Rant of the day

I sent my agent a grumpy email last night, complaining that it didn't do much for a once-prolific writer's ego and soul when she was being encouraged NOT to write, rather than being nurtured and enthused. This was her reply:

I fear that the older authors are having a really tough time with new novels and ideas. Adult fiction has to be really blockbuster stunning because those mid list titles are just not being taken up any more - partly because library sales have dwindled so much. Getting the voice right is the main problem today with young people and it is a real problem for the older YA author too.

What the hell does the age of an author have to do with whether a book is good or not? When you thumb through a book in the bookstore/library and think, 'This looks interesting, I shall buy it/take it out', do you also think, 'Are they a mid-lister?' or 'I wonder how old the author is?' I have never thought that in my life. I bet it doesn't apply to MEN!!!!

What my agent seems to be saying is that, because of cutbacks, the reading public are being presented with less and less choice because publishers only want to publish books which they consider to be surefire hits, e.g. celebrity memoirs (ugh!). They are not interested in slow burners. The shops wouldn't keep them on the shelf for long enough for them to conflagrate.

In the meantime, as readers, are we expected to subsist on the intellectual equivalent of a Big Mac? Not me. I haunt library sales and Amazon's secondhand sections and the charity shop shelves and feel sad that these re-sales are not putting any more cash into the poor author's pocket.

So, once more, it seems that all roads lead to the self-publishing option - though a recent article I read on the subject intimated that, as well as publishing, we need to be able to add videos and podcasts. Whaaaat? Shakespeare and Dickens would have been non-starters in this techie age. Podcasts be damned. Pods are to keep peas in. Pass me a quill pen.