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From: Charles Bayless <charles.bayless_at_ttmd.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:25:39 -0500
The numbers tell us that the reading public are highly accustomed to reading diverse literature (from an identity perspective) as well as reading across cultures. So if demand for diverse, multicultural literature is not limited, then what else is going on? Are there any other barriers we can readily identify which preclude some particular Group X literature from being taken up? The numbers take us only so far. I suspect that there are at least three other factors in play which I see as a bookseller but which I cannot quantify.
1 - Tragedy fatigue. For numerous Groups there is some pivotal, tragic event which garners great attention - first contact, slavery, Jim Crow, the Holocaust, Gallipoli for Australians, etc. However, there is an incredibly delicate balance between acknowledging a tragically pivotal event and letting it become the defining event. At some point, tragedy fatigue sets in. I see this with African-American customers who want a "black themed book" that's not about civil rights or slavery or oppression. What I am hearing them say is that they want a universal human story with a black skin. I hear this from Jewish parents who want a Jewish related story that isn't about the Holocaust; "We already have enough of those." Tragedy fatigue afflicts both the targeted Group X as well as non-Group X who are interested in Group X. So the demand side for tragedy is limited. However, someone wanting to write about Group X is usually going to want to start with the obvious pivotal event. There seem to be relatively few authors wh o want or who can write the universal story within the framework of the pivotal X event.
2 - Indictment fatigue. Whenever you focus on writing about or for Group X, you inherently appear to be not writing about non-Group X. That is a challenge in itself when cross-over sales can be the difference between commercial success and failure. But in addition to that, if you are writing focused on the tragedy arising from pivotal event X, there often can seem to be an indictment of non-Group X, either explicit, oblique, or inferred. It doesn't matter whether there is merit in such an indictment or whether the author is intending to convey such an indictment. Perception is everything and there is a relatively limited market for indictments.
3 - Lightning rod and long tail competition. If there is a pivotal event, there is a tendency for novice Group X writers and experienced writers alike to cluster around that event for storytelling purposes (the lightning rod). The more this happens the more there is an issue of long tail competition. An event happens; let's say World War One. Immediately following WWI there are tens of thousands of new titles about the event in the first few years afterwards. This quickly declines to a few thousand a year and then within a decade or two down into the hundreds and eventually to the dozens. Nearly a century after WWI there are still a few dozen books a year published, either scholarly or popular. What remains new to be written? There is a huge embedded base of competition against which each new offering will be judged. It is not that a new masterpiece won't be written, just that the odds of doing so become increasingly remote given the existing portfolio of great WWI books that can be read. Who is going to top
Goodbye to All That or Sagittarius Rising at this late date? So if you are part of Group X and you are inspired to write about the pivotal Group X event, and that event happened more than a few decades ago, you are going to have to produce something truly exceptional to stand out from all the other excellent books that have already been written.
Charles
Received on Wed 27 Feb 2013 10:25:39 AM CST
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:25:39 -0500
The numbers tell us that the reading public are highly accustomed to reading diverse literature (from an identity perspective) as well as reading across cultures. So if demand for diverse, multicultural literature is not limited, then what else is going on? Are there any other barriers we can readily identify which preclude some particular Group X literature from being taken up? The numbers take us only so far. I suspect that there are at least three other factors in play which I see as a bookseller but which I cannot quantify.
1 - Tragedy fatigue. For numerous Groups there is some pivotal, tragic event which garners great attention - first contact, slavery, Jim Crow, the Holocaust, Gallipoli for Australians, etc. However, there is an incredibly delicate balance between acknowledging a tragically pivotal event and letting it become the defining event. At some point, tragedy fatigue sets in. I see this with African-American customers who want a "black themed book" that's not about civil rights or slavery or oppression. What I am hearing them say is that they want a universal human story with a black skin. I hear this from Jewish parents who want a Jewish related story that isn't about the Holocaust; "We already have enough of those." Tragedy fatigue afflicts both the targeted Group X as well as non-Group X who are interested in Group X. So the demand side for tragedy is limited. However, someone wanting to write about Group X is usually going to want to start with the obvious pivotal event. There seem to be relatively few authors wh o want or who can write the universal story within the framework of the pivotal X event.
2 - Indictment fatigue. Whenever you focus on writing about or for Group X, you inherently appear to be not writing about non-Group X. That is a challenge in itself when cross-over sales can be the difference between commercial success and failure. But in addition to that, if you are writing focused on the tragedy arising from pivotal event X, there often can seem to be an indictment of non-Group X, either explicit, oblique, or inferred. It doesn't matter whether there is merit in such an indictment or whether the author is intending to convey such an indictment. Perception is everything and there is a relatively limited market for indictments.
3 - Lightning rod and long tail competition. If there is a pivotal event, there is a tendency for novice Group X writers and experienced writers alike to cluster around that event for storytelling purposes (the lightning rod). The more this happens the more there is an issue of long tail competition. An event happens; let's say World War One. Immediately following WWI there are tens of thousands of new titles about the event in the first few years afterwards. This quickly declines to a few thousand a year and then within a decade or two down into the hundreds and eventually to the dozens. Nearly a century after WWI there are still a few dozen books a year published, either scholarly or popular. What remains new to be written? There is a huge embedded base of competition against which each new offering will be judged. It is not that a new masterpiece won't be written, just that the odds of doing so become increasingly remote given the existing portfolio of great WWI books that can be read. Who is going to top
Goodbye to All That or Sagittarius Rising at this late date? So if you are part of Group X and you are inspired to write about the pivotal Group X event, and that event happened more than a few decades ago, you are going to have to produce something truly exceptional to stand out from all the other excellent books that have already been written.
Charles
Received on Wed 27 Feb 2013 10:25:39 AM CST
