How to Save Publishing

Any genre or content pool will have some parts that suck. The part that matters is the signal-to-noise ratio.

Not all the online/crowdfunded stuff I see is good. But the ratio is excellent, especially compared to the problems I'm having in bookstores these days. Another advantage is size; a bookstore is finite, whereas cyberspace is as big as people make it. So if I don't find something good where I start online, I can just keep going.

>> Edit: Which is to say, I'd gotten used to queer characters for whom their queerness was part of their being, not The Plot To Be Dealt With. <<

Once in a while I write traitfic where an uncommon or disadvantaged trait causes a problem that predominates the plot. But mostly I don't, and that is true across ALL of my many underrepresented-aspect writing.

This got me a roomful of funny looks and suspicion in a Carl Brandon Society party once. People got into a conversation listing their stories with characters of color. Everybody had at least one. Everybody other than me listed theirs very quickly and then stopped. I was still going, story ... pause ... story, story ... pause ... story. They wanted to know what the hell I was doing. I explained that I had to stop and remember the cast list for each one, because I hadn't filed them all together in my head based on color. And then it came out that very few of these were stories "about" race; they were mostly stories set in places populated by people of color. At the time, that was not what people were doing. Since then, it's become somewhat more common for stories to feature a prevailing race other than white, which I think is awesome.

Anyhow, when I find a new trait that needs attention, especially if it's getting stomped by the mainstream, I just drop it into my standard process. I look for ways that trait will influence someone's experience or actions, but I rarely make the story "about" that unless there's an obvious plot that hasn't been done yet and needs exposure. Usually I just go to making them heroes or writing background parity. I know the progression and don't see any need to trudge through the stupid parts when I can skip to the good stuff.

This drives me nuts. If I wanted to buy other crap, I'd go to a different store. I'm okay with books/music as a combination, and maybe a few other odds and ends, but I expect the majority of the merchandise to be plant fiber with words on it.

I despise the current trend of putting a huge ebook counter right in front of the door so you have to walk around it. To me that says, "We want to sell ebooks. The paper books are just here so people don't whine at us." It makes the atmosphere downright unwelcoming. I don't mind having ebooks as an option for people who want them, but again, not where it's in the way.

As an avid reader (specific, oddball tastes notwithstanding) I used to be the core market for bookstores. Now I'm fringe. They're aiming at people who want other stuff that, frankly, could be better marketed in other places than bookstores. The thing about books is that they require browsing in ways that cannot be duplicated online. That means you need a bookstore for anything more than buying something you already know you want.

The market trend frustrates the hell out of me. I am increasingly inclined to express this displeasure by changing where I spend my time and my money.

We did recently find a new resurrected bookstore, though. It's a little gem of nostalgia: long magazine racks, diverse content, and most of the content is paper books like God and Gutenberg intended.

>> WHERE have all the good science fiction writers gone to? <<

1) Crowdfunding, self-publishing, micropress or small press. Aside from long-established giants like Lois McMaster Bujold, the best writers I know of are out in the alternative areas.

2) Some have just gone into other work. When the publishing industry gutted the midlist and homogenized lines, they cut most of the ties between editor and writer, undermining the process of career development. Most people don't get up one morning and pull a bestseller out of their ass. They start writing and do okay at it, then get better. But if publishers only give a second book contract to people whose first book sells like hotcakes ... there's not much development happening. It's mostly first books, the occasional flash in the pan, and older writers who already know what they're doing. This is a problem if you want to have experienced writers somewhere down the road.

>> Even more worrisome is that every time I go to the BAM bookstore I find the paranormal romance section and the young adult section hogging more shelving while the science fiction and fantasy section gets smaller and smaller. <<

Yeah, that's frustrating. The diversity is shrinking. Most books are very similar to each other. I've already got over 10,000 of them. I want something different. And I am sick to fucking death of watching allegedly "strong, smart" female characters angst over which asshole boyfriend to settle down with. Nooooooo! Kick them all out and buy yourself a vibrator. Look for someone who is a decent human being. I'm not going to spend a book's worth of reading time to some jerk I would purposely spill my beverage on if he bothered me in a coffeehouse.

>> What sends cold shivers down my spine is that I see fewer and fewer traditional spaceship adventure type books offered for the past decade. <<

This is the kind of resonance I want for The Blueshift Troupers. I'm conceiving it as a television show, but it'll get written out in text. A small crew that works like a family, a living ship who is part of said family, and a mission to go around the galaxy solving problems. Tonal focus is on the sense of wonder.

I'm coming to realize that the field of science fiction has almost totally abandoned hope, and I hate that. If I wanted to read about how much the future is going to suck, I'd read the news. Sometimes I enjoy a good dystopic tale when I want to be reminded that life could suck more than it does, but usually I want something brighter. I like to watch for problem-solving techniques that actually work. That's hard to find in fiction these days, unless I request it. Hence my growing fondness for crowdfunding.

>> Matter of fact, CJ Cherryh is about the last one I know of whose books about life on other planets and outer space regularly hit BAM's bookshelves. <<

See above re: established oldtimers.

>> Fantasy was doing really well till paranormal romance started making such a bookshelf hog out of itself. <<

Yes, that's true. And fantasy also suffers from the worst book bloat. Originally a novel started at 40,000 words. Today most publishers won't look at less than 80,000 words and 100,000 is more common. There are books running 120,000 or more. Most authors are not putting in more plot, just more words. George R.R. Martin is an exception. He bores the hell out of me, but he damn well justifies his huge character cast and intricate plot. It's just that I kinda hated all the characters and most of the setting. Marshmallow books don't even have that going for them.

>> Whereas I go into a bookshop and immediately see at least half a dozen books I would dearly love to buy, if only I could. <<

That used to be my norm. I like a huge variety of topics. But if the fiction all sounds derivative, the cookbooks are missing ingredients, the other nonfiction has logical or factual errors I can spot in a minute or two ... I get kinda crabby.

>> Which is to say that "what people want" is not one easily identifiable thing. <<

That's true, but there are trends, both across topics and within them. I feel that production should at least roughly map to demand. I know perfectly well that I'm outside of mainstream demand for many things -- wanting chromatic and queer characters, for example, or other problem-solving methods besides violence -- but I don't expect those to be easy to find. I do expect decent quality and variety.

>> I don't know how publishers got round this in the past, but I fancy they published a wide range of titles, many of which lost money or barely broke even, and they absorbed this and muddled along and counted themselves blessed if they managed to net a best-seller. <<

Exactly. Publishing used to be run by people who loved books. A competent publisher made a modest profit. Now publishing is mostly run by people who love money. They will print anything that seems likely to make a huge profit, and generally won't touch anything that doesn't seem to stand a chance of that, regardless of quality. They've gutted the midlist, so that undermines career development and well-founded bestsellers. The effect on authors, readers, and books has been appalling.

>> I guess that's not a viable way to run a business any more. Our loss. <<

It is everyone's loss. But independent stores are beginning to make a comeback to fill the gaps left by the sinking of megacorps, and they are catering to book lovers. Small presses, crowdfunding, self-publishing, and other alternatives are thriving to various degrees.

I agree with most of those improvements, thanks for sharing.

>> You know, I was thinking alng theselines a short time ago, when, after posting my latest entry, I stumbled across a Wikipedia list of fictional characters with albinism...and the thing is dismal to say the least. <<

I have written a very few of these. I don't think I have any currently though.

>> Now I definitely have a prompt or two in reserve for you (as soon as it fits, <<

That would be awesome.

>> and if I manage to catch a fishbowl, your schedule and mine have been out of sync for quite a while :-( ). <<

I have missed your prompts! By all means, if our schedules are diverging for now, give me advance prompts when you see the announcement post. Also, this weekend there will be a Creative Jam over in crowdfunding with a theme of "historical fantasy."

Forgot to mention this in my previous comment: I post my bingo cards online. Those have the option of sponsoring squares if you want to take a prompt and flesh it out. Frex, you might take "in vino veritas / drunkfic" from my 1-2-14 Trope Bingo card and attach it to Fiorenza the Wisewoman with something like "sacramental wine" or "Bacchus." This has the advantage of being open all the time, although individual squares will fill up.

aldersprig has been using bingo cards in place of prompt call themes recently, with excellent results.