Yet another depressing article involving SFF publishing

[Swank]

These readers no longer care about respectability, and that's followed up by 4 more they don't cares about who cares about what they're reading. They're having a good time reading.

In the good ol' days we had the decency to read things that were unpleasant, and therefore good for us. Literary cod liver oil.

 

[ColGray]

2. A robot shall not, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm (unless it is securely tied to the bed).

Are you sure you spelled everything correctly?

(apologies for a dirty joke that may/may not rely on American slang)

 

[ColGray]

I'm old enough to remember when the same articles and hand wringing took place over erotic thrillers in 90's movie theaters, Twilight in the 2000's, Fifty Shades of Gray in the 2010's, etc. The youth today aren't reading "good" books or watching "good" movies -- you know, like when I was their age and my parents said the same thing about me! Desire is a foundational human emotion and people respond to it.

OTOH, publishing, both trad and self, seem to be a complete turdshow at the moment.

Trad publishing is clinging to a model for identifying and marketing books like time stopped in 2000 and if they can just hold on, everything will be fine. Numerous authors on Publishing Rodeo and other outlets have highlighted trad publishing's, We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas, mindset. And even when tentpole authors like Brandon Sanderson went to his publisher and said, I want to bundle the ebook and physical book together, or, I want to release a special edition at launch that has XYZ specials and we charge 30% more for it, his publisher went, Nah. And when he went back to them after running the most successful Kickstarter ever doing just that his publisher still said, But like, why? And the trad pub reaction to not knowing how to market is to undercut new voices -- Unknown author with a great idea? Let's put James Patterson's name first, give him the credit and top billing and the book will sell, versus investing in the new author with the great idea.

Self-Pub is drowning in a sea of stolen IP/no viable content control, AI generated junk and no real path to viable monetization. There's some observation bias, but the number of people on /r selfpublish who talk about seeing their Amazon published book appearing on resale sites (which they did not post to and from which they receive no money) is deeply disturbing. The KU payout rates have dropped precipitously in the last few years. The "how to" guru's for self-pub marketing are selling books that frame winning the lottery a decade+ ago like they solved a math equation--and/or ignoring how they stole content from other authors (i.e. Mark Dawson).

I'm far less concerned about what people are reading and whether it's "good" than I am about whether publishing is a viable pathway for artists and creative voices. The real tragedy would be if great writers left, or never entered, the field because the economics of publishing were so awful.

 

[Montero]

There are self-pub authors succeeding, but some of it involves being lucky enough to be championed - for example Victoria Goddard who was read by a trad pub author (whose name I've just forgotten - um Alexandra something I think) who is popular and blogs on Tor and they leapt around saying "you've got to read this" and started a Discord group and now Goddard seems to have a respectable following. Don't know if she is making a living off it though. It did help though that the books are on the friendly side - not cozy, but not super dark either - and also in the background, the society has a relaxed about gender identity and sexual preferences setting, including being asexual so they appeal to a broad audience, including one that feels under-served. It is not primarily about that, it is just very well done and not clunky. She describes herself as writing literary fantasy.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Are you sure you spelled everything correctly?

(apologies for a dirty joke that may/may not rely on American slang)

Yes, JunkMonkey helped compile the three laws of (sex) robotics. They are remarkably close to the famous original laws, which I think is a testament to the genius of the man (Azimov not JunkMonkey).

1) A robot will not harm a human if the safeword is used
2) A robot will not, through inaction, allow a human to come to harm (unless it is securely tied to the bed)
3) A robot will always obey the human (unless it is a very naughty robot that needs its bottom spanked!)

Do you think I can sell these to that Musk guy for use in his Optimus robot?

 

[Parson]

Do you think I can sell these to that Musk guy for use in his Optimus robot?

Some questions do not deserve to be answered.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Yes, JunkMonkey helped compile the three laws of (sex) robotics. They are remarkably close to the famous original laws, which I think is a testament to the genius of the man (Azimov not JunkMonkey).

I resent that!

 

[ColGray]

There are self-pub authors succeeding, but some of it involves being lucky enough to be championed - for example Victoria Goddard who was read by a trad pub author (whose name I've just forgotten - um Alexandra something I think) who is popular and blogs on Tor and they leapt around saying "you've got to read this" and started a Discord group and now Goddard seems to have a respectable following. Don't know if she is making a living off it though. It did help though that the books are on the friendly side - not cozy, but not super dark either - and also in the background, the society has a relaxed about gender identity and sexual preferences setting, including being asexual so they appeal to a broad audience, including one that feels under-served. It is not primarily about that, it is just very well done and not clunky. She describes herself as writing literary fantasy.

The Becky Chambers model! Love it.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

People always find new ways of using old customs to get the same things done. At the end of the day its simply people writing and reading words. That's perfectly intact, it's just the content has changed. Its probably very similar to the times when all manners of instruments were electrified. Early versions had microphones that picked up the exact sounds but that all changed when the sounds themselves became shaped by electricity instead of lips and fingers. The people who found that uninspiring, slowly disappeared, that's how times change.

 

[MemoryTale]

Going back to the OP, I did read an interesting article about gender differences and porn, which I wish I could find again, but it seems to have disappeared into the nether reaches of the internet.

Essentially what it boiled down to is that while men are the overwhelmingly biggest consumers of visual porn, I.e videos and magazines, women are by far the biggest customers for erotic literature - this article just seems to be a natural extension of that, a gap in the market for women who enjoy erotica and sci-fi fantasy.

I did read a Sarah J Maas book, and while I wouldn't call it bad as such, I did conclude that I was definitely not the target audience. Funnily enough I felt the writing of the male characters to be as terrible as female readers often accuse male authors of being when writing females. And I found her much better at writing friendships than romances - in fact I was enjoying the two leads as friends so much, I was disappointed when it inevitably became sexual.

 

[Montero]

I enjoy friendship books and yes, not everything has to be about sex.

 

[Swank]

I enjoy friendship books

Where the story culminates the main characters going out for a sandwich and playing video games?

 

[Montero]

Where the story culminates the main characters going out for a sandwich and playing video games?

Not all stories have to have vast amounts of dramatic emotions, violence or sex. I've greatly enjoyed many books where people either form friendships or are already friends and working together. The plots may indeed include extreme emotions and violence - but not so much between the lead characters. The characters have each other's backs in the face of trouble. They may have fallings out, but they in general work out how to get over them and don't flounce off terminally offended the first time a friend doesn't quite live up to expectations.

 

[Ursa major]

Not yet fully depressed?

Try this for size!

 

[Swank]

Not all stories have to have vast amounts of dramatic emotions, violence or sex. I've greatly enjoyed many books where people either form friendships or are already friends and working together. The plots may indeed include extreme emotions and violence - but not so much between the lead characters. The characters have each other's backs in the face of trouble. They may have fallings out, but they in general work out how to get over them and don't flounce off terminally offended the first time a friend doesn't quite live up to expectations.

I didn't say they did. But most stories featuring friendly relationships have some over-arching plot climax that isn't the friendship itself. That's in contrast to a romance where the establishment or fulfillment of the relationship is the what the plot is about.

So are you talking about Watson and Holmes in the context of a mystery plot (for example), or are you talking about a book about becoming friends as the subject matter?

 

[Serendipity]

Not yet fully depressed?

Try this for size!

Nope, not fully depressed yet. Charlie Storms makes some valid points, but I would consider them contributory factors, not the main reasons for the current issues in SFF publishing.

One of the main drivers publishers have is the need to make sufficient profit to stay in business. It is why they are less willing to take a risk with new authors. They also push their popular authors to bring out new novels fast - the consequence being that these authors have in part to fall back on standard tropes or rehash their own previous ideas. Hence the lack of general newness in SFF. (I could go on, but then this would turn into a very long and boring rant... so I'll stop here.)

 

[Dave]

The youth today aren't reading "good" books or watching "good" movies

I think that exactly the same was said concerning books in the 1880's after compulsory schooling was introduced in the UK, and again about young women and the rise in the sales of Magazines/Periodicals, and yet again about 1930's comics for boys.

 

[Montero]

So are you talking about Watson and Holmes in the context of a mystery plot (for example), or are you talking about a book about becoming friends as the subject matter?

Both, and in the second case, it is more likely to be one of the plot lines, rather than the only plot line. For example Katharine Addison's Witness for the Dead. The witness's growing friendships, and friends he didn't even realise he had, are important to the development of the story, which includes murder mysteries, politics, and thriller, all in one book.

 

[paeng]

Erotica is different, as it is considered by definition unliterary. Susan Sontag describes why this is in her essay The Pornographic Imagination. First, she writes, attempting to arouse a reader is meant to be “antithetical to the complex function of literature”; second, pornographic writing lacks a beginning-middle-end structure; third, “its aim is to inspire a set of nonverbal fantasies in which language plays a debased … role”; fourth, “it disdains fully-formed persons [and] is oblivious to the question of motives”. Sontag carefully dismantles all that using The Story of O, Story of the Eye and the troubling She-Devils by the Belgian writer Pierre Louÿs. But just using Koch’s definition, we can see that erotica can be literature: character is established through sex in the Fifty Shades novels, but also in All Fours, the latest book by Miranda July.

What's notable is that the points given also apply to examples involving non-erotica.

 

[ColGray]

Both, and in the second case, it is more likely to be one of the plot lines, rather than the only plot line. For example Katharine Addison's Witness for the Dead. The witness's growing friendships, and friends he didn't even realise he had, are important to the development of the story, which includes murder mysteries, politics, and thriller, all in one book.

Becky Chambers is a flippin' wizard with constructing, growing and centering friendship vs romance. It is the backbone of her storytelling and there's never a point where I'm wondering, When is this going to trip over into romance, because she treats friendship (between and across M/F/Robot/Clone/Alien/?? and M/F/Robot/Clone/Alien/??) as a worthy goal in and of itself. Friendship isn't treated as the prelude to the "real" story (i.e.: romance); it is the story.