Ebook sales are being driven by downmarket genre fiction

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

life is too short for me to give even an iota of a rat's behind what people think of my entertainment choices.

and to the authors of the "trash" i enjoy: keep up the good work.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

No! Really?

Can't be any literary snobbishness.

Now, in Robert Service's day academia largely disparaged his works...but they are all better now. All that snobbishness stuff is a thing of the past...

[caleb72]

I love me some genre fiction!

[carpetmojo]

QUOTE:The ebook world is driven by so-called genre fiction, categories such as horror or romance. It's not future classics that push digital sales, but more downmarket fare. No cliche is left unturned, no adjective underplayed. At the time of writing, the bestselling Amazon Kindle book was Asylum Harbor, by Traci Hohenstein. Crime sells. Try a sample, I dare you. In digital, dross rises...QUOTE.

I agree totally - from my (relatively short so far) experience of downloading free or "budget priced" e-stuff.
And ocassionally higher-priced stuff I've taken a gamble on.....

I don't think I'm "snobbish" ( how quaint !) in the way I understand it, and have nothing at all against "genres" - isn't all writing of a genre of some sort or another ?
I just find a huge amount of it badly and lazily written and thought out, the characters and plots - such as there are sometimes - formulaic and stereotypical, uninteresting and boringly predictable.

[mr ploppy]

What that shows to me is that the "proper" publishers have had it wrong all these years when they decided what people wanted to read. If they want to survive long term it isn't just their prices they need to sort out. They need to start encouraging all those trash writers they turned their noses up at in the past to start sending them manuscripts again instead of selling themselves direct to readers.

[DrNefario]

The thing about genre fiction is that you know what you are getting. It's almost commodified (which might also be why price is important). It's a lot easier to take a punt on a genre book than it would be on a piece of lit fic.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by teh603

Anyone who wants to write a "future classic" needs to have their head examined. That's the kind of boring tripe that gets recycled endlessly though middle and high school English classes.

Welcome to the world of latin-american publishing.
Nobody admits to writing fiction.
Everybody aspires to write the next Nobel Prize winner.
Some do. Most end up with merely pretentious potboilers that lack even the virtues of honest genre fiction..

The Guardian article struck me as delightfully condescending.
Lots of snarky comments.
Somewhere along the way, though, folks seem to have forgotten that all those "great literary classics" of the past were not themselves written with any "high literary aspirations".
Shakespeare's plays were potboilers in the literal sense--he wrote to feed his family not to reinvent the english language. That his work stood the test of time and transcended cultures was unplanned and unintended.
Cervantes? El Quijote is a *spoof* of the popular "medieval romances" that were the literature of the day and whose readership had conveniently forgotten that the romances themselves were the genre fiction of a previous era.
Dumas? Doyle? Verne? Conrad? Austen? The Brontes?
High literary ambition? Hah!
More often than not, the works written with high literary aspirations are well-nigh unreadable, and the few that do make it are ignored/decried in their day. (Tolkien, for one.)

Critics don't annoint true literary classics, time and the masses do.
The genre fiction of one era is the literature of the next.

In decrying ebooks for building their success off genre fiction, the article is unwittingly congratulating the industry for its successful mainstreaming.

If, in the next few decades, pretentious "literary works" eschew the digital format and limit themselves to dead treeware, I'd call that a net win.

[LuvReadin]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

W
Somewhere along the way, though, folks seem to have forgotten that all those "great literary classics" of the past were not themselves written with any "high literary aspirations".
Shakespeare's plays were potboilers in the literal sense--he wrote to feed his family not to reinvent the english language. That his work stood the test of time and transcended cultures was unplanned and unintended.
Cervantes? El Quijote is a *spoof* of the popular "medieval romances" that were the literature of the day and whose readership had conveniently the romances were the genre fiction of a previous era.
Dumas? Doyle? Verne? Conrad? Austen? The Brontes?
High literary ambition? Hah!

So true. And looking at that list, how many of these have romance as their central theme? Take the romance out of any of Austen's books, and you have pretty dull stories about social climbing.

Also, the article is based on books actually purchased - anyone who wants to read the classics will trot off and download them for nuthin'.

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

What that shows to me is that the "proper" publishers have had it wrong all these years when they decided what people wanted to read. If they want to survive long term it isn't just their prices they need to sort out. They need to start encouraging all those trash writers they turned their noses up at in the past to start sending them manuscripts again instead of selling themselves direct to readers.

unfortunately these publishers have a compulsion to milk a genre to the point of absurdity, they have no sense of balance. they don't put out a smattering of genres, they pick one and drive it into the ground. its milk milk milk, drop like a hot potato. i feel bad for all the urban fantasy and twilight-clone authors who will be on the unemployment line when the bottom falls out on those expectorating dust genres. unless you're writing the genre du jour they still won't want your manuscript.

[fjtorres]

As to the the decried Christian Fiction genre:
Anybody with an open mind and a hint of curiosity can at any time find a dozen such freebies at Amazon. Pick one with a 4-5 star rating and see for yourself.

Most come from smaller publishers but some can be found from Harlequin and other larger publishers seeking to tap this particular counter-culture.

What you'll find is most likely a straightforward romantic comedy or family drama where the protagonists *don't* start "bonk"-ing at the drop of a hat, don't curse or do drugs, rarely drink, and are all earnestly religious and community-oriented. Hard-working people who are tolerant of other religions, help each other out willingly, and are generally pacifist. (No alien invasions, glittery vamps, or zombies... to my, admittedly-limited, knowedge.) Not too many LEFT BEHIND's in there.

They're just harmless fantasies (in the broader sense) for people who find mainstream culture gross and offensive and who prefer gentler time killer reads.

Let's see now...
Here's a sample, check the reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Fools-Rush-Wed.../dp/B002LE87RQ

141 5-star reviews, 33 1-star reviews.

It may not be John Ringo but I see nothing there worth disparaging.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Let's see now...
Here's a sample, check the reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Fools-Rush-Wed.../dp/B002LE87RQ

141 5-star reviews, 33 1-star reviews.

It may not be John Ringo but I see nothing there worth disparaging.

That book was one of the first I downloaded because at the time it was one of Kobo's free books. I like books like this. I tend to skip past pages and pages of people doin' it and just want the actual story itself (of general chick-lit), and found this book refreshing.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

What you'll find is most likely a straightforward romantic comedy where the protagonists *don't* start "bonk"-ing at the drop of a hat, don't curse or do drugs, rarely drink, and are all earnestly religious and community-oriented.

Seriously though, what are they really about, preachers with guns blowing away sinners, avenging angels with chainsaws, that sort of thing? The only christain fiction I've ever read is Torment by Jeremy Bishop and the Narnia books.

[Andrew H.]

I don't think this article ends up saying much of anything...genre sales are also clearly driving pbooks sales as well. It's not like James Patterson, P.D. James, Lee Childs, Janet Evanovich, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Preston & Child, etc. are any strangers to bestseller lists. Genre has dominated bestseller lists for a long time. This isn't news.

As the author notes near the end of her article:

"Publishers say that there is little real change going on, just substitution: those who buy genre books start buying digitally instead."

Of course this is right - why would you change genre preferences when you go digital?

I think the title is more linkbait than anything else; I don't think it has much substance.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by spindlegirl

I tend to skip past pages and pages of people doin' it and just want the actual story itself (of general chick-lit), and found this book refreshing.

Some books are just a framework and an excuse to feature "pages and pages" of people doing it. They sell well, too.

As long as you know what you're getting, there's room for all kinds.
And as long as people are willing to pay for stuff there will be people willing to supply it. Whether it be alien massacres, sparkly vamps, gentle family dramas, snarky comedy, or insightful commentary on human fallibility...

Well, okay; not that last one.

But ebooks certainly reduce the barrier to entry so over time it'll be easier for everybody to find their reading fix of choice. Probably a good thing, too.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

What you'll find is most likely a straightforward romantic comedy or family drama where the protagonists *don't* start "bonk"-ing at the drop of a hat, don't curse or do drugs, rarely drink, and are all earnestly religious and community-oriented. Hard-working people who are tolerant of other religions, help each other out willingly, and are generally pacifist. (No alien invasions, glittery vamps, or zombies... to my, admittedly-limited, knowedge.) Not too many LEFT BEHIND's in there.

Dunno, I'd probably find it excessively moralistic and not very entertaining.

Ploppy- Remind me to tell you about the Beka Books expurgated version of A Midsummer Night's Dream that found its way into a christian school's english classes. Calling it the most depressing anti-comedic piece I've ever read is too nice.