Declining newspaper book reviews? DECLINE OF CIVILIZATION

[mme_hardy]

Colin Robinson in the New York Times, "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Reader"

1. People aren't reading novels any more BECAUSE ELECTRONICS.
   
2. Professional book reviewers are on the decline.
   
3. Publishers are cutting budgets to keep profits level. This is hard on writers. The midlist is dying.
   
4. DEATH OF YOUR IMAGINARY LOCAL BOOKSTORE WHERE THEY RECOMMENDED BOOKS.
   
5. Newspaper book review sections are smaller, book reviewers are paid less.
   
6. The growth of Goodreads and Bookthing is phenomenal. (How do we reconcile this with point 1? Unclear.)
   
7. "the range of collective knowledge in pools of this size is incontestable. But it derives from self-selecting volunteers whose authority is hard to gauge. "
   
8. Readers recommending books to one another is bad because "another typical Internet characteristic: the “mirroring” of existing tastes at the expense of discovering anything new."
   
9. Kindle self-publishing: "But to express discomfort at the attrition of expert opinion is not to defend the previous order’s prerogatives. Nor is it elitist to suggest that making the values and personnel of such professional hierarchies more representative is preferable to dispensing with them"
   
10. Writers can't support themselves without a day job.
    
11. Writing hobbyists, NaNoWriMo. Paragraph conclusion: "Indeed, to the extent that they expand the mind-boggling proliferation of new titles being published (more than 300,000 in 2012), they are adding to the problem." (Reconcile this with point 1? Show work.)
    
12. Peroration (complete): "Faced with a dizzying array of choices and receiving little by way of expert help in making selections, book buyers today are deciding to play it safe, opting to join either the ever-larger audiences for blockbusters or the minuscule readerships of a vast range of specialist titles. In this bifurcation, the mid-list, publishing’s experimental laboratory, is being abandoned."
    
13. Colin Robinson is the co-publisher of OR Books.
    

I was going to dissect, point-by-point, what self-indulgent rubbish this is, but I think it speaks for itself.

Comments

[caulkhead]

14a Rocks fall, everyone dies.

See also Philip Hensher in today's Observer, though without the reviewer angle. Bah, I say.

[shezan]

Link to Hensher plz?

(And yes, what self-indulgent tripe.)

[caulkhead]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/03/reading-books-technology-golden-age-literature

[recessional]

10: . . . . . . REALLY? REALLY? AUGH.

[kore]

He seems to think every writer before e-publishing was a combination of Dickens and JK Rowling. But through the power of midlists.

[perennialanna]

8. OH REALLY?

Because no newspaper review ever persuaded me to dip my toes into sci-fi, or Golden Age detective novels, or fantasy-beyond-Tolkein-and-Pratchett, or any of the myriad other genres my mother didn't believe in (nor did the newspapers). Mostly, it was caulkhead, and the people she's introduced me to.

[rachelmanija]

Shorter Colin Robinson: People are reading and writing more than ever, but it's the wrong books and also largely e-books, so it doesn't count.

[ellen_fremedon]

Possibly even shorter: People are reading more than ever, but they're still not reading MY books. There is no way I could possibly be to blame!

[ironed_orchid]

HEE! YES!

[kore]

.....this is why I <3 you.

[sara]

I am proud to be part of the problem!

*goes back to reading trashy genre fiction on an e-reader and buying used paperbacks at the thrift store, none of which is Actual NYT Approved Reader Behavior*

[laurashapiro]

This is a thing of beauty.

[skygiants]

HOW ARE WE EVER GOING TO REACH OUR QUOTA OF LITERARY NOVELS ABOUT MIDDLE-AGED PROFESSORS HAVING MID-LIFE CRISES NOW

[kore]

JONATHAN FRANZEN WEEPS FOR HUMANITY. Oh wait this guy isn't Jonathan Franzen! (seriously for like half the article I thought he was)

[kerrypolka]

From OR Books' about page, "We employ exciting promotion with highly creative use of video and the Internet."

GO ON.

(Which is not to mock highly creative use of video and the Internet, of course, but i. I highly doubt they are, actually, highly creative and ii. the above sentence just mostly seems confused, as does the article.)

[kore]

They are also publishing like Gordon Lish's first creative work in three thousand years! That is just what will save publishing. Uh, their new type of publishing.

[kore]

AHAHAHA I ranted about that to dear friends via email, unfortunately (for them) with much less light and more heat.


Man, I dunno why the fuck people get SO worked up about NaNo. Would the same idiots start ranting about community orchestras and amateur dramatic societies and choirs and weekend watercolorists? Why is Art only reserved for people who can make money at it? Why is "artist" such a fought-over title? Because there is so little other actual compensation for artists in American society? Are these rhetorical questions?

-- He's really entirely wrong about Goodreads. Goodreads sucks for other, entirely different reasons (virtually no comment moderation, lots of male users being assholes SEE ABOVE, the web two dot oh seep of commerce into personalization) but when I was active on it I could get six to eight recs a day from a circle of people with roughly the same taste (after all, that's why we were friends) of books I'd never heard of. If Goodreads was good at anything it was 'virtualizing' the old-fashioned word-of-mouth, which is why Amazon was desperate to acquire it. Because a book can get great 'professional' reviews and still tank! Which that guy seems to think is UNPOSSIBLE.

Oh ghod I'm ranting all over again. Jesus that article was so bad bad bad bad. Worse than the other nytimes stupid-ass opinion piece about the woman who decided that juicing kale had ruined her teeth and her thyroid gland.

[adrian_turtle]

WTF? Juicing it really ought to solve the problem of getting it stuck in your teeth.

[kore]

Oh no, it was even more stupid than that:

And then, as if my world was not sufficiently rocked, I went to the dentist, who said I had five cavities and asked if I snacked on candy and sodas all day long. I was insulted. Indignant. What did he take me for? No, I answered. I don’t eat sugar and drink only fresh vegetable juices — no longer kale, of course, but carrot and celery, which I’m still allowed. And filtered water with lemon.

“You’d be better off with chocolate and cola,” he said. Apparently the natural sugars in fruit and vegetable juices can cause decay, and lemon, though high in vitamin C and bioflavonoids which may prevent cancer, had eroded the enamel that protected my teeth.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/01/kale-juicing-trouble-ahead/

[rinue]

Wait - lemon is acidic? What about organic lemon?

[recessional]

Honestly as someone originally trained to a career as a professional classical vocalist, the writing world is obsessed with and venerates pro status to an exent I have not found in either the music or theatre fields, and I find it extremely off-putting.

[kore]

Yeah, it's like everyone swallowed Fitzgerald's putdown to his wife: "I hope you realize the biggest difference in the arts is between the amateur and the professional." WTF.

[recessional]

It really is. Whereas, as a musician, it always felt like everyone was aware that somewhere out there is pretty much guaranteed to be an amazing voice or incredible piano skill that happens to be owned by someone who doesn't like performing/ doesn't like the pro lifestyle (because in many ways it sucks).

I dunno. I only have my anecdata and that of friends, but the contempt for non-pros in writing circles irritates the fuck out of me.

[lnhammer]

With reason.

---L.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

You got watch out for self-published crap like Common Sense, oh yeah.

And exactly how many mid-list writers ever supported themselves without a day job?

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

While the Saturday Evening Post was in its prime, you could make a living on short stories. Contemplate that for a moment.

Re:

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

It's only in recent years and entirely thanks to e-publishing that writers have again been able to make a living on short stories.

[that-which.livejournal.com]

I'm missing the part where having a very few people in disproportionately powerful venues reviewing books is likely to help avoid "...the “mirroring” of existing tastes at the expense of discovering anything new." I also really kind of doubt that anyone actually buys books based on the credentials of the reviewer rather than whether they've found that they tend to enjoy the books the reviewer recommends, which sort of also works when crowdsourcing.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

There are reviews and there are reviews, serving different purposes. So. It depends.

If Mary Beard reviews a book and tells me it is good, I am more likely to believe her and buy the book than if certain other reviewers do, because she knows what she is talking about and the others... less so.

[(Anonymous)]

There's also personal taste to consider; some reviewers align well because they like the same things, or at least have a consistent and reliable map onto one's own taste.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

That was me -- iPad not logged in before I noticed.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Ahem. Some of us are reading moar novelz now, BECAUSE ELECTRONICS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB). Sheesh.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Re 10. I'd like to see actual demographic numbers. How many writers today live solely off the avails of their writing (and don't just count novels). How many writers one hundred years ago lived solely off the avails of their writing (not just novels, but no patrons, no independent family wealth).

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the numbers suggest things that run counter to the "ohnoz modrun society is unkultured krap" notions...

[madrobins]

Oh dear. Is the sky falling again, my precious?

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Good lord, what tripe.