Publishing in 2012

There are around 530,000 different books released per year in the UK and America. That’s a staggering figure and proably contributes as much as anything else to the fact that success is getting more and more difficult to define. One marker of success is winning an award, yet I read over the holidays that the Pulitzer committee of 2012 failed to agree upon a single work of fiction that deserved their prize - a first in the 35 year history of America's most prestigious literary award.

Could this reflect a lack of quality American fiction? The literary elite rejected this idea. 1992 Pulitzer fiction winner Jane Smiley declared she could not believe there wasn't a worthy title and suggested it was more a case of a committee that couldn’t agree. In the UK, the 2012 Booker judges said the UK’s premier literary prize remained resolutely committed to rewarding critical merit over accessibility. In 2011 they claimed 'readability' - much to the horror of the literary establishment – was the most important factor.

The Booker judges chose Hilary Mantel's novel Bring Up The Bodies. It is the second in a trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, which also won Mantel Author of the Year at the National Book Awards. Since debut author Madeline Miller won The Orange Prize for Fiction with a story about a prince in Ancient Greece, historical novelists might be forgiven for thinking that historical novels are back in fashion; or that the literary establishment has at last realized their worth.

Female writers generally did well in 2012. E L James's 50 Shades Of Grey won Book of the Year at the National Book Awards, and Clare Balding won Biography/Autobiography of the Year, with Miranda Hart (Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year) and Rachel Joyce winning the New Writer of the Year award.

Inevitably the rise of eBooks and the decline of print have the publishing industry contemplating its navel once more over the question of popularity of certain titles and if popularity alone should now be a mark of literary merit. The literary elite may have to accept that the internet is changing the old standards and book awards must move and change with it, otherwise they will be meaningless.

Relationship Fiction

W H Smith recently declared that from the middle of October it will no longer use "Women's Fiction" on promotional material in their stores. Evidently the company received complaints from two female shoppers who found the label condescending and offensive. Two things pop into mind - what are they going to use instead, and I had no idea just two complaints would change something in their store.

There is a rumour that "relationship fiction" is to be the new banner. People in the business of selling books say Women's Fiction and Chick Lit has always been about how women deal with relationships rather than the bigger issues dealt with in other types of fiction. In many ways I have to agree, but it isn't always simply getting a man that makes the story. There are complications that affect whole families, but I guess that still comes under the relationship banner. I suppose the smart thing would be to shelve the books as libraries used to do - a simple A-Z author sequence whch avoids all the cute headings.

People like the headings. They don't want to spend the time browsing through forty thousand books every time they want something to read.  And I suspect that most women like the heading Women's Fiction. And anyway, do you think a new banner is going to change the type of book that is taken off the shelves? I doubt it. But it will be interesting to watch the struggle.

Angels and ghosts?

There's an interesting article for anyone who writes for teens in the Bookseller last week - here - but it seems its a complex genre for writers.

I've just caught up with the film Twilight though the book was published in 2006 and already publishers are thinking the teen vamp thing is already passe. To be honest about the film - I hope the book was better. The premise is engaging with its teen focus of boy-vamp meets human-girl and they fall for each other, because all the conflict you'll ever need is right there. He can never trust himself not to 'take her over' and she insists she trusts him absolutely. But the boy-hero in the film made me laugh with his red lipstick, dark eye make-up and amazing ability to skim through the treetops and run up tree trunks like an ant. The acting was abysmal and the second half had the soundtrack out of synch with the actors' mouths. Distracting to say the least. (Rant over.)

The teen publishing market is now thinking that the next big thing may well be ghosts and angels. Now there's a though to conjure with for a moment. But if any of you are writing for the teen market, which now has female readers up to thirty waiting eagerly for the next book, forget vampires, and think ghosts instead.
What motivates the under thirties? Can it be that the success of Harry Potter, Twilight and the like has encouraged these people that the teens have the best stories?
They're original stories, certainly - one of the things I loved about the Harry Potter concept was the brilliant imagination that conjured up things like the map that showed who was walking around Hogwarts at night, the punishment pen that wrote his lines on his hand and the Room of Requirement...what kind of a mind thinks up such things?
I'm not sure there's much to be found in the womens' fiction shelves these days that can match match such good storytelling. What do the rest of you think?