Was (Is?) There a Science Fiction "Mid-List"?

[Extollager]

Over here

https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/552833/

there's a thread on "mid-list" authors of mainstream fiction, who dependably produced a book a year or so, and of whose books there were no very high expectations of sales or critical acclaim. The writer contends that this category is virtually defunct. You can read more about "mid-list" authors at the link.

I'm throwing out the question: Did this situation exist with sf publishing, and is there no longer a "mid-list" for sf?

My guess is that the correct answer to both questions is Yes. In the late 1950s and into the 1960s, Philip K. Dick was, I think, a mid-list author. I'm rereading his Time Out of Joint (c) 1959 now. My supposition is that the original publishers never expected to make a lot of money from the book, and that PKD figured he could get along writing at his current rate but, as an sf author, would never make a lot of money, and that his publishers would have agreed. The major publishers would have been Ace, Ballantine, Doubleday, etc. They would figure that they could make some money with sf as a niche, but would not usually expect to make much. They probably would figure that if they could publish a new book by, say, Ray Bradbury, they would stand to make a bit of money, although nothing like, say, Michener.

So I'm suggesting that almost any sf published back then would have been "mid-list" from the point of view of publishers. But if you wanted to think in terms of sf publishing by itself, there would be a very few top-list authors, and then a lot of mid-listers like Philip Dick.

OK, and then I'm wondering if that's not very much a bygone situation. Are there still significant numbers of authors whose works are regarded as dependable for a little profit, authors who should write about a book a year, but of whom there are no great hopes or expectations?

 

[dask]

William P. McGivern, Alfred Coppel, Michael Shaara, Richard McKenna, John D. McDonald perhaps? These what you mean? SF roots but made big splash in mainstream.

 

[Extollager]

I was thinking more of genre authors who may have been regarded as reliable sources of a book every year or so, but of whom no great sales (or movie contracts) or recognition (e.g. awards) were expected. My sense is that fifty years or so ago, there were plenty of such authors writing for Ace and other publishers, but that now, as apparently with mainstream fiction publishing, the mid-list is largely a bygone phenomenon; perhaps fewer books being published by the most visible publishers, but more promotion and expectations of those that are. Of course, specialty houses produce enormous quantities of books by authors now who, forty years or more ago, might not have been able to get published at all; POD, online sales rather than bookstores, etc. make this possible. But if you go into a chain bookstore you are likely to see books by some fairly heavily promoted authors (also a supply of franchise-type books, e.g. Star Wars novels). Back in the days of rotating drugstore paperback racks, midlist authors were much in evidence.

Now I think you see such racks in used book stores and that's perhaps about the only place you see them.

 

[dask]

I'm tempted to say Andre Norton but she's too big for a mid-lister. How about, then, Mack Reynolds, not the most household of names but who's presence on the bookshelf proves very reliable.

Also, as I make another shady withdrawal from my memory bank, I seem to remember a circular bookrack in Peckinpah's The Getaway, where, as it is riddled with machine gun bullets, you get a glimpse of an L.P. Davies novel, Dimension A I think. Now that's reliable!

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Perhaps the fact that there are very few short paperback novels being published any more -- even most YA books seem to be gigantic these days -- prevents there from being racks full of reliable, not-so-famous writers in SF and fantasy. (I don't follow category Romance or Western or Mystery or other popular genres, but I suspect the same thing might be true there, too.)

Sometimes certain publishers, in a spasm of nostalgia, reprint stuff like The Best of a Vaguely Familiar Writer (Baen Books seems to do this fairly often) but that's not too common.

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

let me think

here goes

Lawrence Janifer
Brian Stableford
Michael Coney
E.C. Tubb
from the top of my head

 

[dask]

I'd say Tubb for sure with his Dumarest of Terra expedition and Stableford with his Hooded Swan/Star Pilot Grainger exploits.

 

[Extollager]

Also, as I make another shady withdrawal from my memory bank, I seem to remember a circular bookrack in Peckinpah's The Getaway, where, as it is riddled with machine gun bullets, you get a glimpse of an L.P. Davies novel, Dimension A I think. Now that's reliable!

Oh no! Are there two of us in this world? -- I have been known to hold up the viewing of a movie on DVD because I wanted to scan the paperback or magazine displays. My wife kindly puts up with it. Whether there is room in this world for more than one saint like her I don't know.

 

[dask]

Especially if it's a newsstand in a 1930s or 40s film. Never know if Gernsback will make a cameo.

 

[BAYLOR]

William P. McGivern, Alfred Coppel, Michael Shaara, Richard McKenna, John D. McDonald perhaps? These what you mean? SF roots but made big splash in mainstream.

Micheal Shaara wrote 75 science fiction stories? not sure the number The One Story I've been able to find by HIm All The Way back written in the 1950's is one of may favorite science fiction short stores and one of the best I've ever read. Found it Brian Aldiss's two column anthology Galactic Empires As far as I know, he never wrote a sequel to it. Which is disappointing because it an interesting premise . Id like to seen a follow up. He went to write Civil war novels. I think e did return to science fiction one novel late in career. Honestly I which he stayed in science fiction.


The Wine of The Dreamers John D MacDonald has been out of print for decades.

 

[BAYLOR]

The Caverns Below Stanton Coblentz


Pretty much a forgotten writer

 

[Michael Coorlim]

Well, the "mid listers" are those authors whose books are put in or around the middle of the publishers' catalogs when those catalogs are sent to the distributors' buyers. The lists aren't alphabetical, they're arranged by how much of a "push" the publisher is giving those author-brands based, yes, on expected performance.

I would expect that, for mass market publishers who provide multi-genre works, most "big name" sf authors would be mid-list, simply due to expectations that other (typically romance) genres sell better.

In a SF-specific list, then there would definitely be mid-listers because all lists have a middle. At the top of the list would be every SF author who had achieved mainstream awareness and appreciation.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

The mid-list authors are the ones who are literally at the middle of the sales sheet list. If you rank the top sellers down to the zero sold authors, mid-list authors are the ones in the middle of that list. Not the top sellers and not the barely or no sales authors. But mid-list is really just publishing-speak for consistent writers who sell well-enough to keep writing and publishing but aren't big-name or high-end authors. So for SF the name authors now would be people like John Scalzi and others along with perennial favorites like Heinlein and Asimov and Dick. The mid-listers are everyone else who's still selling enough to keep going without being the star-sellers of the genre. Some writers do consider it a bit of an insult to be called 'mid-list' so it's generally polite to be a bit vague about these things.

 

[Extollager]

....So for SF the name authors now would be people like John Scalzi and others along with perennial favorites like Heinlein and Asimov and Dick. The mid-listers are everyone else who's still selling enough to keep going without being the star-sellers of the genre....

I wondered who some of these writers might be. I admit I read very little new sf; so often it seems to come in the form of thick volumes that are only one in a series, with preposterous premises, etc. But my impression has been that sf publishing now largely excludes the middle. You have the high-profile authors whose works are stocked at the chain book stores; and you have authors who are published by small publishers and even by themselves. But (it seemed to me) you do not have national publishers issuing books by "dependable" authors whose books can be expected to sell modestly, whose works generally don't get a lot of acclaim, etc. It seems to me that there would have been quite a sizeable stable of midlist authors once sf was established as a profitable, though not usually enormously profitable, niche for publishers. Many of the books of these authors are unread by people who started reading sf within the past 15 years or so. Philip K. Dick was one of these authors until his career took off and he became a cult author and then a media hot property. I suppose an author who remained midlist always was Keith Laumer. James White could be another, and Harry Harrison. But was this the case then? We have people at Chrons who know much, much more about sf than I do. And is it the case now that the midlist is basically an extinct phenomenon?

If Chronsfolk agree with my notion, it would be interesting to see here a compilation of definite mid-list authors of the 1950s-1980s or so ... after which time (approximately) the midlist fades out (doesn't it?).

 

[Nerds_feather]

Most traditionally published SF/F authors would fit that bill. I mean, look at the new releases from Tor, Orbit, Ace/Roc, Solaris, etc.--few authors will get much of a marketing/PR budget.

Some of these authors are quite good, mind you.

 

[Extollager]

Nerds, who are these authors who, I take it, are evidence that the midlist phenomenon is alive and well in sf publishing today?

 

[Nerds_feather]

Nerds, who are these authors who, I take it, are evidence that the midlist phenomenon is alive and well in sf publishing today?

I honestly think the better question is: who isn't? I think you can literally take a catalog, pick a book at random, and the chances of it being a midlist author would be something like 90%.

Very, very few authors are anything but midlist.

(That's not a knock--midlist authors can be very good.)

 

[Parson]

Some years back I was reading some stuff by Orson Scott Card and he mentioned that to his knowledge there were only about a dozen authors (late 80's early 90's?) who were making a full time living by writing S.F. I doubt that it's much different today, unless I've totally underestimated the possibility of making a living by Self Publishing. --- A lot of those who don't have another "profession," are supported by a spouse, an inheritance, or something like that, and couldn't survive in a normal fashion on what they make off their writing. --- Therefore as said before almost all S.F. would be "Mid-listers."

 

[K. Riehl]

Most of the authors in the Baen stable would be considered mid-list. Even Lois Bujold mentioned that she didn't make a reasonable income from her titles until she wrote at least 10 books. The multiple Hugos' and Nebula's didn't help as much as you would think. C.J. Cherryh, Glen Cook, Mercedes Lackey, Tanya Huff, Patricia McKillip, and many others qualify for a small hardcover run and mostly no support or marketing.

Isaac Asimov was bemused that when he returned to Science Fiction, with Foundation's Edge, in 1981 the book was a bestseller. He was perplexed. He had written 291 books and no bestsellers. He thought that with a track record like that he would never reach bestseller status.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Some years back I was reading some stuff by Orson Scott Card and he mentioned that to his knowledge there were only about a dozen authors (late 80's early 90's?) who were making a full time living by writing S.F. I doubt that it's much different today, unless I've totally underestimated the possibility of making a living by Self Publishing. --- A lot of those who don't have another "profession," are supported by a spouse, an inheritance, or something like that, and couldn't survive in a normal fashion on what they make off their writing. --- Therefore as said before almost all S.F. would be "Mid-listers."

Off the top of my head, I can think of a few who are doing *really* well: Scalzi, GRRM, Sanderson, Card, Reynolds, the dude who wrote The Martian--and I'm guessing more-than-a-book-a-year writers like David Weber, Eric Flint, Laurel K. Hamilton and Jim Butcher are doing more than fine as well. There's probably a significantly bigger number of authors who make enough not to work, but aren't exactly swimming in it.

But we're still talking small numbers. Authors like Kameron Hurley, Robert J. Bennett, Django Wexler--all have made reference in conversation to day jobs. I'd wager most SF/F authors can't afford to live off their royalties alone, and at least need part-time work to supplement.