“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
Yesterday was my birthday. To celebrate, I spent Sunday in San Francisco at LitQuake, attending three panels on the art of memoir, short story and the novel, respectively. Then with two beloved friends, I tromped around the Mission listening to amazing people read and discuss writing in LitCrawl. It was pretty much a dream come true. A flashback to my twenties, except the people I knew passing by on Valencia or balanced on the pool table at the Lexington were writers. One of the questions that came up in more than one discussion is the way the writer must grapple with the market.
Books are shaped by many forces. By our own passions, preferences and abilities. By our early readers, even by our imagined readers. By teachers, editors and eventually agents and editors. Then by reviews, by ambitions, by actually readers of our published books. And then always back to those passions, preference and abilities.
I have lately heard a number of stories from published writers about being told not to set a book in that country, not to feature this traumatic event. These are judgments being passed down from editors with more than an eye to the market.
I have divided about this general topic. At a marvelous panel on The Art of the Novel that I attended this past weekend as part of the LitQuake Festival, Karen Joy Fowler commented on the trend of writers writing for the market. Noted that the books these writers are writing (and rewriting) are not as exciting to her as the books they had or would have written without the directives. Agents, editors and, yes, even writers want sales. But at what cost?
I myself have taken to calling this trend a censorship by the capitalist regime, something I recognized while reading a scene in Roth’s The Prague Orgy that looked at the censorship of the communist regime. It’s shocking to hear about writers turning their own stories upside down because of something their publisher requires.
On the other hand, as a small business owner (co-founder of the Book Writing World, which is a community, a school, but also a business), I have had to learn about marketing. About giving people what they want and need, rather than what I think they want and need. About taking seriously the relationship between what I have to offer and how that serves others. And from this perspective, I think it can be worthwhile to consider the market as reader. From Shakespeare to Dickens to Carver to Rowling, writers have often written out of a need for money, out of the demands of the market. Michealangelo created art on the ceiling a church not because that just came to him in the middle to the night as a performance art concept but because those were the patrons with the big bucks. All this to say that the market has inspired, even driven, some seriously great literature and art. And that needing to hold your audience—think Shaharazad—can push you to create delicious suspense and fabulous stories.
It always surprises me how intensely the “classics” grab you by the throat and don’t let go. These are not the niche market puzzles we often associate with “great art.” These classics, like clichés, became widespread because they were unforgettable.
What do you think? When and how do readers, publishers, markets factor into your writing process? When do you turn away and write only for your ideal reader or for yourself? How do you find a balance?
Thank you for welcoming us in to this incredibly intricate landscape, Elizabeth! In my heart of hearts, I believe that agents and editors feel frightened, in this difficult market, and usually feel they can’t take risks. As a writer who tends toward short novels (aka novellas!), which have a contemplative dimension, I see a difference in the market just in the last 10 years — while I found a publisher fairly easily for my 2nd and 3rd books (both on the small, quiet side), it took me 5 years to find a publisher for my forthcoming novel, although I’d almost given up looking during the last two of those years. At the urging of two agents, I had expanded what had originally been a very quiet novella, into something longer, but not necessarily better. In this process, I DID discover a new character’s 1st person voice, so I’m grateful in this sense for being urged! Yet it was a fellow writer, who had created a micropress, who became the person who helped me save the original heart of this short, lyrical fiction. What I truly believe is that this book is now better than it would have been, if I’d published the longer version, because it’s more what it IS, without the thinning out and padding. But it took a young publisher, a writer himself, with an idealistic vision of the potential in the market, to welcome my writing in the shorter, more compact, and possibly stranger form. Can a micropress take more risks? Or is it that a micropress like this one can bring on board books it really believes in, and support these books as they go out into the world? A press can also help to shape public readership.
Harriet, Thank you for sharing this experience. It is true that there is often, maybe almost always, some value in stretching, in being pushed, even. And yet, it is so easy to go too far–or is it too far?–so hard to know when to stop, when to abandon the work of art rather than to keep changing it. I am glad that you feel happy with the final product–I am eagerly anticipating my copy. And I very much hope that a press can shape public readership; I suppose they often have. (Thinking, for example, of Bloomsbury.)
Thank you for taking me on your adventure! I felt like I was there. When I write, I don’t think about agents, publishers, or even he audience. However, I have had bad luck marketing my anthology because maybe I didn’t think about the publishers enough. Much that s out there is all white, male dominated unfortunately and if the work does not appeal to them, you have a lots of hard work head of you.
For my novel, I am still ignoring the rest of the world and writing. Hopefully, the authenticity will sell. Or maybe I should be more mindful of the audience as I am writing. Still looking for balance.