In the News--Into That Good Night?

It seems loneliness is a theme this week at The Editing Life. But this time, I'm not talking about my loneliness, but the loneliness of the book reader. You see, in Sunday's NYT, Colin Robinson, co-publisher of OR Books, wrote an interesting opinion piece, titled "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Reader". Much of the piece summarized the general state of affairs in publishing: the lot of the mid-list writer, budgets being slashed, advances being slashed, indie bookstores disappearing, chains disappearing too and/or hiring virtually illiterate part-timers who might as well be working at McDonald's (my words, not his), the general problem of Amazon and price-cutting, the disappearance of the librarian and the book reviewer. The disappearance of so many produces, it seems, the lonely reader. Except, that the reader still has the writer, which is quite a lovely thought.

Robinson writes: "On the desolate beach that is the lot of the contemporary book reader, the footprints of one companion can still be found. They belong to the writer, who needs the reader not just to pay her or his wages but also to give meaning to their words. As John Cheever put it: 'I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss — you can’t do it alone.'"

Lovely, right? Not so fast...Robinson also writes: 

"The troubling thought occurs, however, that this last remaining cohabitant may also be about to depart the island. With falling advances, writing is evermore dominated by people who don’t need it to earn a living: Tenured academics and celebrities spring to mind. For these groups, burnishing a résumé or marketing a brand is often as important as satisfying the reader.

And then there are the hobbyists, those for whom writing is primarily an act of self-expression. This past November, National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) encouraged more than 300,000 participants to produce a novel in 30 days. It would be churlish to gainsay the right of the legions taking up “noveling,” as Nanowrimo describes it, to exercise their creative selves. But such endeavors are not much helping readers. Indeed, to the extent that they expand the mind-boggling proliferation of new titles being published (more than 300,000 in 2012), they are adding to the problem."

While I'm usually more than happy to join the cynic's bandwagon, I'm reluctant to do so here.  I'm just one acquisitions editor and I receive roughly 200-300 submissions a year if not more; I'm literally drowning in submissions. Drowning. And while I've certainly had my hand in publishing celebrities and perhaps authors who aren't what you'd call literary purists, I don't often receive submissions from writers who are not sincerely trying to connect with readers or are doing this merely as a hobby. Writing simply doesn't work that way. Whether or not I am taken by the quality or premise of a submission, the writer's passion, ambition and drive to tell a story that matters to a readership is never in doubt. It is a brave act to write 300 pages, whether it took 30 days or not, and I respect it. Readers respect it.

And really if the reader were lonely, I'd be caught up on all my work and not awake reading at 4am. Yes, lots of things and people in publishing are disappearing, but the writer? Nah. For every bookstore that closes, for every review section of a major newspaper that is halved, and for every chain store employee who has never heard of A Moveable Feast and can't help me find a replacement for the copy I lent to a now ex-boyfriend (true story), another writer or two or two hundred is born. And they are not hobbyists or simply choosing not to write and publish because advances are falling and they have to attend to a "real" job. No. Writers write. That's how it works. Writers write at 4am if they have to and that thought is a comfort to me when at 4am I am reading.

Yes, as Robinson points out, and we also learned from Jill Watts' post, "There is as Much Dignity in Writing a Poem as in Tilling a Field", would-be humanities majors are maybe finding other more lucrative areas in which to concentrate their studies, but that doesn't make them not writers and that doesn't mean they won't write or seek publication or seek to connect with readers in a meaningful way. Writers are not abandoning their readers. I don't believe it. The obstacles seem to make writers more determined than ever, which is good, because I like my job. And if the writer disappears, so do I.

Robinson leaves the readers of his opinion piece with this:

"Faced with a dizzying array of choices and receiving little by way of expert help in making selections, book buyers today are deciding to play it safe, opting to join either the ever-larger audiences for blockbusters or the minuscule readerships of a vast range of specialist titles. In this bifurcation, the mid-list, publishing’s experimental laboratory, is being abandoned."

Hmm...nope. It's not in me to jump on this particular brand of publishing cynicism. My heart just isn't in it and everything in my day-to-day experience tells me this just isn't true. Perhaps, I'm being naive, but I don't think so. Into that good night, does not go the writer. Or the reader. Or me.