My Blog

Western novelist Richard Wheeler starts off his new blog by tackling the demise of the mid-list and the declining paperback market, hot-button issues that have been discussed a lot in the publishing biz. But Wheeler points the finger of blame where it has never been pointed before. Not at publishers. Not at distributors. Not at bookstores…

Is it possible that authors are largely to blame for the sharp decline in
fiction? Most authors would vehemently say no. Most would argue that fiction is
better than ever, well done, vivid, rich and compelling. It’s not the fault of
authors. Not the fault of all those mid-list people who have been bumped and can
no longer get contracts.

And yet, I wonder. The decline in readership of
novels has been going on for years, and began long before the upheavals that
affected the mass market distribution system. There was a time when this country
had literary lions. A time when an author was a celebrity. A time when a
best-selling novel sold in the millions. A time when even genre fiction sold in
the hundreds of thousands. Are we, who create the stories, who fashion the
product, ready to say that it’s not our fault that we sell in the tens of
thousands if we sell at all?

He believes that, by and large, books aren’t as well-written these days, that they are "technically elegant" but lack any real character.

I think ever since the 1970s fiction has been in
trouble, and that if we authors are aware of what factors are making us less and
less readable and compelling, we can, in our own unique ways, write more
compelling literature and win back some of our lost readers.

He promises to discuss these ideas in more depth in later postings. I, for one, will be eager to see what he has to say…

It’s not unusual for tv tie-in novels to continue long after the TV series they are based on have ended ("Star Trek," "Murder She Wrote," "Buffy," "Diagnosis Murder" etc.) But in what may be a first in the book-biz, Elizabeth Hand’s novelization of the "Catwoman" screenplay has sold so well, it has sparked a series of original novels from Del Rey. What makes this news even stranger is that the execrable  "Catwoman" movie tanked at the box-office.

The success of the "Catwoman" novelization is also notable for another reason. More and more novelizations and tie-ins are being written by established novelists as opposed to anonymous scribes writing under house names (though such pros as Lawrence Block, Jim Thompson, Walter Wager, Dennis Lynds, and Harry Whittington wrote tie-ins and novelizations).   Elizabeth Hand is an established author of  Gothic horror and romance novels. Undoubtably, that experience made the "Catwoman" tie-in a cut above most of the novelization hack-work out there… and perhaps  tantalized her readers into sampling a book they otherwise wouldn’t have bought.

Max Alan Collins is perhaps the best example, regularly penning novelizations ("The Mummy," "Saving Private Ryan") as well as original TV tie-ins ( "CSI," "CSI: Miami," "Dark Angel").  Edgar winner  Stuart Kaminsky is writing original "CSI: New York" books and Edgar winner Thomas H. Cook wrote the novelization of USA Network mini-series  "Taken."

The availability of name-writers to pen novelizations may have less to do with publishers trying to raise the quality of tie-in merchandise than with the obliteration of the mid-list.  Authors who might not have been available,  or interested, in tie-ins/novelizations before are now glad to accept a quick paycheck for eight weeks-to-ten weeks of work. And now, with the lure of  that quick paycheck turning into a long-running gig, more authors may be lining up for tie-in opportunities.

While authors and publishers benefit financially, readers are getting better-written novelizations and tie-ins.  So is it a win-win situation? Not really. There is one serious downside.  More and more valuable bookshelf space is being taken up by merchandizing tie-ins while fewer and fewer original paperbacks are being commissioned from new authors.

Author, essayist and National Book Award Winner Susan Sontag died today at the age of 71.

Susan Sontag, the author, activist and self-defined "zealot of seriousness" whose voracious mind and provocative prose made her a leading intellectual of the past half century, died today. She was 71.

Sontag died at 7:10 a.m. today, said Esther Carver, a spokeswoman for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan.

The hospital declined to release a cause of death. Sontag had been treated for breast cancer in the 1970s.

— Tod