Embrace Your Inner Mutant
Last year at a Fango convention, Michael Laimo posed the following question to me at the hotel bar. "Have you ever seen anybody reading a novel by a mid-list author in public?"
The answer, of course, was no, not in recent memory. It's been years since I've seen somebody reading a novel by somebody who isn't a household name.
For that matter, I have never encountered anybody reading anything by folks like F. Paul Wilson, John Connoley, William Gibson, Joe Lansdale, Brian Lumley, or others of that ilk. In other words, writers with solid genre credentials who have not great cross-over appeal and very solid fan bases. Likewise for A.M. Homes and Larry Brown, two writers whose work I enjoy tremendously, who receive solid critical rep and have a whole gaggle of books in brick-and-mortar stores, but who not many people have ever heard of.
As for your Jack Ketchum and Edward Lee's? Forget it.
Of course, somebody's got to be buying -- and reading -- those books, right?
Two weeks ago I took a trip to California to visit family and friends. I took along a paperback to read (Scott Nicholson's The Farm -- highly recommended). As I settled into the plane and noted the reading material of my fellow passengers, all bearing books by the established brand names -- mostly James Patterson and Norah Roberts -- I couldn't help but think that I was probably the only airline traveller in the country who, at that exact moment, was reading Scott's novel somewhere at 33,000 feet.
I made a conscious effort to make note of the authors and titles (if I could remember them) of the books my fellow passengers were reading that weekend. The result was something like this: lots of books by Janet Evanovich, Catherine Coulter, Nicholas Sparks, James Patterson, one Stephen King, one Iris Johnson, and one Nora Roberts. Everything else was those bullshit self-help titles; you know, How to Kiss People's Asses, and the Five People You Never Want to Meet in Heaven. Dreary stuff.
And then there's me, with The Farm in my grubby hands, enjoying the hell out of it for probably the same reason the half dozen or so Patterson readers are enjoying their books.
I use Scott Nicholson's book in this example because it happened to be the paperback I brought along on the trip, but it very easily could have been something by another mid-list writer. The point is, there are wonderful books in the mid-list that are just as engaging, if not more so, and in many cases better written, and they aren't getting the attention from the people who would enjoy them due to their placement in the stores.
Unless you're a book geek, the casual reader of suspense/thriller/horror passes up good fiction because it isn't placed properly in the bookstore. Casual readers are like the cattle of the book buying public; they graze over the dump bins, which is where most paperbacks by the aforementioned bigger name writers are placed. They pick out the writers familiar to them, pausing every so often to pick up a title that is lucky enough to get such placement by its publisher and if it catches their interest, they buy it. Very rarely do they venture into where the other books are stacked, in the General Fiction rack. God forbid these people venture into an independent bookstore. They'd be lost.
Yet somewhere, somebody is buying this mid-list stuff, otherwise I wouldn't get royalty statements showing that x amount of copies of my Leisure titles have sold. And for that matter, a whole lot of somebodies are buying Brian Keene, Richard Laymon, Douglas Clegg, Edward Lee, and Jack Ketchum titles by the handful because they sell well. I have yet to see their books being read by somebody in public at a park or a bus stop, though.
So what gives? Are the people who buy our books simply too embarrassed to read them in public? Would they rather be seen bearing copies of the latest Nicholas Sparks when they have to make that doctor appointment? Or when they're lounging at the beach?
Things got better on the flight home, though. As I boarded the plane I made my way down the aisle, noting the same old Sparks, Patterson, and Roberts titles being read when something stuck out from all the dross. A ghostly image amid the sea of blandness. Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk, being read by a guy in First Class.
And now, a message for all of you out there who love and read me and Keene and Ketchum and Langan and Nicholson and everybody else you never see being read in public. Embrace your inner mutant. Take it out in public by proudly displaying that Lansdale title at the airport, or that Lumley Necroscope novel in the company lunchroom. Yes, your co-workers will laugh at you, but why should your give-a-shit-a-meter even register? Yes, the average Norah Roberts fan who sits in the company break room won't get it, but the guy who reads Dean Koontz? Or Stephen King? They'll probably dig that Brian Keene title you're reading, or that new Lansdale book even if they've never heard of Keene and Lansdale.
And when it comes to bestowing gifts for that co-worker or distant family member who likes to read 'suspense' novels and will read everything James Patterson puts out, slip him/her something by Tom Piccirilli instead.
I guess I should add that you should all recommend my stuff to people.
But seriously...while there are great books being written by those that crank out the best sellers, there are books that are just as good, and many times better, being written by those of us who toil away at the mid-list level. If you really enjoyed a mid-list book by a certain writer, recommend that book and that writer to your friends and fellow readers.
If enough of you do that, maybe someday I'll step onto an airplane for a flight and see somebody reading a Bentley Little novel. Or one of my books.
That would certainly be a first.
JFG
Last year at a Fango convention, Michael Laimo posed the following question to me at the hotel bar. "Have you ever seen anybody reading a novel by a mid-list author in public?"
The answer, of course, was no, not in recent memory. It's been years since I've seen somebody reading a novel by somebody who isn't a household name.
For that matter, I have never encountered anybody reading anything by folks like F. Paul Wilson, John Connoley, William Gibson, Joe Lansdale, Brian Lumley, or others of that ilk. In other words, writers with solid genre credentials who have not great cross-over appeal and very solid fan bases. Likewise for A.M. Homes and Larry Brown, two writers whose work I enjoy tremendously, who receive solid critical rep and have a whole gaggle of books in brick-and-mortar stores, but who not many people have ever heard of.
As for your Jack Ketchum and Edward Lee's? Forget it.
Of course, somebody's got to be buying -- and reading -- those books, right?
Two weeks ago I took a trip to California to visit family and friends. I took along a paperback to read (Scott Nicholson's The Farm -- highly recommended). As I settled into the plane and noted the reading material of my fellow passengers, all bearing books by the established brand names -- mostly James Patterson and Norah Roberts -- I couldn't help but think that I was probably the only airline traveller in the country who, at that exact moment, was reading Scott's novel somewhere at 33,000 feet.
I made a conscious effort to make note of the authors and titles (if I could remember them) of the books my fellow passengers were reading that weekend. The result was something like this: lots of books by Janet Evanovich, Catherine Coulter, Nicholas Sparks, James Patterson, one Stephen King, one Iris Johnson, and one Nora Roberts. Everything else was those bullshit self-help titles; you know, How to Kiss People's Asses, and the Five People You Never Want to Meet in Heaven. Dreary stuff.
And then there's me, with The Farm in my grubby hands, enjoying the hell out of it for probably the same reason the half dozen or so Patterson readers are enjoying their books.
I use Scott Nicholson's book in this example because it happened to be the paperback I brought along on the trip, but it very easily could have been something by another mid-list writer. The point is, there are wonderful books in the mid-list that are just as engaging, if not more so, and in many cases better written, and they aren't getting the attention from the people who would enjoy them due to their placement in the stores.
Unless you're a book geek, the casual reader of suspense/thriller/horror passes up good fiction because it isn't placed properly in the bookstore. Casual readers are like the cattle of the book buying public; they graze over the dump bins, which is where most paperbacks by the aforementioned bigger name writers are placed. They pick out the writers familiar to them, pausing every so often to pick up a title that is lucky enough to get such placement by its publisher and if it catches their interest, they buy it. Very rarely do they venture into where the other books are stacked, in the General Fiction rack. God forbid these people venture into an independent bookstore. They'd be lost.
Yet somewhere, somebody is buying this mid-list stuff, otherwise I wouldn't get royalty statements showing that x amount of copies of my Leisure titles have sold. And for that matter, a whole lot of somebodies are buying Brian Keene, Richard Laymon, Douglas Clegg, Edward Lee, and Jack Ketchum titles by the handful because they sell well. I have yet to see their books being read by somebody in public at a park or a bus stop, though.
So what gives? Are the people who buy our books simply too embarrassed to read them in public? Would they rather be seen bearing copies of the latest Nicholas Sparks when they have to make that doctor appointment? Or when they're lounging at the beach?
Things got better on the flight home, though. As I boarded the plane I made my way down the aisle, noting the same old Sparks, Patterson, and Roberts titles being read when something stuck out from all the dross. A ghostly image amid the sea of blandness. Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk, being read by a guy in First Class.
And now, a message for all of you out there who love and read me and Keene and Ketchum and Langan and Nicholson and everybody else you never see being read in public. Embrace your inner mutant. Take it out in public by proudly displaying that Lansdale title at the airport, or that Lumley Necroscope novel in the company lunchroom. Yes, your co-workers will laugh at you, but why should your give-a-shit-a-meter even register? Yes, the average Norah Roberts fan who sits in the company break room won't get it, but the guy who reads Dean Koontz? Or Stephen King? They'll probably dig that Brian Keene title you're reading, or that new Lansdale book even if they've never heard of Keene and Lansdale.
And when it comes to bestowing gifts for that co-worker or distant family member who likes to read 'suspense' novels and will read everything James Patterson puts out, slip him/her something by Tom Piccirilli instead.
I guess I should add that you should all recommend my stuff to people.
But seriously...while there are great books being written by those that crank out the best sellers, there are books that are just as good, and many times better, being written by those of us who toil away at the mid-list level. If you really enjoyed a mid-list book by a certain writer, recommend that book and that writer to your friends and fellow readers.
If enough of you do that, maybe someday I'll step onto an airplane for a flight and see somebody reading a Bentley Little novel. Or one of my books.
That would certainly be a first.
JFG
posted by JFG at 7/31/2008
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