{"id":1302,"date":"2011-06-19T14:09:13","date_gmt":"2011-06-19T19:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marioninnyc.com\/?p=1302"},"modified":"2013-03-06T16:33:16","modified_gmt":"2013-03-06T21:33:16","slug":"self-published-at-the-book-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marioninnyc.com\/?p=1302","title":{"rendered":"Self-Published At the Book Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times Magazine<\/em> <\/a>has a story, which is only slightly<\/em> condescending, about Amanda Hocking, the twenty-something self-publishing phenom whose paranormal romance\/fantasies have earned her over $2 million.\u00a0 Ms. Hocking recently signed a seven-figure deal with St. Martin’s Press. While stories like hers should do something to lift the stigma of self-publishing in the digital age, they are countered by other reports, such as the recent Reuter’s piece about counterfeit books<\/a> being sold cheap on Kindle.<\/p>\n

The truth is there probably never was a stigma for the mostly young readers of Ms. Hocking’s work.\u00a0 They saw stories they were interested in and tried her books.\u00a0 They didn’t avoid her work because it lacked a familiar imprint or because it wasn’t pre-certified by Publisher’s Weekly<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Within some genres, self-published books are selling well.\u00a0 In thrillers, two of the top ten books at the Kindle Store US are self-published.\u00a0 Both have the advantage of selling cheap — 99 cents compared to up to $12.99 for some of their competitors, which may be even more expensive than paperback versions. Romance, mystery and other genres have all been invaded by these upstarts.\u00a0\u00a0 While the Kindle Store is only one store, its scope is huge with e-books now outselling paperbacks on Amazon, which through its Kindle app, controls 75% of the e-book market.<\/p>\n

Things are different when it comes to literary fiction.\u00a0 Or perhaps I shouldn’t use the term “literary fiction.” Writers can classify their own works as “literary,” and a couple of self-published 99 cent novels identified as such have slipped into the top 20 on Kindle.\u00a0 Both, however, also fall into other categories with wider appeal.\u00a0 Maybe the term I’m looking for is “serious fiction.” The kind of books read by people who take reading seriously. You know who I mean — people who LOVE books,\u00a0 pride themselves on actually having made their way through at least some of Joyce and Woolf, fans of all the Jonathans (Letham, Franzen, and Safron Foer), Paul Auster, David Foster Wallace, and anyone published in The New Yorker<\/em> with the exception of Stephen King.\u00a0 Those readers may read books from respectable independent houses or even obscure zines put out by writers and editors they’ve heard of, but 99.9% won’t even look at self-published work from the Kindleverse.<\/p>\n

Months ago I suggested to a friend, a serious intellectual type and avid reader, that she look at a book I thought was not only good, but might even be important. \u00a0It was a historical novel, set mostly in London in 1963, with some back-story in the war and post-war years, references to mods and teddy-boys, jazz and The Beatles, as well as to the Cuban missile crisis and the Profumo scandal.\u00a0 Her reply when she realized that the work did not have the approbation of a publishing house major or even minor was, “I don’t have enough time to read published<\/em> books.”<\/p>\n

I didn’t buy this explanation.\u00a0 My theory is that while readers of genre fiction are simply looking for stories that keep them turning pages, “serious readers,” have another agenda. Heaven forbid they should like <\/em>something that hasn’t been vetted by publishers and critics, only to be told later that it’s derivative or not as good as they thought.\u00a0 It would be like buying a blank canvas, and then finding out it was just a blank canvas and not an accepted example of minimalism.\u00a0 It’s not that they lack the time to read self-published books, they don’t even want to be seen with them.<\/p>\n

The book, I was recommending was Larry Harrison’s Glimpses of a Floating World<\/em><\/a>. Although I never convinced my friend, I’m pleased to say I got my book club to look at it.<\/p>\n

This was only our third club meeting.\u00a0 The previous selections were Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom,<\/em> and The Yacoubian Building<\/em> by Alaa Al Aswany.\u00a0 I was thrilled that the club had taken my suggestion of Glimpses.<\/em>. (Full disclosure: The author is fellow member of the Year 0 Writers group, and a facebook friend.\u00a0 We first “met” on a writer’s site, where we admired each other’s work. We have never met in the non-virtual world.)<\/p>\n

I didn’t take a poll, but I don’t believe anyone in the club had ever purchased or read a self-published book before.<\/p>\n

So, how did it go?<\/p>\n

As with previous selections, opinions varied. One reader complained that she didn’t find any of the characters sympathetic and didn’t see much change or growth in the protagonist, Ronnie. \u00a0It was also clear that she was not predisposed to read a book about a seventeen-year-old heroin addict.\u00a0 \u00a0Others pointed out that as long as he remained a junkie, showing growth would have been unrealistic,\u00a0\u00a0 but there were “glimpses” of his capacity to care for others and\u00a0 by the end his thinking had evolved at least to the point where he understood his addiction to be a dead-end.\u00a0\u00a0 There was general agreement that the character was well drawn.\u00a0 He acted like the adolescent he was — intelligent, but immature, in some ways even gullible.\u00a0 Everyone thought that Ronnie’s father, Freddy was just an awful human being. A couple questioned the idea of his professional rise with the police. This led to discussion about “successful” people whose lives were a mess, and the nature of corruption and who rises to power within a corrupt system.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A few weren’t satisfied with the ending — finding it “contrived” or “overkill,” but I was not the only voice in the room who had a different take.<\/p>\n

The point is, the book was taken as seriously as any other book.\u00a0 Everyone thought the writing was high quality and professional. . No one complained about proofreading, formatting, editing inconsistencies or any of the other issues often associated with self-published books. All found it a gripping read.<\/p>\n

As with any discussion on any good book, there were disagreements and tangents. We veered off into talking about British films set in that period that also dealt with social taboos, A Taste of Honey<\/em>, Victim<\/em>, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.<\/em><\/p>\n

So back to the question I asked before: How did it go? The short answer is: It was \u201cnormal.\u201d We were able to discuss the book and not the fact that it wasn\u2019t traditionally published. It was not unlike going to a same-sex wedding and realizing it isn\u2019t that different from any other wedding.<\/p>\n

There was no pre or post-club survey, but maybe the members of the club will now be more inclined to read untraditionally published works. I hope so.<\/p>\n

And just to encourage any “serious readers” who have not yet taken the plunge, here’s a trailer for Glimpses<\/em>:<\/p>\n