Literary fiction in crisis as sales drop dramatically
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I think it's important to accept that there is a group of people - perhaps small - that love reading literary fiction. It's not reasonable to assume bad faith, just because you can't see the merit in something. There maybe people that use it as a means of identifying with a group and not out of genuine passion or interest - but that is true of every group. You always have people who attach themselves in this way: programming and tech world are a classic case.
Anyway just because something seems esoteric does not mean the person iis not enjoying it. We all have radically different needs, experiences and interests. And it's OK. Anyone who thinks that because they read literary fiction they are superior in some way is foolish certainly. On the other hand they may quite reasonably say that they consider one form of fiction to be aesthetically superior: that is the nature of aesthetics - we all get our say.
Right, but this post is not about the vanishing of Literary fiction from the face of the earth.
A merely shrinking market is obviously consistent with the idea that some (or much) of it formerly sold to people who weren't really enjoying spending hours with a genre almost defined by not having much in the way of story or ideas, which in turn is consistent with the hypothesis that part of the market was sustained by status signaling.
Generally what I find is that once peoplelike a work of literary fiction they no longer think of it as "literary" - they sort see it in a category of its own.
I have natural 'aversion' for literary fiction. It's hard for me to get started, so I very rarely read them. But when I finally stumble reading one, I'm usually happy that I did.
Example: I have only read one book from Dostoyevsky: 'Notes from Underground'. I chose it because it was short. But oh boy was it deep, heavy and mind bending. I still carry that book with me (figuratively).
I don't hesitate to admit that I'm dirty commoner when it comes to literary, but I'm honest enough to admit that there are things 'that would be good for me' and I would love to have read those books but I'm shutting myself out of them. I'm sure literary fiction is full of crap but the best of them are far ahead of commercial genre fiction (there is intersection of genre fiction and literary fiction of course).
Affirming general propositions of the form "just because X, Y is not necessarily true" is logically fine. It is just a bit odd to be using glittering generalities to defend, of all things, literary fiction (which is concerned above all else with nuance and particularity).
Yeah, right. Because navel-gazing is the only thing in literature worth supporting. We'd have fewer problems in the world if more people read (and appreciated) science fiction.
ACE, I make a gesture of contempt in your direction.
As a side note, one of the books they give as an example is The Time Traveller's Wife, which involves "a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel unpredictably", which certainly sounds like an SF-y premise.
Format adaptations have catapulted some great SF into the pop culture stardom:
The War of the Worlds was published in 1898, and though looked upon favorably, it is rarely mentioned today without also mentioning the 1938 radio broadcast.
The Wizard of Oz (Baum 1900) is more famous for its 1939 film.
In more modern times, Johnny Mnemonic (1995 film from "Burning Chrome", Gibson 1986), Snowpiercer (2013 film from "Le Transperceneige", Lob and Rochette 1982), and The Martian (2015 film from "The Martian", Weir 2011) have all increased SF visibility through film adaptations.
Without format shift, would general SF readers have pursued these works independent from the film? Probably. Would these works have entered pop culture and have been sought by the everyman, even the ones who don't routinely buy books or enjoy reading? Less likely.
Of the five top grossing films, Avatar and Jurassic World are very clearly science fiction, Star Wars and The Avengers are arguably science fiction. It's only Titanic that couldn't be claimed to be science fiction.
The situation is probably similar for TV Series too.
The status problems of science fiction are arguably related to its extreme popularity.
2015 is too soon to really judge it's staying power and it's hard to judge how much of the praise is because it's non-Western.
On the other hand, 99% of SF does not have much literary merit, even the well regarded stuff, so if you're interested in the cross-section, Literature might be the more reasonable department to file it under.
The authors that can combine the two are very rare - Wolfe, Douglas Adams, Ursula K. Le Guin, and often Russian authors, though that might be from the translation too.
You misspelled history.
Is Rowling's Potter part of Literary Fiction? The report states "We therefore leave the definition of what literary fiction is, open. [...] What it definitely is not, for our purposes, is poetry or plays. We are looking at fiction." Which causes me to believe it does fall within their definition.
John Le Carre, Salman Rushdie, John Banville, Anthony Horowitz. All had superlative novels out this year.
Also just started Francis Spufford's Golden Hill. Absolutely sublime way to spend a snow bound winter night.
The crisis is obviously in readership. Not writing. And the chaotic divergence of attention.
It may be true that the text no longer acts as Bildungsroman. The primary method to impart moral and spiritual character to young influence-able minds.
But then the Mountain must come to Muhammad. And the great works rendered as digital classics.
Everyone gets to decide what they enjoy and how they spend their time. I generally enjoy good writing and good movies over spending time with miscellaneous web browsing and network TV. I have friends and family who love watching TV or hanging out on Facebook and that is fine because everyone gets to decide how they spend their time.
It is important to me that producers of great content get paid so even though I enjoy spending time in my local library, I prefer to purchase entertainment material.
EDIT: "Were", not "are", because I've lost touch in the past years and don't know how it is nowadays. Sales have dropped, the audience may have too. (Still see gorgeous women in the bookshops though.)
How do you think sales ratios could provide the figures about people's purchase intentions?
https://www.booksbythefoot.com/shop/pc/Holly-Ivy-3p232.htm
I assume sales to those services are nowhere near as high as 20%, but counting sales to similar services (and Hollywood set designers, bulk orders to interior decorators, etc) could go some way towards calculating a percentage.
As to how they'd know: Editors are the people who effectively decide what books are published. Their income depends on their insight into customer behaviour. Wouldn't you try to learn why books are bought?
Let's consider the problem. Presumably the majority of people who buy books that they have no intention of ever reading would never admit to that fact. How do you then figure out the numbers of such purchases? (Remember that the comment I originally replied to gave specific figures). How does being an editor somehow give you any meaningful insight into those figures?
Also, majority of games bought at steam is never played. People buy it because they are discounted and there never go around playing. It is not for show, cause nobody see that. Large portion of those 1 in four gonna be like that too.