But his opinion is a different story altogether.
I like writers. All kinds of writers. I also like meeting all kinds of new people (i.e. non-writers, atheists, Fortune 500 CEOs, NASCAR fans, Satanists, and former supporters of Lyndon LaRouche), and meeting all of them at least from the relative safety of my computer monitor. Which is why I rarely take critical stances against another writer's thoughts, feelings, inclinations, and so forth.
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| By Blaues Sofa [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons |
See, there was a "long-term, sensitive ecosystem" in place. Hardbacks are responsible for the agents getting their bigger office and heftier signing bonuses. Everything from the copy editor's new PS4 to being able to finance junior's braces before basketball season is upon them, it's been on our shoulders all this time. We just had no idea of this delicate framework. And the balance must be restored to that "dusty old world" for the sake of all those mouths that need feeding and those escrows that need closing.
Anyone can read the article for themselves; I won't belabor or repeat the points he is making and the view he is implying, though it muddles and meanders at times. Suffice it to say that e-book writers appear to be a pox on the land. Patterson's view is that e-books have cheapened and commodified the market by being channeled into a "product category" in the "Everything Store." (Seriously, if Bezos wanted it to be an "everything store," he wouldn't have called it Amazon; he would have called it Ozymandias Now, or maybe the Democratic National Convention).
He defends big publishing, saying that he's been leaning on them and they are getting better, and they even "quaintly" let their employees work half-day Fridays in the summer.
Half-day Fridays! There you go. I'm sold, man, I'm ready to rip off these digital shackles, slap Jeff Bezos' bald head, and say "See ya, bub!"
Not so fast, Mr. Patterson. Here are my five little bullets:
Retort # 1: I started shopping at Amazon.com because they could ship a book to me overnight. Obscure, hard-to-find titles that my local bookstore didn't stock and couldn't get for me for several days. I dealt with snot-nosed punk-ass kids and snooty, self-righteous cashiers who didn't care about my reading preferences or that I needed a certain book as a gift for someone like right away, and if they couldn't figure out how to properly search their computer inventory, they just shook their head and said, "We don't carry it."
Amazon.com succeeded because this other sensitive ecosystem you hail didn't value me as a customer. They were the only game in town for decades, and they knew it. But even more perniciously, they acted like it. Those days are gone now, and good riddance.
Rejoinder # 2: I still shop online for books about half the time because these quaintly publishers encourage it themselves. The in-store prices at a brick-and-mortar store for a current hardcover remain more expensive than the online sale prices. And even if I make a purchase from that store's online website, they will still charge me more for an in-store transaction than for an online order of the same physical title (and that may or may not include free shipping, since that's how they sell annual "club" memberships). All I can get out of the managers about this nasty turn of events is that it's the company's "market model."
Your publishing partners figured out soon after the Amazon.com explosion that they had better get ahead of the curve on digital publishing and online ordering. They adapted to reality; so should you.
Repartee # 3: Hachette is the greedy bully on the street that wants to upend the e-book pricing scheme on its head. That's my view. And for what? For the ability to sell e-books for $14.99 and $19.99? No one, and I mean no one, is going to pay $14.99 for an e-book. Not when I can wait a year or two and find their physical presence in the remainder section for half that price anyway. If the true goal of this was to drive the consumers away from e-books and go back to the hardcovers, then what a reprehensible way to alter consumer behavior. I'm sure the marketing geniuses who majored in Price Theory and Applications are tripping over the rubber plants in the conference room to point fingers at each other on that one.
You also forgot to mention in your article that Hachette was already caught with its hand in the cookie jar to fix e-book prices at a higher ceiling, along with HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. Those interested can read more about the settlement here on the Publisher's Weekly website. (And maybe you can name your next book "Along Came the Department of Justice.")
Riposte # 4: I don't long for the days of condescending gatekeepers -- neither the agents who made me wait three months so they could reject my submission with a form letter, nor the publishers who increasingly rejected direct submissions and fed the cycle of agency. Who knows how many promising writers succumbed to the grind and gave up the chase?
I don't long for the days when a publisher would flat out demand changes because the story didn't fit the market, or the genre. Go read Michel Faber's excellent Under the Skin and tell me if it's a love story, a science fiction story, or a study of the human condition. Because Faber has seamlessly intertwined all three into one with that fine work. The big houses would have told Faber, "What's with all this driving around? I'm thinking shopping malls, connect with the tweens, you know?"
J. A. Konrath is a successful writer and folk hero of indie self-publishing with an excellent blog at http://jakonrath.blogspot.com. (Go check out his recent blog posts for his very incisive take on the whole Hachette controversy). Konrath waded through twelve years -- twelve motherfucking years -- of almost 500 rejection slips for his first nine novels. Hats off to Konrath, because I would have likely quit after the third or fourth novel. Anyone who has invested serious time in a novel knows how much of your energy and commitment it uses up. It's time not spent living with loved ones, pursuing happiness in other ways, and all that. You would have us return to this system, Mr. Patterson, while you sipped cognac from a glass by the fireplace and listened to the dirty unwashed pounding at the gates?
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| By J. A. Konrath (self-timer) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons |
Reply # 5: My last thought is one that you referenced yourself, Mr. Patterson. So you championed for "at least a half dozen titles" to your executives, did you? Well, all due respect, I don't want to need a James Patterson to champion my book. Because for every Kazuo Ishiguro who was recognized for his talent, there must have been a thousand others of equal talent who didn't have you cheering on the front lines, or even on the sidelines. For every Remains of the Day, there were thousands of other works which deserved to be read, everything from That Summer in Newport to Zombie Biker Bitches Come Undone, which might not have been your cup of tea, but they might have found an audience nonetheless.
Just say it out loud already: You were part of an elite reading club, and you chose who got to tug at the brass ring next. Those days, and that so-called ecosystem of yours, belong in the history books. Why do you think Hollywood is mining the rich creative content of comic books and fiction that bends and challenges genres? Is it because audiences want more stories about lawyers and reporters and retired FBI agents on the verge of breaking a shocking conspiracy?
I'm not an Amazon.com cheerleader. I'm not saying that their system is perfect, or that it's the right fit for what all writers are looking for. But while you want to compare revenue streams, remember that Jeff Bezos -- not Simon & Schuster or HarperCollins -- is the new kid on the block, and he achieved his revenue stream the way every entrepreneur does it: find out what the consumers want and deliver it. Amazon.com challenged the traditional delivery systems of bookselling and made the old guard wince and take note, and then start scrambling to catch up. And now? Now the mudslinging, right?
So whatever, dude. Every editor worth his or her salt readily agrees that there are no days numbered for traditional book publishing, only that consumer behavior has changed to accomodate e-books. The bottom line is that money saved is money saved. I don't question the business decisions of brick-and-mortar shops selling me all the stories that only fit into their categories, but I certainly don't let them talk me into spending extra dough just because they're offering free WiFi in their Starbucks section, and I won't let a multi-billion-dollar media conglomerate tell me that $14.99 e-books are the new black.
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