on the right day, and he or she is in the right mood...
Best of luck, Anonymous! (Hope you don't mind my hijacking your comments section, Mr Deemer).
I shall look out for you in the competition, if we both get to the magic thousand.
Lexi
Thanks Lexi, and good luck to you as well. I suppose I'll have to remain anonymous after that rant, but I suppose its for the best. Perhaps its a writer's trait, the way that I let words take me to those places, and make me forget where I really am.
Perhaps I went overboard in my defense, but I truly believe a one-in-five thousand chance is better than a one-in-a-million. I'm sure Mr. Deemer's points are all valid, especially from the perspective of a pro, but things look a bit different where I'm standing.
The truth is -let's be honest- there are a lot of VERY successful writers out there who really aren't that good, or at least they weren't that good when they started. But I'm happy for them. I should be so lucky. I don't see the need to criticize them, or to say there's no room for writing like that. Writers have different voices and different skills, and readers have different tastes. There's no reason we shouldn't all be able to find success doing what we love, right?
My argument is not with writers. It is with promoters.
This is a Popular Novel Award and has absolutely nothing to do with "breakthrough" literature.
Call it what it is.
I think they mean 'breakthrough' for the author - i.e. it's an opportunity to break into print.
And anon (if I may be familiar) why don't you drop into my Amazon profile/blog if you can find it, and reveal your identity?
Good luck on the 12th!
Lexi Revellian
Well, if they mean a breakthrough for an author, they should call it the Breakthrough Author Award.
Maybe it's too much of a stretch for advertising to respect the language, however.
Honestly, I don't see the big deal here. Publishers may at one point, in an over-idealized romantic time, have printed books out of a "sense of cultural duty," but lets not fool ourselves here. That time never existed. Looking back through time on the shelves of bookstores might tell us differently, but what of all the books that have fallen out of style and found themselves out of print? Pining for a non-existent past is no way to go about evaluating the present. What are we to say of an era which only presents itself with a handful of great writers? Shouldn't there have been more when the world was full of avid readers? Shouldn't the cultural crusaders of their day have been spending their time picking through piles of manuscripts as one would pan through gravel and water for gold? The answer is no. Publishers publish with the expectation of making a profit, not of loosing money. Greatness is not found in a stinking pile of poorly written sermons, but in one that inspires and instructs as much as it entertains.
As for our the comment on customer voting...customers have always voted. They have voted with their wallets. Critics alone do not "discover" the greats. They negotiate with a consumer populace which either accepts or rejects greatness. Furthermore, the false prophet of the critic is not in short supply. Breakthrough can refer to the author or the novel, you are the one interpreting the word qualitatively. To the rest of the world it may simply mean "breakthrough" to be freed from obscurity.
Harold Bloom might agree with you here, but I do not. A writer proves themselves to the reader as well as the critic, neither prerequisite of the other.
The publishing world is shriveling because readers are dropping the book in favor of the TV, iPod, and big-screen. These are the competition...one's that many of our "hay day" predecessors did not have to contend with. Nor did they have to write with the idea of having their stories turned into movies. Thus making the novel a detailed precursor to the screen-play.
Full disclosure tells me that I must say that I have entered the contest myself. I don't expect to win, but I had no idea where else to put it. I say it as another contest, judged in the end, by published authors. Just like the short story contests I've entered for low-budget literary journals such as the Indiana Review. Contest, as you most certainly know, keep the publishing business viable. Without them, many of the slush-pile driven journals would go under.
So, if the contest is narrowed down by the customer, then finally judged by the very people you have given the sacred pen to; what is the problem?
If the winning author is an unknown, unpublished one, then his/her winning novel will be a "breakthrough novel" by definition. I think that's what the name of the contest refers to.
No one knows exactly who will be doing the preliminary reviews before the submissions are opened up for public reviewing. They're "top Amazon reviewers" and that's all that's being said. Likely they have a pop sensibility -- but a discerning pop sensibility is nothing to sneeze at -- unless you're afflicted with chronic snobism. I suspect the pool of semi-finalists will be respectable, and may contain some works that even you, Charles, would consider "breakthrough."
I agree with you on general principle -- the bulk of published fiction is abysmal pap -- much of it scarcely "entertaining." But it has always been so, and likely always will be. This contest gives an opportunity to writers that they wouldn't have in the usual slush-pile circumstances. And if anything, I'm on the side of the author.
Of course the industry will continue to be the biggest winner, without having to change its whorish ways in the slightest. But what else can we expect?
I'm just
A hopeful writer
You make some good points. However, isn't traditional publishing already a popularity contest? It's all about sales.
How many perhaps well-written, but otherwise unmarketable books turn up on the shelves at Borders? Or ever even find an agent?
Apparently you've figured out that "secret handshake" that gets your stuff in front of serious buyers. For most writers -- even good ones -- getting a foot in the door is next to impossible.
The Amazon contest is at least to way to be reviewed.
"However, isn't traditional publishing already a popularity contest? It's all about sales."
* My point is that IT DIDN'T USED TO BE THIS WAY, publishers used to publish a genre called "the literary novel" hoping it would break even. They did this as guardians of the literary culture. R.I.P.
"Apparently you've figured out that "secret handshake" that gets your stuff in front of serious buyers. For most writers -- even good ones -- getting a foot in the door is next to impossible."
* Not true. I've published with a few small publishers but my best work (books) I've had to publish myself.
I don't mind the contest. I mind how they are promoting it.
Mr. Deemer, I do see your distinction, and think Amazon might have come up with a more accurate title. And I hope the world continues to honor both literary and popular fiction.
Mainly, I'm commenting because I want to say to Anonymous, hang in there. Published writers often say that the most important factor in getting published is persistence - and you obviously have that. Yes, every writer, published and pre-published, should work to improve his/her craft, and yes, luck is a factor as well. But many of us who have become published only did it after years and years of writing, and many, many unsold manuscripts.
If you haven't joined a writing organization, group or community, I strongly recommend you do so. It's a lonely job, being a writer, and a good organization provides not only emotional support but a wealth of industry knowledge, workshops and conferences, contacts to editors and agents (e.g., if you attend a conference and pitch to an agent or editor, you may get a request to submit material). For those who write romance, there's Romance Writers of America, which I belong to and believe to be the largest professional writing organization in the world with over 9500 members. If you still write fantasy, you'll find organizations and conferences. The same for mystery, and so on.
I'd also suggest you think about writing and submitting some short work. Getting stories published is great experience plus it helps you build a readership (and your confidence) while you're on your way to selling that first novel.
Mostly, I wanted to say that you're not in this alone. Most of the published writers whose books you see on the shelves of your local store have gone through a similar struggle. I can't promise you you'll make it, but you're persisting, you believe in yourself, and you're proactive enough to send out work and enter a contest - so you're already way ahead of most pre-published writers. Best of luck!
SL's advice to Anonymous is excellent. As a teacher of screenwriting, the most competitive form of writing there is today, I've observed that my student who "make it" are seldom my best students. They are the student who do not give up. A B student with persistence will be more successful than an A student who gives up.
As a writer, I too went through my period of struggles. An older writer gave me great advice when I was younger: do something positive with your rejection slips. So I began a collage of them. I ended up with two large collages of rejection slips before I began publishing in magazines and newspapers with some regularity.
I still have them. A few years back, I was giving a reading and on the same program was a poet who as editor of Northwest Review had accepted my first literary short story for publication. His personal note on a rejection slip, a note of encouragement, was on one of the collages! I brought the collage to the reading, showed it to the audience, and thanked the man, now in his 70s, for encouraging me so long ago.
One of the joys I get out of being editor of Oregon Literary Review is publishing young writers, who are often still students.
I have a somewhat different take on writing groups. It's like any relationship -- there are good ones and bad ones. I've seen a number in my day that I would call less than helpful because of the egos of some of the members. I never joined one myself, and they aren't for everybody. But many writers swear by them.
I haven't read all the comments, but in response to your blog: I definitely agree with what you're saying here. I did apply for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, and I did key in to the way they titled their contest; I guess my hope was that the top ten would have been narrowed to good writing. I won't hold my breath, though. Only last year I just assumed literature took precedence over thrillers and adventure stories simply because literature /did/ entertain me (my entertainment takes place in the realm of analysis), and all the rest either put me to sleep or made me want to tear the book apart with my editing pen. Since then, my family has only half-jokingly encouraged me to try for one bestseller, and write the rest as I want. I know it sounds arrogant, but it sounds like I'm being told to write something beneath me on purpose, and I take pride in doing the best I can. In the end, I guess I can either see if I can pull a Shakespeare, and be entertaining /and/ say something, or have the drive of your B student and the talent of your A.
The cream cannot rise without the milk.
I think that you, Mr. Deemer, make some good points. However, I am still skeptical that in the past people were more apt to publish literary works out of a sense of duty. I will say that the waters have been diluted with what some might call "trash." But if one looks, I really don't think we need to strive great lengths to find new quality literature. What we're talking about is popularity, and the popular usually doesn't constitute what is later deemed "cultural treasure."
I remind myself of this every time I think that music has gone down hill by looking up old Billboard Chart Records and realizing that every era is inundated with its fair share of trash.
Let's not forget the Pulp novel or the mountainous piles of horrific sci-fi novels from decades past that pack the shelves of used book stores. Does a publisher who prints a book about a human spy living in the eye-ball of a giant alien who has been turned into a mechanical machine on the moon, print from the same sense of duty that "Howl" was published in, or "To Kill A Mocking Bird"? Of course not.
As there were in the past, there are today publishers who do print books that they know aren't going to break the charts, but that are great. "Gate of the Sun," by Elias Khourey is a good example. One need only look on the bookshelves to find them.
GATE OF THE SUN was first published in Arabic. Translated into French, it was La Monde's Book of the Year in 2002. This made it far "safer" for an American publisher to take it on -- it had a track record.
I'm talking about American novels written by Americans. I'm talking about the change in the publishing industry, which is documented and irrefutable. Here, "the literary novel" no longer has the support it once had. Indeed, many agents will tell you that today "literary novel" is a pejorative term!
You suggest a point with which I agree: the best work is being published out of the U.S. today because of these changes.
PS: Sorry to take up so much space. But to say that the contest is based on customer voting and to leave it at that, isn't entirely accurate.
1. The first round of cuts are made by amazon reviewers, a description of what that means can be found on the contest page.
2. Amazon customers vote based on novel excerpts
3. The grand prize winner is then picked by an "expert panel" and though we may argue what "expert" means, it seems that they are industry people and writers like yourself. http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200183320
Finally, if this is the case, what then is the difference between this and any other contest, such as one that your journal might run? Where if enough submissions are received the material might then be narrowed down by student staffers or other "less-qualified" personnel than the final judge...assuming that's how you might run a contest if you run them at all?
Curious is all.
In response to your qualm with the contest's title, I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but it seems to me that the title is pretty low on your list of concerns as far as the contest is concerned.
In all my disagreement with you seems to be one of degree rather than quality.--good discussion
Excellent counter point, I can't really argue with you there as far as Gate of the Sun is concerned.
But what of other novels?
As far as the support of literary novels I really can't say much there because I have not had the experience of life to witness changes.
Perhaps the novel is changing or dying, being replaced by the internet, movies, and television. A slow death albeit.
The publishing industry changed for simple, easily understood reasons: relatively small, family-run corporations with managers who loved literature were bought out by large multinational corps. with managers devoted to improving the bottom line. Today the publishing industry IS a better BUSINESS! It makes no business sense to publish books (literary novels) you expect to break even at best.
But generations of book-loving publishers did just this.
OREGON LITERARY REVIEW will never, never sponsor a contest as long as I'm editor ha ha. Having been a judge in these affairs before, I know what they're about. We don't play that game.
Re ABNA, I think it’s a good thing. It creates excitement in Amazon readers and hope among the unpublished or the self-published and those languishing in Mid-list limbo. As far as the term Breakthrough is concerned, I interpret it as some lone writer coming out of nowhere to smash through the walls that Big Publishing and Big Agencies have thrown up to keep them out. Sadly, there are more and more folks writing (and as baby boomers retire, probably more and more and more) and there are less and less folks reading, instead spending their leisure time as others have already noted here, on electronic gizzys and gadgets. I agree with Mr. Deemer that there is less quality or literary fiction being published. Publishers used to use the monies garnered by the big commercial books to fund literary fiction. Now that seems to be on the decline, and small houses are bringing the thoughtful, literary books to smaller and smaller readerships. Nowadays many publishers will not read anything unless it is agented, and many agents will not accept new clients unless they are recommended to them by their current stable of authors. And those writers that are already safely within the walled citadel of Big Publishing look down from the bulwarks at us, the hordes of wild-eyed, angrily-shouting unpublished savages, and vow to keep us out and them in. They work hard to be ‘branded,’ cranking out the 8th or 15th book in their detective/spy/thriller/comedy/sci-fi/whatever series. Their writing is formulaic and stale, sometimes grotesquely sadistic or sexual, and they’ve sold their writers’ souls to be where they are. But they’re also known commodities, and as such, make much money for their houses and agencies. And so, if the ABNA allows some lone savage to break through into the citadel, good. Good for the readers and good for him or her. Write on!
I came across this quote today and it reminded me of the conversation we were having on this blog almost a year ago now!
"...remarks by the secretive Nobel Academy’s permanent secretary, Horace Engdahl, suggesting that American writers were too much under the sway of American popular culture to qualify for the prize..."--NYT 10-9-2008, "French Writer Wins Nobel Prize" by Alan Cowell.
I think that this comment speaks to the point, if I remember correctly, you made about serious novels not receiving as much support as they used to. As I remember I disagreed with you on that. But I'm not one to stick to a dying argument, so well done Mr. Deemer, and here's to a brighter future.
GO OBAMA!
Thanks for the follow up. Yep, in the big picture of world lit, we're considered irrelevant these days, which is sad.
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