Genre Grapevine for April 2024
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No One Buys Books. Except for Those Billion Plus Copies a Year
Last week Elle Griffin published a viral post titled “No one buys books” that examined the transcripts from the Penguin Random House / Simon & Schuster antitrust trial. While a judge ended up blocking the merger of those publishing companies – only for S&S to later get purchased by private equity firm KKR – the transcripts still reveal a fascinating glimpse inside the world of major book publishers.
Griffin sums up her findings as follows:
“The Big Five publishing houses spend most of their money on book advances for big celebrities like Britney Spears and franchise authors like James Patterson and this is the bulk of their business. They also sell a lot of Bibles, repeat best sellers like Lord of the Rings, and children’s books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar. These two market categories (celebrity books and repeat bestsellers from the backlist) make up the entirety of the publishing industry and even fund their vanity project: publishing all the rest of the books we think about when we think about book publishing (which make no money at all and typically sell less than 1,000 copies).”
Griffin’s entire post is worth reading and provides quite the ice-water bath for any author aiming to publish books. However, it’s also likely Griffin’s view is a bit biased. In the last few years, Griffin has written a couple of posts focused on how books are dead and no one reads them, all with tantalizing titles such as “Writing books isn't a good idea” and “No one will read your book.” While the posts are worth checking out, they’re also not the entire story.
First off, Griffin’s “No one buys books” post was about two of the largest publishers in the world. Yes, large publishers are important to the book industry, but they aren’t the entire industry. What wasn’t covered? Small presses. Magazines. Self-publishing (aside from a passing mention that many readers of romance novels have switched to self-published stories). Also not mentioned? Bookstores, both large and independent (aside from a comment from a publisher essentially dismissing indie bookstores).
Griffin also essentially set up annual sales and bestseller status as the be-all and end-all of what it means to be an author. According to this view, if you’re not a bestselling author you ought to never write another word.
But even focused solely on the world of large publishers, Griffin didn’t provide the most nuanced of views.
As Kathleen Schmidt of Publishing Confidential said in response to the post,
“My issue with the piece is that 1) Plenty of people still buy books, and thinking otherwise tells me that one is not educated about the publishing business, 2) The writer makes a case that perhaps Substack will replace books (memo: it will not), and 3) The piece doesn’t dive into the nuances of what makes a successful writing career (it is not all about bestsellers).”
Schmidt also responded to all the people using the post to say publishers do nothing for authors. “Allow me to make this clear: publishers big and small do plenty of things for authors, from editing, copyediting, typesetting, cover design, printing, warehousing, shipping, and more. Further, production departments are the unsung heroes of book publishing.”
Author and critic Fredrik deBoer also had some juicy words to share about Griffen’s post in a Substack painfully and amusingly titled “Publishing is Designed to Make Most Authors Feel Like Losers Even While the Industry Makes Money.”
As deBoer said,
“I’ll tell you upfront that I think that Schmidt has a better grasp of the facts, and I think Griffin’s stance, while emotionally understandable, is really an expression of a particular culture war rather than an honest survey of the industry. … And is it in fact true that all of the sales go to celebrities and the backlist? Of course not. Hanya Yanigahara’s A Little Life sold a million and a half copies, and it’s a relentlessly bleak literary novel by a woman who was plugged in but not famous. Yanigahara’s first novel The People in the Trees would probably slide comfortably into Griffin’s definition of the vanity project side of publishing, but her more ambitious – and not at first glance any more commercial – second novel sold insanely well. Of course, now that it’s been a few years, Griffin might be tempted to relegate A Little Life to the backlist, but that wouldn’t be very sensible. Every book on the backlist was once a new book, after all. If Griffin will concede that the backlist grows over time, that there are always new old books helping a publishing company’s bottom line, her claims don’t add quite add up. Somebody who isn’t a celebrity is selling books. Not many people, but enough.”
And finally, Lincoln Michel pointed out a very inconvenient truth: “Yes, People Do Buy Books,” with at least a BILLION books sold in the U.S.A. alone each year.
As Michel said,
“Is one billion plus a lot of print books? Depends on your point of view. For comparison’s sake, there were 825 million movie tickets sold in the US and Canada in 2023. So roughly as many books are purchased as movie tickets, two somewhat comparable entertainment options in terms of price.”
I personally recommend writers read each of these essays just to be familiar with all the pros and cons of what's being said. Griffin has one view that is very focused on new ways of publishing, as evidenced by her novels being serialized on her Substack. Kathleen Schmidt is more of a traditional publishing insider. Fredrik deBoer and Lincoln Michel have published with both small presses and larger ones.
Yes, the publishing industry has issues. And these issues are sadly continuing, as evidenced in April by Small Press Distribution (SPD), which distributes around 300 small publishers, suddenly closing. While SPD didn’t distribute genre publishers, this still left hundreds of small presses unsure if they’d be paid money they’re owed or if their books will be returned by SPD. And that closing also makes it harder for independent bookstores to order books from small presses.
The publishing industry is going through a number of changes right now, which is why I recommend authors read a wide-range of opinions on what is happening. But also remember that people love to buy and read books. As long as that holds true, there will always be a place for both authors and publishers.
Protests Against Gaza War
Protests against Israel's horrific invasion of Gaza have spread around the world, including across many college campuses in the USA. Protests have also taken place within both the literary world and the SF/F genre.
PEN America is under severe criticism by many authors for not condemning Israel’s invasion of Gaza. While an article about PEN America in The Atlantic attempted to make the case that the organization is solely focused on free-speech issues, meaning it should not have to take a stand on what Israel is doing in Gaza, many others pointed out that PEN America had no problem condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In particular, many authors pointed to an open letter PEN America released last year expressing “our collective condemnation of Russia’s full-scale invasion of #Ukraine, a campaign of violence rooted in the erasure of Ukrainian culture” and noted the organization hadn’t shared similar concerns about Palestinians. So far, more than 1,300 writers and poets have signed a letter calling on PEN America to “find the same zeal and passion that they have for banned books in the US to speak out about actual human beings in Palestine.”
Among the genre writers protesting against PEN America was Daniel José Older, who wrote “NO BUSINESS AS USUAL DURING A GENOCIDE! @PENamerica has continued to gaslight the entire literary world with their both-sidesing nonsense. Writers stood up to hold them accountable and now they're being passive aggressive about that too. PEN A needs new leadership. Period.”
PEN America ended up canceling both their 2024 Literary Awards and their upcoming World Voices Festival because of these protests along with dozens of authors pulling out of both events.
In response, the Palestine Festival of Literature announced they would host Freedom to Write for Palestine in New York City on May 7. Many of the authors who withdrew from PEN America's World Voices Festival will be attending.
Basim Khandaqji, a Palestinian writer locked up in an Israeli prison cell for the last two decades, won this year’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
Good editorial on why it's so important for Palestinian writers and voices to be heard.
China Miéville declined a prestigious DAAD fellowship in Germany after the University of Cologne canceled philosopher Nancy Fraser’s visiting professorship because she signed a pro-Palestinian letter. The president of DAAD, Joybrato Mukherjee, is also the rector of the University of Cologne and personally disinvited Fraser. In an angry public letter addressed to Mukherjee, Miéville said “I cannot accept the DAAD’s invitation when I can have no faith that the institution will stand against such a shameful program of repression and anti-Palestinian racism. Indeed, you have personally shown your willingness to be part of it.”
Taylor Barton, Brooklyn Ray and Now … Freydis Moon
Back in 2020, I covered harassment and racism allegations that were raised against young adult author Taylor Barton/Brooklyn Ray (see item one under Other News and Info). In particular, Barton was “called out by fantasy writers of color for racist targeting.” Then in 2021, Taylor Barton/Brooklyn Ray returned and appeared to be writing under the new name Jupiter Wyse.
Based on that history, does it surprise anyone that, according to a thread by Elle Porter, Taylor Barton has returned yet again and is now writing under the name Freydis Moon?
Freydis Moon is the author of the paranormal romance With A Vengeance, which won the Queer Indie Award Winner for Best Erotica. Their website, which is now offline, also showcased a POC avatar, making people believe the author was a person of color.
In an in-depth essay, Henry Giardina drew parallels between what Moon did and R.F. Kuang’s satirical novel Yellowface, about a white author pretending to be Asian. As Giardina said, “When white authors cosplay as an identity that’s not theirs, it not only takes resources away from actual queer writers of color, it creates bigger issues in an industry that famously loves to profit off the labor of QPOC without giving them credit or platforming them fairly.”
And in another horrifying turn, it appears this person was also pretending to be a literary agent. According to a thread from Arielle Corsetti, “When I found out that my ex-agent was actually another Freydís Moon alias, I initially laughed and shrugged it off; I’d already dealt with the pain of finally finding representation only to have it ripped away with no warning. But the more I think about it, the more it hurts.”
For more details on what happened, Grapie Deltaco provides an excellent TikTok. And for a deep dive, Elle Porter created a Google Doc that contains detailed evidence on what has happened. And Jessica Porter’s 2021 essay “Fake Names & Brownface” is still relevant in all this.
As Caleb Roehrig said, “this is the 4th or 5th time the same person has pulled the same grift in the same community, and it would be cool if book Twitter could maybe finally look inward when asking ‘why does this keep happening here?’”
In response to all this, publishers such as Third Estate Books announced they would remove Moon’s stories while the Indie Ink Award disqualified their books and the Queer Indie Awards rescinded the awards they received.
Awards
This year’s recipients of the Horror Writers Association’s Lifetime Achievement Awards are Steve Rasnic Tem, Mort Castle, and Cassandra Peterson.
Finalists for the Xingyun Awards for Chinese science fiction.
The Reformatory: A Novel by Tananarive Due won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the speculative fiction category.
Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa has won the 2024 Compton Crook Award for best first SF/fantasy/horror novel of the year.
Murder at Spindle Manor by Morgan Stang won the ninth Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off.
The 2024 Philip K. Dick Award judges for this year have been announced. The judges are Maurice Broaddus, C. S. Friedman, Rajan Khanna, Carol McGuirk, and Carrie Vaughn. Information on submitting eligible titles to the judges can be found by scrolling down here.
As I said last year, I like how Tenebrous Press and editor Alex Woodroe call works and authors selected for their Brave New Weird anthologies “award winners.” The winners for volume 2 have now been announced, along with special honors for people who have contributed to the new weird genre.
Nominations for the Dragons Awards are now open through July 19.
Finally, voting for this year’s Hugo Awards is open through July 20. Details on how to vote on the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon website.
Other News and Info
On April 8, Angry Robot announced that they were bringing back their open submission period, which had been suspended due to their “overstretched” staff and the AI-generated submissions which were flooding publishers Angry Robot announced their new submissions portal called Storywise would use an AI grading system to “sort through submissions and send them to the right editor.” While Angry Robot said the system “uses artificial intelligence to sort through submissions,” the publisher said it was not a generative AI program and it would not “learn from author’s works to inform an AI model.” Despite that, authors were up in arms about the system and, hours after the initial announcement, Angry Robot killed Storywise and said “We have been watching & listening to the concerns. Our community matters to us above all, & for this open subs period, we will be using our old inbox.”
The Readers Take Denver convention in April turned into a disaster, according to reports from multiple attendees. The Direct has a good overview of what happened, but in a nutshell it appears the convention was poorly organized, overbooked with extremely long lines, and allowed multiple sexual assaults to take place during the masquerade party. In addition, authors who took part in signings weren’t given enough time to do all the signings and also endured other issues. In a public Facebook post, fantasy author Rebecca Yarros detailed her bad experiences at the convention. Yarros also noted that almost all of the authors invited to do signings were white. "Only .01606% of the authors were BIPOC, and don’t get me started on ‘we invited but they didn’t come.’ If more BIPOC authors didn’t come, perhaps we should sit back and ask ourselves WHY.” All of this is worth considering for any authors thinking about attending next year’s convention.
Perhaps Dr. Billy best summed up what happened: "Based on the reports, Readers Take Denver was 2024’s Fyre Festival… but with more disrespect, theft, and sexual harassment."
HarperCollins has partnered with an audio AI company “to create audiobooks for its foreign language business.” While the agreement would supposedly use AI to produce “audio versions of select deep backlist series books that would not otherwise have been created,” this could be the first of many attempts by publishers to normalize using machine learning software to create audio editions.
Or maybe this normalization is already well underway. Kindle Direct Publishing has been sending the following email to authors, with one of them sharing it with me: “Congratulations! You've been selected to participate in KDP's beta for audiobooks. Starting today, you have the option to produce audiobook versions of eligible eBook titles using virtual voice narration. After publication, audiobooks will be live within 72 hours and distributed where Audible titles are sold. Today, just 4% of KDP eBooks have an audiobook available. Audiobooks with virtual voice can support authors in bringing new stories to customers on Amazon, Audible, and Alexa.” I’m not naming the author who shared the email with me to avoid KDP punishing them.
In a detailed thread, Evelyn Freeling described harassment she said she suffered from Zach Rosenberg. Rosenberg apologized the next day, but a few hours later Mattie Lewis shared an additional thread, stating “I hadn’t planned on speaking out about my experience with Zach Rosenberg, but after his non-apology, I feel like I would be remiss. If even one person is warned away from this man, it would be worth it to me.” In response to all this, Rosenberg’s stories were dropped by a number of publishers including DarkLit Press, The Deadlands, and Shortwave Publishing.
When Doctor Who said something was "wibbly wobbly, timey wimey," turns out that was possibly getting at some deeper truths about the universe. Per the Guardian, “Dark matter is supposed to account for 85% of the mass in the universe, according to conventional scientific wisdom. But proponents of a radical new theory of gravity, in which space-time is ‘wobbly’, say their approach could render the elusive substance obsolete. The proposition, outlined in a new paper, raises the controversial possibility that dark matter, which has never been directly observed, is a mirage that a substantial portion of the physics community has been chasing for several decades.”
On Bluesky, KJ Charles wrote a viral thread stating that “Dreamspinner Press is doing calls for submissions, so this is just a quick reminder that they stole a bunch of money from a lot of authors who have never been paid their outstanding royalties.”
John Scalzi reflects on his first year on Bluesky. "Ultimately, here’s the thing that makes Bluesky my current favorite social media site: I’m actually happy to be on it. I enjoy it in a way that I hadn’t enjoyed being on social media (particularly the former Twitter) for years. The fun of hanging out with friends, of meeting new people who might one day become friends, of being goofy with strangers and riffing on the silly memes being created and shared — I missed that, and I didn’t realize how much I missed it until Bluesky reminded me it was possible to do that."
Fascinating article by Annalee Newitz about how Paul Linebarger – who wrote science fiction under the pen name Cordwainer Smith – and how his work with the CIA and the army helped invent the conspiracy theories that dominate today’s political discourse. “He was an anti-communist intelligence operative who helped define U.S. psychological operations, or psyops, during World War II and the Cold War. His essential insight was that the most effective psychological warfare is storytelling. Linebarger saw psyops as an emotionally intense, persuasive form of fiction – and, to him, no genre engaged people’s imagination better than science fiction. … I spoke with one of Linebarger’s intellectual heirs, a former psyops instructor for the Army, who told me that he and his colleagues worry a lot about psychological warfare’s ‘second- or third-order effects,’ consequences that can be completely unintended. One such consequence is the ubiquity of conspiracy thinking, through which all of reality is converted into fiction – rather than Believe us, people will believe anything.
Related to this, it’s amazing how the science fiction and fantasy genre releases so much BS into our world. This BS ranges from Cordwainer Smith and his conspiracy theories to L. Ron Hubbard and scientology to, more recently, the Sad Puppies and Gamergate inspiring new lows in political attacks and scams among the alt-right and politics in general. Don’t get me wrong – I love the SF/F genre. And many positive things emerge from our genre. But damn there’s also some horrific BS that’s been created over the last century.
The stories we tell matter. Back in the 19th century, "frontier" myths vilified the California grizzly as "a dangerous, even bloodthirsty creature." However, new research shows this was totally wrong, with the bears being primarily herbivores. Peter Alagona, one of the researchers who worked on this new research, said stories about the bears being huge and aggressive in nature were written by what he calls the Californian influencers of their time. “They were trying to get rich and famous by marketing themselves as these icons of the fading frontier. A lot of the historical sources that we have about grizzlies are actually not about grizzlies. They’re about this weird Victorian 19th-century celebrity culture.”
Shared without comment (but if I did comment it’d be a curse): “All billionaires under 30 have inherited their wealth, research finds.” As the Guardian article stated, “All of the world’s billionaires younger than 30 inherited their wealth, the first wave of ‘the great wealth transfer’ in which more than 1,000 wealthy people are expected to pass on more than $5.2tn (£4.1tn) to their heirs over the next two decades.”
If you're writing about the future, will your stories feature "plastic rocks"? A good look at the geological debate over whether or not this new material created by plastic pollution should be called a rock.
Tom Gauld shares some exciting new literary genres.
Opportunities
The Speculative Literature Foundation is accepting applications for their Older Writers Grant, which is awarded annually to writers who are at least fifty years of age and just starting to work at a professional level. Deadline May 31. Details>>
Jason Bartles is guest editing an issue of rural fantasy for Flash Fiction Online. The submission call is currently open with a deadline of May 31 or whenever they receive 150 submissions. Details>>
Hexagon Speculative Fiction is open to submissions until May 7. Details>>