[Note from Steve: This is the third post in preparation for Tom Pope’s and my Socratic dialogue on writing thrillers.  It’s more about reading, though, not writing.  The title is a bow to Pete Seeger.]

I read and review in many genres, including non-fiction.  Every author should be an avid reviewer.  And, if you want to give something back to the community of readers and writers, honest reviews help those readers who are looking for new and interesting books to read.  Of course, they help writers too, but I’m pleased when I receive that note from Amazon saying that one of my reviews helped a reader make a reading decision.  That’s my reward.  (I never charge for reviews because money can’t beat that kind of reward.)

Many writers don’t share my views on reviews!  Some will say that they’re busy writing and that they can’t take time to write a review.  Some will say that they have a policy of not reviewing other authors because they’re afraid of being accused of practicing review exchanges, aka a you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours review policy.  Whatever the reasons, I respectfully disagree with them.  Authors should write reviews.  They can do them on review websites or places like Amazon and Smashwords and avoid the review exchange criticism (many accept clever pseudonyms for their reviewers).  They can be technical without being erudite.  And their reviews will be useful to the reading public.  Above all, writing reviews shows that the author is also a reader and not just a person interested in selling books.

Right now I’m finishing a review of a mystery.  I’ve read every book on “Steve’s Bookshelf” and reviewed many of them.  Those books are there because they’re clever, entertaining, and resonated with my inner being more than other books I’ve read.  They’re an extension of me and my life.  That’s what reading is all about.  Reading a good book is also more mind-active than watching your average Hollywood action flick or cable TV reality show, to say the least.  So, at risk of exposing you to my possibly non-productive whining, where have all the readers gone?

Readers’ response to my new release Aristocrats and Assassins has been underwhelming, more so than most of my other books.  Perhaps the timing was just wrong, as people try to recover from a long, hard winter—that’s to say, maybe I should have timed it before the winter so people would have something to read as they were forced to stay indoors more!  Perhaps the bad economy and problems overseas (Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria, and now Russia and the Ukraine) have made American readers less interested in a novel with an international setting.  Perhaps reading tastes are just changing to even more escapist literature than my own (paranormal, romance, erotica, and horror).  Or, perhaps people just don’t have time to read lengthy novels anymore, preferring shorter works, if anything, or less mind-bending media like action flicks and cable TV reality shows.

Whatever the reasons (my list is probably not complete, and probably should include, “I don’t like what that old curmudgeon writes”—hey, I’m not that old!), the American reader is elusive and fast becoming a member of an endangered species.  While the number of readers seems to be dwindling here (overseas it seems to be different), the number of authors increases.  Another way to say that is that the ratio of authors to readers is increasing!  Thousands of new books are released every day and many of their authors are first-timers.  The ease of digital publishing has encouraged many who feel they have a book in them to put it out there.  Whatever the quality, I consider that a noble accomplishment, except for the possibility that they might be squandering their reading time (believe it or not, it takes time to write a book, even a bad one, although the logistics of getting it out there today are minimized).  It clashes with my view that every author should be an avid reader.

Nevertheless, I see this desire to put a book out there a step forward when compared to the alternative where a small, elite group (Big Five publishers and their editors and agents) tries to force its tastes upon the reading public.  Yet this fluid state of affairs has produced a glut of books that not only makes it tough for authors but also makes the selection of books more difficult for readers.  It’s like trying to read one piece of confetti in a ticket-tape parade.

For example, if you scour the internet looking for free ebook promos, do you read every one you download?  I rarely do, although I’ve become more selective in this process.  As an author, I recognize that launching free promos is just PR and marketing to improve an author’s name recognition (it’s certainly not to garner book reviews, because the review to download ratio averages only about 1 per 1000), but massive give-aways of books can only reduce an author’s potential target audience and—let’s face it—carry the implication to some readers that the writer doesn’t value his own work.

I also have the impression that today’s authors have just exchanged the exploitation of the Big Five into exploitation by PR and marketing agencies who constantly tell them they have to pay to promote their books (this goes for authors at small presses and midlist authors of the Big Five too—only already established authors get those full page ads in the NY Times).  One such service that I won’t name used to have a $499 ebook marketing package—now their minimum package is $2500.  Phew!  Talk about inflation.  I can finance the release of twelve new ebooks at that price (not that I have twelve new manuscripts lying around right now).  And I’m a bit dubious about those $99 packages for online promo of my ebooks because both you and I know what most people usually do with the internet ads we receive.  They’re not spam necessarily, but deleting them is only one click away–or we just ignore them.

But here’s my conundrum: I would like to think there are probably many readers out there who would enjoy my ebooks, but how do I reach them?  Clearly, not everyone who reads this blog reads my books.  I respect that you come here only for the op-ed (even this post is op-ed, albeit one outside the norm) about current events and aren’t really into fiction or anything longer than a blog post (maybe flash fiction or poetry slams?).  I consider my blog to be part of my writing, so, if that’s you, you’re still one of my readers!  I respect that and treasure your presence here.  Of course, that’s not the point of this post.

The bottom line is that authors need readers, whether Big Five superstars, Big Five midlist or small imprint authors, or indie writers.  And vice versa.  Imagine a world without books!  (Ever read Fahrenheit 451?)  However, discovering new, interesting, and entertaining books is more difficult than ever for any reader, and you won’t always find them among the freebies (some would argue that you never find them there, but I know, from personal experience, that this is not true, albeit more and more rare).  There are so many books out there that readers have to work harder to make their selections.  In economic terms relative to the law of supply and demand, today’s book supply far exceeds the demand.

The present situation also carries a danger.  Compare Twitter posts to discussion forum comments (I’m not on Twitter, but I comment in forums, although lurking is more common).  The first trends toward the inane and superficial but allows corporations and advertisers to keep stats.  Those stats, if only for the group posting, are more meaningful to the corporate honchos due to the sheer numbers involved—in other words, Corporate America can target you better—that’s YOU in caps—the more you tweet.  It’s more difficult to apply metrics to longer posts or your emails, but they try to do that too (and people complain about the NSA?).  I’d venture to say that the hashtag concept has morphed into being a more useful corporate and advertising tool than any direct sampling, especially when what follows the hashtag is your simple yes or no.

In other words, the danger is that opinions aren’t really espoused or read anymore; too often they’re only 140 characters long.  Reading books opens your eyes to contrary opinions and interesting data, unless you’re such a myopic reader that you won’t touch anything that doesn’t agree with your own fundamentalist ideology.  (I’d like to think that readers of this blog aren’t in that category.)  Moreover, reading teaches you to go beyond mere protest and look for real solutions.  Even fiction does that, as characters struggle with the same problems we face daily in settings that are familiar to us, often looking for and finding those solutions.  Yes, even SF, which often shines a spotlight on particular issues in a future setting where we can strip away our knee-jerk emotional reactions and coldly analyze the problems and potential solutions.

If you’ve read this far, I thank you for your interest and patience.  My campaign here is lobbying first for more readers and second for more diversified reading.  Go to “Steve’s Bookshelf.”  You’ll see that the number of non-fiction books is about the same as the number of fiction books.  Moreover, even the fiction books treat themes that are important to humanity.  They all have importance in my life, as does most any book I read.  In my own books, I try to entertain first, but teach second (not that’s teach, not preach–through my characters, I often consider contradictory points of view).  Most writers worth their salt do the same thing, which is why I like to find new ones to review.  You have an enormous supply of good books out there with plots that have universal themes as a background.  Aristocrats and Assassins contains an issue that goes beyond the ubiquitous and violent terrorist.  Most of my novels contain at least one such issue and I look for that often in the books I read.  Because I write my books to be entertaining, and I strive to put out a quality product for my readers, this shouldn’t be a problem, but maybe it is.  Dunno.  This is certainly a strange business.

In libris libertas….

 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2014 at 4:00 am and is filed under Book Reviews, Technology, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.