The State of Publishing

I don't follow the publishing industry that closely, since I don't really feel part of it yet. I've read, however, that even unpublished authors should avidly become acquainted with the industry since it should in some way help them in their marketing efforts. 

I don't necessarily believe that, but I did do some catch-up in this very interesting NY Times article, that does a good job of providing an overview of how the industry is faring during the Covid-19 crisis. It's told from the point of view of the world's largest publisher, Penguin Random House as it profiles its current leader. Here are some of my take-aways from the article.

• After a steep drop at the start of the pandemic, book sales not only recovered but surged. Unit sales of print books are up nearly 6 percent over last year, according to NPD BookScan, and e-book and digital audiobook sales have risen by double digits. Reading, it turns out, is an ideal experience in quarantine. It seems that people are looking to take a break from Netflix.
• Like Hollywood, which pours resources into universe-scale superhero franchises that are nearly guaranteed to get an audience, publishing has become increasingly reliant on blockbusters — a development that has left beginner and midlist authors struggling. (Deep sigh.)
• The virus has pushed most book-buying online, a marketplace driven by algorithmic formulas that serves up mostly the hits, driving a cycle so self-fulfilling it’s nearly tautological: Best sellers sell the best because they are best sellers.
• Random House is printing 3 million copies of Barak Obama's upcoming memoir (for which he received a $65 million advance!!!). This is exacerbating a current paper shortage in the book publishing industry. Many publishers have had to hold off or reduce print runs of upcoming books because printers have been going out of business, and those still printing books have had their supply chains disrupted.

As a writer, it's nice to know that people are reading more than ever. It's not nice to know that they're mostly reading the same books by the same authors because of the subtle positioning and hype bestowed by Amazon.

The Terror of the Blank Page

All writers have faced the daunting situation of sitting down to write and having nothing to say. It's the terror of the blank page. It happens to writers of all kinds: poets, novelists, journalists, bloggers, screenwriters, marketing writers (though I doubt it's ever happened to Joyce Carol Oates). The most recent time it's happened to me was this morning.

But as you can see, I've managed to jostle my empty brain and come up with an idea for a post. I think the way to break through what some call "writer's block" is to tailor the solution to the type of writing that you're doing. For this post, I forced myself to list some blog-specific categories like agents, editors, publishers, writing tips, complaints, etc. But nothing really emerged from that. So I took that "nothing" and ran with it.

Hence, today's topic is Nothing, specifically how to break through that Nothing. Last time I had nothing, I wrote about gardening, which turned out to be one of my most popular posts. (As an update, my gardening venture was a bust--one good cucumber and four stunted radishes. Appears that benign neglect in gardening is not a good approach.)

The worst kind of writer's block is when you're a few chapters into a novel and can't figure out where to go next. I believe that many many many more novels are started and never finished because the author can't get through her writer's block and gives up as a result. (I'm glad they give up; I don't need any more competition in the ultra-competitive publishing market!)

I agree with David Mitchell, the writer whom I currently admire most, who said that novelists who get stuck don't understand their characters well enough. He suggests that they write a couple of personal letters between two characters in the story insert pieces of their back story. That exercise can deepen the authors' understanding of their characters and perhaps guide them out of their creative ditch. 

I've been fortunate in the books I've written that I usually understand the story structures and my characters very well before the drafting begins. When I do get stuck, it's usually because my mind is on other things or I get hung up on how to present various plot twists. 

The sad thing is, bourbon doesn't seem to alleviate the terror of the blank page.