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Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Harry Potter and the Whiny WaPo Op-Ed
These sorts of pieces are always so over-reachingly over-the-top. Kurt Vonnegut wrote something somewhere about how critics should avoid getting themselves into situations in which they attack an ice cream sundae with a broadsword. If you are a bookish person, the worst that Pottermania should cause you is bemusement.
Let me just comment on one element:
In “The Long Tail,” Wired editor Chris Anderson suggested that new methods of distribution would shatter the grip of blockbusters. Niche markets would evolve and thrive as never before, creating a long, vital line of products from small producers who never could have profited in the past. It’s a cheering notion, but alas, the big head still pretty much overrules the long tail. Like the basilisk that terrorized students at Hogwarts in Book II, “Harry Potter” and a few other much-hyped books devour everyone’s attention, leaving most readers paralyzed in praise, apparently incapable of reading much else.
According to a study by Alan Sorensen at Stanford University, “In 1994, over 70 percent of total fiction sales were accounted for by a mere five authors.” There’s not much reason to think that things have changed. As Albert Greco of the Institute for Publishing Research puts it: “People who read fiction want to read hits written by known authors who are there year after year.”So we’re experiencing the literary equivalent of a loss of biodiversity.
I’d be curious to get some actual historical perspective on this market domination phenomenon. Recently I read some Edgar Wallace - very popular in the early 20th Century, still is in Germany, thanks to a series of popular films in the 60’s. No one reads him any more in the UK or US. I don’t think many have heard of him, even, but he co-write the screenplay for King Kong. Wikipedia says Wallace’s publicist claimed, in the 20’s, that a quarter of the books read in England were by him. I guess we have somehow recovered from that particular loss of biodiversity. (Of course a publicist would never lie.)
Is there any reason to think that ‘over 70 percent’ figure is in any way historically anomolous. And if not, then don’t frame it as some canary in the coalmine.
Rowling is a better writer than Wallace, in case you are curious. I should post something about Wallace on July 21, when Harry Potter comes out.
Comments
This does sound like one of those golden age escalators, where every generation locates a precipitous decline in literacy, cultural sophistication, seriousness of public discourse, etc, somewhere in the not-too-distant past.
But might the difference in kind be one of marketing, on an analogy with the Hollywood blockbuster? Arguably, Jaws changed the structure of the movie industry, legitimating advertising budgets bigger than other production costs put together (Alien) and packaging movies as must-see spectacles, as well as upping the ante on cross-marketing and merchandising (Star Wars). Another common gripe about contemporary publishing is the inordinate spending on publicity, and the consequent corner-cutting on editing and mentoring. Maybe the possibilities for, and attitudes towards, saturation advertising and cross-marketing have changed so much since Wallace’s day that it is possible for a writer like Rowling or Dan Brown to somersault onto another plane of celebrity and ubiquity in a way that Wallace couldn’t.
On the other hand, Wallace was no stranger to sensational promotional techniques. If I remember my reading about the birth of the spy thriller, Wallace offered a cash prize to readers of his The (4?) Just Men (an early Wallace, c. 1906), serialised in (I think) the Daily Mail, who correctly guessed the exotic assassination method used by the eponymous vigilantes. (It was a locked room scenario, with a number of capital-C Clues, like a chemical residue of some kind.) Unfortunately, Wallace neglected to insert a clause limiting the number of prizes awarded, and perhaps overestimated the cunningness of his mystery, and ended up seriously out of pocket when correct answers started to flow in. Incidentally, if anyone knows the answer to the riddle at the climax of this book, I would be interested to hear it. No prize offered.
The start of Ron Charles’ third Washington Post paragraph:
O, the shame of it:
He means “Oh, the shame of it”. Professional writers who don’t know the difference between the vocative case and an exclamation depress me.
More substantively ... Wallace wrote a fair bit of not-bad (though not especially good) pulp sf. Plus his middle name was Horatio, which is excellent.
More substantively still, John’s historical perspective on this market domination phenomenon is the right way to go, I’d say. Take the nineteenth-century. Good writers like Scott and Dickens sold well; and the occasional bad but worthy book like Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold spectacularly well. But literary historians draw a discrete veil over the truly awful stuff that sold by the bucketload: Eugene Sue, Marie Corelli. Dreadful writers. Particularly Corelli.
Don’t know about about Europe, but in America Uncle Tom’s Cabin was second only to the Bible in sales. It swamped everything in the 19th C.
In 1994, over 70 percent of total fiction sales were accounted for by a mere five authors
Bill B: and then Pilgrim’s Progress as #3, right? And, just to add to what other people are saying. Imagine it’s 1095. Setting aside the Bible, 70% of what’s being read in, say, “France” and “England” is by Gregory the Great, Bede, Jerome, Augustine, and, well, I’d guess Virgil or Boethius for #5. In England 1394, I’d guess 70% of what’s being read is some version of the Brut story (think: Brutus comes to England, and eventually King Arthur appears), the Prick of Conscience (or some other moral treatise), Guillaume de Lorris/Jean de Meun’s Roman de la Rose, and, well, you the picture. More bad thinking on the part of the Washington Post (I mean, sheesh, Alan Sorensen is a business professor, which to me suggests he’s not going to see the longterm picture...and, c’mon, I’d like to believe that journalists can do a little thinking about their sources. The article at least could have cited Richard Ohmann...).
Tyler Cowen once noted that Sir Walter Scott was the author of the top 23 bestselling novels in Britain during the early 19th century.
"The Long Tail” did not argue for the end of blockbusters, but simply for the fact that niche markets can now be profitable in ways they were not before. In fact blockbusters are integral to the long tail. As the other posters have illustrated, there are more books available now than ever before, if you are letting your attention get “gobbled up” by Harry Potter, it is your own fault. Blockbusters will always dominate, and some members of the audience will go no deeper. But others will, and for them, the long tail businesses (Amazon, iTunes, Netflix) have made it easier.
O, the shame of it:
He means “Oh, the shame of it”. Professional writers who don’t know the difference between the vocative case and an exclamation depress me.
Just so. As it happens, professional writers who don’t know the difference between the vocative case and apostrophe depress me.
hmmmmmm, i think harry potter books had made a change for it, :D
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