Is there a silver bullet for a writer these days? Is it better to be in mass market paperback or hardcover?
Inquiring minds want to know.
This is a question for authors, but for readers, too. I want to hear from hardcover authors, trade paper authors, and mass market authors. I figure if I talk to enough blind men I’ll get some picture of the elephant.
A few of my own observations first.
Original paperback has changed a lot in even the last couple of years. It’s always heavily favored romance writers (close to 50%) but now I think it’s even better for them—as long as they’re flexible and can change with the tide. I don’t think other genres fare as well, and they seem to be losing ground. The exception to this is horror and movie tie-ins.
The hot thing right now in romance is paranormal and erotica. But chick lit is doing fine, as well as romantic suspense and some cozy mysteries.
Everything else – and maybe I’m wrong about this – seems to be in the dumper.
Assuming my theory is correct, there are a number of reasons for this. There was the mass firing of jobbers by the independent distributors many years ago. (Richard Curtis can tell you all about that – you can Google it.) Book space in stores – particularly grocery stores and places like Walgreens, is shrinking. They are being replaced by the Costcos, Wal-Marts, etc., which has led to a rise in the popularity among trade paperbacks, particularly in chick lit.
People can wait a few days now and buy a hardcover book for pennies on the dollar, online. This is hurting paperback sales because people can buy their brand name authors right after they come out for not that much more than they’d pay for an unknown or relatively-unknown author in original paperback.
Which means that down the line (other than in romance), there may be no brand name authors. Except for James Patterson.
More than ever, original paperback is an impulse buy. And I believe the majority of people who buy mass market are young women. Horny young women. They know from the covers just what kind of book they want, too: romantic suspense, chick lit, erotica, vampire, or cozy mystery (how did cozies get in there? A backlash by the more matronly among us?)
What does that do for the writers of the male-oriented tanks-and-missile books? Or westerns? Am I overstating my case here?
You talk to hardcover people, and that’s no bed of roses either. Small hardcovers yield small print runs, and I’ve heard from hardcover writers that if the book sells out its printing, often there will not be another. Small hardcover runs into the same problem as some mass market, in that if Cindy Blow has a choice between buying Janet Evanovich’s latest book for $14.95 and some unknown author’s hardcover for $25.95 – who she gonna call? Who wants to buy a pig in a poke?
(Leading to the question, what, exactly, is a poke?)
Publishers seem to be in a panic, and looking for the Next Big Thing just to keep their bottom line from dropping below the radar screen. Used to be the big publishers (and maybe this is still true of some) would give a mystery series five or six books before pulling the plug. Now mystery and suspense books are like cooked spaghetti – you throw it up against the wall to see if it sticks.
I liken it to TV. There’s a new fall line-up every year – a whole new season of shows. But more and more, they’re pulling shows after two or three episodes.
In this atmosphere, I don’t know how you’re going to build stars of the future.
Despite this, the cream does seem to rise to the top. The thing is, the cream has to rise to the top meteorically. Or else the cream has to hopscotch between small presses, trade paper, and hardcover (Reed Farrel Coleman comes to mind) until someone finally notices.
Anything to get traction. Spend your whole advance and go to 500 bookstores, as Joe Konrath is doing, or else write erotica. That seems to be where we’re headed.
Perhaps I’m overstating the direness of this situation. I actually do believe good books will out, be they romance, mystery, suspense, nonfiction—whatever. I think it’s harder to be heard over the babble, though. And I think an author these days has to be flexible, inventive, resilient, tough, and yes, sneaky.
These are just my observations. I want to hear from you. I want to hear from small hardcover people, big hardcover people, “successful” authors, people who are worried about their futures, and of course romance writers, who seem to be bucking the tide. And I’d like to hear from readers.
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