THE EDITOR’S DESK: Live From Book Expo America
I spent the weekend in New York at Book Expo America and throwing a big fat party with McSweeney’s and SMITHMAG. The party was amazing, over 500 people, inspired performances.
But I want to say something about Book Expo.
Literature is not dying. People are worried about publishing houses and book advances. Their concerns are echoed in the New York Times. Big publishers are thankful for vampire novels but sad because there was no Harry Potter this year.
But here’s the thing, I don’t care about those books. I don’t care about the publishing industry that’s concerned with cookbooks and celebrity memoirs. And I don’t believe the people who say they’re publishing celebrity memoirs so they can publish great literature. And I don’t believe in the model that relies on monster hits. One day Stephen King is going to hire someone like Alvaro Villanueva, and that’ll be the end of that free ride; he’ll just keep it all for himself.
McSweeney’s seems to be doing fine, along with Graywolf and Two Dollar Radio. People buy books from these publishers written by authors they’ve never heard of. Just because. When was the last time someone bought a Random House book because it was published by Random House?
When all of that collapses, the small presses will still exist. There are too many people writing good books. If you write a good book, it’s easy to get published; it’s just hard to get paid. But everybody has a job when they write their first novel. And if they don’t, they should. And when you start writing for money, you’ve already turned a certain corner, and it can be hard to come back from there, though many people do come back. Many people remember why they wrote that first book, and how good that was, and they forget about the rest of it.
Someone said this weekend that when you are young, it’s about looks and access, and when you are old, it’s about money because you don’t have looks and access anymore. And that struck me as partially true, but that it didn’t have to be that way since after all you make your own choices. Someone asked me what I wanted this weekend, and I tried to tell her that we were into different things. “Tell me what you want,” she kept saying and finally I told her and she slapped me hard across the face. “I will fuck you up,” she said. She was drunk, otherwise I might have gone home with her. But you have to be careful with people who don’t know what they’re doing.
What I was saying was nothing seems different for writers of literary books. We’ve been thrown in with someone else’s arguments. This is not about us. This is about money, and there’s nothing wrong with money, but you should do something else to get it. Or you can write for TV. Or you can live very, very cheaply and promise yourself never to be jealous of your neighbors.
Sometimes I want to get old. I’m eager to put on a bathrobe and play bridge all day and live in a compound with all of my friends. Sometimes I’ll say to a woman, “I want to get old with you, right now.” And what I mean is I want to lie in bed with her and read a magazine, wake up and have breakfast. I want to skip all the other stuff and get post-passion. But that’s not how it works, it turns out. You have to be young first, all the way until the end.
So you see, literature, that beautiful self-destructive art is alive and well. And when novelists worry about the state of publishing, what they’re really worrying about is themselves, and the changing, collapsing world around them. It makes me think of Kerouac rushing off in a four-year manic bender, benzadrine dripping from his pores like soy sauce. And then years of alcoholic misery and decline. But he never lost his looks. And that book he wrote, from the notes he gathered on a single sheet of paper, was perfect. So where’s the harm?
June 1st, 2009 at 11:26 am
Mostly levelheaded and wise thoughts (though you lose me a little, as most do, in the final paragraph). Do what you love and screw “market forces” (just keep your pants on). It’s a formula that, naturally, and more often than not, reaps material scarcity as well as discomfort if not outright pain. But it doesn’t have to kill us or make us addicts (though coffee and tea are really really helpful drugs). We are all capable of doing more than we imagine –> day job (survival) plus true vocation (thrive-al). As with everything, there are compromises and sacrifices. And we must do the hard necessary work of determining what’s important and the even harder necessary work of staying focused and bringing that what’s-important to fruition.
June 1st, 2009 at 11:42 am
What a great essay. Echos my thoughts and feelings exactly!
June 1st, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Wow, Steve, you don’t know how much I needed to read this essay this morning. You’re one of the rare exceptions in this literary community that stays positive despite the market, and I would categorize you as that guy who lives very, very cheaply and tries not to get jealous of his neighbors. Although, I don’t know how you do it. If I lived next to you, I would be that jealous neighbor, although maybe I wouldn’t, because we’d hang out more and you’d be a positive influence in my life. Nonetheless, nice observations at BEA. New York was on my mind this weekend.
June 1st, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Great essay!
June 1st, 2009 at 5:29 pm
This was great, Steve.
June 1st, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Thanks!
June 1st, 2009 at 9:39 pm
I like what your saying mostly. The first part at least. The thing about “writers of literary books” being uneffected by the downward curve of publishing seems elitist. Also, I’m not sure what is meant by the sentence “You have to be young first, all the way until the end.” It seems to be saying we’re young until we’re old — but “until the end”? We’re young until we’re dead? And as for Kerouac keeping his looks even after all the benny and boozing — have you see pictures of Kerouac circa 1964, sweating endlessly and pale and bloated like a beluga whale? A very sad sight indeed, and the complete opposite of the romantic image of the self-destructive writer that the article puts forth.
June 1st, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Steve,
Your rant on literature as opposed to vampire novels and other kid lit phenom struck a chord [However, I'm thrilled at the myriad new readers who went to bookstores in search of Harry P's magic]…
I don’t care [twice in the same paragraph] [I do love what Rumpus adds to the landscape]. I don’t believe [twice in that same same paragraph] [I'm clear for myself that money energy is not evil and that artists may thrive].
I confuse you with a nod to F. Scott Fitzgerald [who wrote for money][who gave us marvelous art] [in the same breath] I thank you for your contribution to our wacky world. May you make ‘enough’ money to afford breakfast in bed.
Tomas Verkozen
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:47 am
Perfect, Stephen. It’s what many of us need to hear from time to time.
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:52 am
Thanks for stating the obvious but oft-forgotten fact that most people working on a first (or second, or third) book tend to do something else for money, and that this does not signify that there’s something wrong with the world.
Also, my friends and I had an absolute blast at the big fat party. Throw another one soon.
June 7th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Holy crapamoly. Your had me. You lost me. You got me back. What a ride! Great article.
September 16th, 2009 at 9:30 am
stephen-
i saw you last night at booksmith (if you care to recall, i’m the girl that came late, in the twirly white dress), and i’m tearing through the Diaries today. i like it so much that i decided to search you out online, found that you actually edit the rumpus, and ended up at this essay, which made me very happy at 9:22 on this wednesday morning.
the line that most resonated referred to attempting to “live very, very cheaply and promise yourself never to be jealous of your neighbors,” which is a policy that i aspire to but of which i generally fall short.
there’s a great quote in Of Human Bondage, which says, “I pity with all my heart the artist, whether he writes or paints, who is entirely dependent for subsistence upon his art.” It seems that to be entirely able to write at one’s best, one would do well to have a source of income independent from creative endeavor. either that, or be willing to go hungry on occasion.
thank you for what you’ve written. well said, sir, well said.