Why People Don’t Buy Books

Since I’m now starting to write and market some fiction, I pay more attention now to the ramblings of the so called “publishing industry experts”. They are all quick to point out that the vast majority of “consumers” buy about 1 book per year, counting the ones they give as gifts. Many will point to excerpts from campaign speeches stating that the average American can read only at a fourth grade level. Some are even saying that the government should go further into debt with a publishing industry bail out.

I’ve read quite a bit from these supposed beings of great importance. I’ve analyzed what they all say with the skill that only an IT veteran with years of requirements gathering possesses. Here is a quote I found in “Writer’s Digest” from Mike Farris, Farris Literary Agency:

Strong Beginnings start in the middle of the story. You can fill in backstory later. I like to see the protagonist in action at the start so that I get a feel for who the character is right off the bat. We often get submissions with cover letters that begin: “I know you asked for the first 50 pages, but the story doesn’t really get going until Page 57 so I included more.” If the story doesn’t really get going until Page 57, you probably need to cut the first 56 pages.

He is not alone in spouting this ka-ka. The vast majority of literary agents and publisher acquisitions staff seem to be feeding from the same septic tank. They point to the literacy rate and the education system, but never back at themselves. This is like listening to the heads of GM and the UAW talk about how everything wrong with the auto industry is outside of their control. They never point back at themselves and say “Two decades of absolute shit management guided solely by short term greed is really what got us here!”

At a young and impressionable age, I checked out the first volume of “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant” from the high school library. The librarian actually allowed me to check out one of the trilogy (it was only a trilogy then) over the summer, a kindness I probably didn’t deserve, but greatly appreciated. (I guess the fact I’m mentioning it nearly 30 years later should speak volumes.) Here is a book which really helped define an entire niche of Science Fantasy and almost the entire first volume was background story. You knew by the heft of the book that it would be a journey and you went along for the ride. I learned more about leprosy than I ever cared to know from that book.

I quit reading the series after the third book. That is the point where the original author co-authored and really handed the reigns over to a different writer. It’s no longer a trilogy, and I’m no longer reading. I hate a book series which doesn’t have a predefined limit. Most book buyers feel the same way. If you don’t believe that statement, simply read some of the “ positive” reviews on “The Wheel of Time” series. Here is a combination of publisher and author who milked it for far more than it was worth. The first three books were stunning, the nine in the middle were oatmeal of the blandest variety. The writing didn’t return until the “actual” last book of the series when the fan base was outside of the publisher’s office carrying pitchforks and torches demanding the series be ended. Both the author and the publisher promised to end the series two books after this one…then the author died…but not before they squeezed out a prequel.

Why do we have prequels in the publishing and movie industry? Quite simply because of the absolute shit management we have running both industries. Those feces spewers who claim a strong beginning is in the middle of a story so they can get right to the action and hook the reader/viewer. You see, all of those flash-backs, dream sequences, and other contrived methods of “ bleeding in the back story” don’t (^)(*&)ing work. The movie viewer and the book reader both get lost or simply pissed off and they don’t stick around for the end.

Admit it now, you’ve all read reviews like this: “The action and imagery were great, but the story was lacking…” We get reviews like this because management was busy forcing “ strong opening” down the throats of everyone involved in production.

Quite simply, starting in the middle of the story doesn’t work. After hearing the above review a million plus times (and still managing to turn a profit), the industry scrapes up all of those discarded pages and slams out a prequel. How can you tell they scraped up discarded pages rather than writing it new? That’s easy. If reading/watching the prequel first doesn’t trash the series, they picked up all of the original discarded pages. When it is written after the fact, it busts things bad. Nobody involved in the process actually goes back and re-reads the entire series after reading the prequel to see what got walked on, they are too busy trying to make a fast buck. Skipping this last little step means your prequel blows things up later on. If all you did was put all those pages they told you to discard in a binder and resubmit them, your prequel doesn’t trash your story line.

How many of you reading this actually read the Hobbit stories? Watching the cartoons or the movies doesn’t count, how many of you actually read them? Okay, for those of you who actually read these stories, where was that first chapter action hook?

You see, just like the automotive industry, the publishing industry did it to themselves. They focused on today’s profit margin and didn’t look down the road. Quite deservedly, both industries are dying. When you take out “books bought to learn something for work or career change” the number of books purchased each year by the average consumer drops down into tiny fractions. We are all willing to plunk down a few dollars for something that makes us richer, especially if we can expense it back to the company or the IRS, but very few people bother reading a book anymore, mainly because the books today are all flavor and no food.

Make a list of all the non-technical/non-educational books you have read in the past 20 years. (For most of you this will be a list having five or fewer titles on it.) Of those titles, how many have the staying power to still be in print and read by people 20 years from now? Don’t know how to choose? That’s easy. How many were as well written as The Hobbit or The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (first chronicles)? How many embrace the wonder of the Harry Potter series? (Btw, Kudos to that author for ending the series rather than milking it to the coffin. You have far more ethics than the vast majority of the publishing industry.)

People aren’t reading books anymore, and only the publishing industry is to blame.