Ebook sales are being driven by downmarket genre fiction

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Personally, I like to have both. What I don't understand is why would the two extremes sneer at each other, and to a lesser extent at those in the middle.

Insecurity.
Everybody wants their clique to be the cool kids.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by sbroome

Don't almost all books fit into a genre? Lol I'm always confused at that term.

Fiction genres are those book categories that generate enough revenue and visibility to be considered separate markets in their own right.
Whatever is left over after this pigeon-holing is considered general fiction until the "right critics" bless them; then they become literature.

[QuantumIguana]

I recently re-read "A Wrinkle In Time", and there was a blurb on the back, that said (I paraphrase) "It isn't science fiction, it's good!"

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

I recently re-read "A Wrinkle In Time", and there was a blurb on the back, that said (I paraphrase) "It isn't science fiction, it's good!"

Old edition, I presume.

[Ankh]

So, another "the end of the art" (as we know it) article, with evil "downmarket genre fiction" now threatening everything that we hold dear.

Should this trend continue, the evil "downmarket genre fiction" will definitely exhaust our limited reserves of storage space and bandwidth, thereby killing any and all "future classics".

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

I have never seen anyone whinging at the mention of the word genre. I've only seen people getting defensive when the word genre has been used as a pejorative. I haven't seen allegations of pretension based on what someone reads, but on their attitudes toward those who read genre.

Exactly.

+1

Quote from Dear Author:

Oh dilemma, you guys. You see, there is this awful post and comments written by some guy out there on the internet on the topic of romances.

I feel like he is being intentionally degrading in order to get hits. Plus, he is deleting comments according to various individuals who have left comments. I don’t want to link to him and give him the page hits. On the other hand, per my inbox and twitter feed, many readers already know about it. In sum, Cale McCarthy, possibly gaslighting us romance readers for attention, says that romances are all inferior and his view of us is summed up in one of his comments:

Seriously, why am I writing about this? The good thing is that Cale McCarthy won’t have any trouble staying single given that he views any woman who reads romance as his intellectual inferior.

This is the type of crap that genre readers have to deal with every day.

So, no. There is no " 'constant tsunami' of defensive whinging on the part of genre readers." Instead we're just sick and tired of the unnecessary pompous BS and are starting to respond back in kind.

[QuantumIguana]

Jane Austen wrote romance novels. They fit solidly in the genre. If some people want to say that somehow they don't count as romance novels, fine, but it changes nothing.

[BeccaPrice]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The same is true of the genre writers; I'm pretty sure the likes of Cartland and Heyer, Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Vonnegut, Bradbury, Chandler, and yes, King will be read by more people in a hundred years than other more literarily acclaimed writers..

I don't think anyone reads Barbara Cartland any more, and I'm not sure she's even still in print. And it's sacrilege to put her name next to Georgette Heyer, whom Cartland gleefully ripped off. You could put Nora Roberts' name in the list though.

[sbroome]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Fiction genres are those book categories that generate enough revenue and visibility to be considered separate markets in their own right.
Whatever is left over after this pigeon-holing is considered general fiction until the "right critics" bless them; then they become literature.

Lol sounds like high school.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

You don't say a lot you read romance, do you?

I don't quite understand your point, but I will say that Anthony Trollope is one of my favorites. And most of his many, many novels have a plot along these lines:

-- Boy and girl are made for each other
-- Something, or someone, is stopping them from marrying
-- They marry anyway

Is that romance?

Was Trollope literary? Well, even if the word wasn't used, he was regarded as such in his time because of being on the realism side of any grouping of authors along a realism-sensationalism spectrum. Now he seems out of favor, hardly more taught in universities than his friend and, as a novelist, polar opposite, Wilkie Collins.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I'm thinking enduring popular appeal is bound to be a better predictor of future classics than establishment awards.

I wonder if there even will be future classics. Don't today's English professors tend to teach, say, Dickens, as an exemplar of a time and place rather than as someone who gives us superior insight into human nature?

In order to have classics, you have to believe that human nature is real and permanent. Trollope's novels are all about the differing nature of men and women. If you think sex differences are all socially constructed, there is nothing timeless in the books and they can't be classics.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by taosaur

My hypothesis is that people who respond strongly to formula also tend to read a higher volume of material. In other words, a romance enthusiast is more likely to always be reading a romance, and to move through them quickly. A general reader is unlikely to match the pace of the romance (or mystery, or thriller) enthusiast, and even if they do, their impact on sales is not as focused. The performance of genres that include highly formulaic sub-genres is driven to a large degree by outlier enthusiasts.

I would fall into this catagory, I have 400+ books and growing I go through anywhere between 2-5 books a week. I have tons of books to choose from and I enjoy them. I couldn't care less what someone thinks of my reading material, so long as I enjoy it that is all that matters.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

I don't think anyone reads Barbara Cartland any more, and I'm not sure she's even still in print. And it's sacrilege to put her name next to Georgette Heyer, whom Cartland gleefully ripped off. You could put Nora Roberts' name in the list though.

Hmmm... a quick search on amazon.co.uk came up with nearly three and a half thousand hits with many of the recent ones being kindle editions (2011 release) so I guess someone, somewhere still reads her...

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

I have never seen anyone whinging at the mention of the word genre. I've only seen people getting defensive when the word genre has been used as a pejorative. I haven't seen allegations of pretension based on what someone reads, but on their attitudes toward those who read genre.

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

This is the type of crap that genre readers have to deal with every day.

People who hang a significant chunk of their identity on being genre readers are predisposed to read any non-glowing mention of genre as pejorative, and judging by the frequency of these threads they spend a significant amount of time seeking out such mentions.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Hmmm... a quick search on amazon.co.uk came up with nearly three and a half thousand hits with many of the recent ones being kindle editions (2011 release) so I guess someone, somewhere still reads her...

The family estate last year signed up an exclusivity deal to release a good chunk of her catalog as ebooks via Amazon.
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/ba...d-digital.html

I'm thinking that with 700+ books to her name, at least four adapted to movies, it is fair to suggest she had *some* extended popularity. Quantity having a quality all its own, I figure she's got as much a shot as any other contemporary writer. (It worked for Tirso de Molina.)
Whether *any* of them transcend is for the future to decide, though.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by taosaur

People who hang a significant chunk of their identity on being genre readers are predisposed to read any non-glowing mention of genre as pejorative, and judging by the frequency of these threads they spend a significant amount of time seeking out such mentions.

Whatever. Be a snob if you want. Just don't be mad when you're called on it.