One of the main reasons I created Speculative Fiction Junkie was to spread the word about great fiction. As the site evolved, more and more of the works reviewed came from the ranks of independent presses producing works in very limited quantities. I never made a conscious decision to review books printed in runs of, say, 200 copies, but it just turns out that some truly excellent fiction of the sort that interests me is being published in this manner these days.
A few weeks ago, during a phone conversation with a friend of mine who lives in another state, we got to talking about short stories. He, like many people, doesn't think very highly of them, while I on the other hand immediately thought of at least two dozen excellent examples that I thought he might enjoy immensely and that might get him to change his mind about the merits of the form.
The problem of course is that these stories are scattered across perhaps 18 or more collections whose small print runs and high production values mean that acquiring them might be a $1000+ USD proposition. Furthermore, since my friend lives hundreds of miles away, lending him the books is not a practical alternative.
I tried unsuccessfully to figure out a way to share these stories and even considered for a short while courses of action that would have been frankly illegal. In the end, however, I did nothing and concluded that the fact that these authors' works aren't available electronically or in affordable physical form, effectively precludes the possibility that my friend, and others like him, will ever read these works or come to know and revere the names of their authors. Thus will the laws that were designed to protect authors instead in this case contribute to their continued obscurity.
Now, it's all fine and good to say that authors and publishers deserve to be compensated for their work at whatever price the free market will support, but my goal is to share works of fiction with people who may not have discovered them and $100 books with print runs of 200 make accomplishing this goal impossible as a practical matter, which is to say that this site cannot achieve one of its primary purposes. As a consequence, the hiatus here is likely a permanent one. I will continue to seek out and enjoy the works of the small presses I've come to love over the past few years, but it's doubtful that I'll continue to review them.
29 comments:
One project that has gathered at least 500 previously published stories from a variety genres is Anthology Builder: http://www.anthologybuilder.com/welcome.php
I don't know if some of the stories you alluded to in your post are at Anthology Builder, but it's worth a look. (One of the criteria, I believe, is that the stories selected must have been from paying markets). You could gether them, create and create/send an anthology to your friend for under $15.00.
Sorry to see you throw in the towel, though I understand your frustration.
Within the next five years I do see the market changing dramatically though, so you might want to not close things down permanently.
Small presses are gaining access to digital publishing and as amazons stats reveled the other day, the market is booming. I can definitely see epublishing bridging the scarcity/price divide in the near future.
@Terry: Thank you for pointing this out. This is exactly the sort of thing that these stories that are published in limited print runs by small presses could benefit from in my opinion. The market for the exquisitely produced, limited edition hardcovers would remain intact but accessibility to new readers would thereby be guaranteed. I sincerely hope that more authors will start opting into this sort of thing.
@Alec: Thanks for your comments. I hope that you are right about small presses and digital publishing and I am not necessarily throwing in the towel permanently. It's just that--at the risk of oversimplifying--until there is a practical way to get these works into the hands of people I tell about them, I don't see that there's a point to taking the time to write reviews.
Ben, let me argue a different point of view, one from the small press author. One of the hardest things for struggling writers to get is attention. Locus, PW, etc., they all cover the Gaimans and Kings of the world, but the little guys can't always rely on the same coverage. What we hope for is word of mouth primarily. Now, granted, your reviews aren't necessarily always for books that are available at the local store, but the books for the most part are available, it seems, for those interested enough to spend the money. Is it fair that the weirder work you enjoy is often in expensive volumes? No, not for potential readers or the authors who'd like to get their work into the hands of those readers, but because of the small size of the fan base, we're stuck with this model. Perhaps the digital revolution will solve this, perhaps not (personally, I see the magazine market affected before the book market) but even then the reviews will be dominated by the big ticket books and the small books will continue to be under appreciated in reviews.
I don't suggest you read anything you don't like, or write reviews you aren't interested in, but I'll say that a review for a book published in an edition of 500 is much more appreciated by the author and by the person on the fence about dropping $100 on it than is the review of a mass-market book that retails for $10.
That's my take, at any rate. I think it's a shame to see you give up when we need you and others like you the most.
Simon,
Thanks for sharing your take on this.
Just to be clear, I don't have a problem paying higher prices for small press works. I'm already sold on the value of the product and am willing to pay for it.
My concern is that relying solely on expensive print runs of physical books constitutes a substantial additional barrier to others discovering and enjoying small press authors' work; one that is separate and apart from the related issue of the small print runs themselves. As you noted, small press works are available "for those interested enough to spend the money", but what of those who, unlike myself, are not sold on the genre or its authors yet?
To use an extreme example, let's take your first collection of short stories. It's fantastic and there are particular people I know that would love it who have never heard of it. However, it's not currently available and when it does turn up, the asking price is hefty (using typical bookstore prices as a comparison). If the only way that I can get some of the stories in this collection in peoples' hands is to tell them to search for the book every day for months and months and if they're lucky enough to find it at all, to purchase it for $100 USD, they're simply not going to do it.
I think that small press authors who want their work distributed to the widest possible audience should care about this problem. Until it's adequately addressed, they will be relying to a large extent on the already convinced, hyper-motivated few (whose very enthusiasm to acquire these books in fact diminishes the number of copies available for everyone else).
Crucially, there doesn't seem to be a reason to sacrifice accessibility just because one's work is published by a small press. I don't understand why both publication of a physical book by a small press as well as making it available through some digital or other more easily distributable means (like what Terry suggested in his comment) isn't possible.
Perhaps I'm just naive, but I don't believe that if one could visit a website and assemble an anthology of stories that included some from the latest Tartarus Press or Ex Occidente Press books that this would spell doom for the small presses in question. The people that buy books from these presses today would still buy them because they're hopelessly addicted bibliophiles who wouldn't be satisfied with a print-on-demand pastiche they'd assembled themselves. They would still want the real deal but now I would be able to assemble a collection to send to my short-story-phobic friend for much less.
Everyone would win: the small press publisher and author get what they're already getting today; the author gets additional revenue from having his or her story included in the online anthology I create; my friend wins because he or she can read this previously inaccessible material; and the publishers and authors win again by being the beneficiary of my friend's future interest in their products.
I'm not giving up on the site per se, I just can't envision a set of circumstances that would induce me to keep writing reviews of books that are not, for practical intents and purposes, sharable. Perhaps, after a little break, I'll start posting again and reviewing only books/stories that can be purchased in some sort of digital or otherwise affordable format....
Again, I really appreciate your thoughts.
I hope you don't mind me continuing here, Ben.
I see your argument as two separate issues (at least). The first is the nature of the small press and why things are so dang hard to find. Are there solutions that allow everyone who wants to to read a book? Yes, there are. Especially digitally. And we're seeing small press publishers experiment ever so slowly with them. A lot of publishers, especially in the "weird" genre like Ash Tree, Tartarus, and Ex Occidente, view books themselves as objects, and the transferring of them to the digital arena strips them of their inherent worth. Before I continue, let's make it clear: I'm as much a futurist as the next person. I argue until I'm blue about how ebooks are not evil and how our continued obsession with paper books is based on nostalgia more than anything else. That said, we are where we are, and things will change, but slowly.
The other argument you make is that if the books you review aren't readily available, then why review them? I understand the frustration in doing so. I'd argue back, though, that those are the books that need you the most. Even a book reviewed that no one can get is an important review to the author and to his or her future sales. We need people who are passionate enough about books to talk about them as much as possible. The short story medium is served best by being talked about, by reminding those who don't read them that they're missing something. I sympathize with your inability to share some fiction with those you'd like to, but by the same token there is plenty of fiction -- free online or in mass market books -- that you could use as examples of the genre. Datlow's anthologies, the various best-of books, author websites.... it may not be a list of the exact stories you'd like to share, but they're powerful stories available.
There's really a lot to unpack in your responses, enough that I could write for hours on what I agree with and what I don't. At the end of the day, of course, it's all up to you, but I doubt you'll convince me that the small press needs less champions, not more. Regardless of how we'd like it to be, it is what it is at the moment, and we play the cards we're dealt.
Simon,
Of course I don't mind you continuing. This is very interesting.
I understand the viewpoint that books have a certain value as physical objects separate and apart from their contents. I too value them in this respect and always will. I think that this notion can coexist peacefully with sales of books in electronic form though. There are millions of people who will always prefer the physical object even if an electronic copy is also available and so in that respect electronic books pose no threat to small presses. Having said that, I do understand your point about us being where we are in this respect.
You make some excellent points that I can't, and don't wish to try to, refute. Your responses shed light on the reasons that small presses operate the way they do, but I'm also curious about why a small press author wouldn't go out of his or her way to reserve enough rights to make his or her work available for purchase in the ways I'm suggesting.
In other words, why would a small press author (one who bears no prejudice to ebooks) not try to reserve such rights? Is it because the publisher wouldn't hear of it? Or because it probably wouldn't yield that much additional revenue? Or because it seems to somehow cheapen the work if it's available a la carte? It just doesn't make sense to me from my consumer vantage point.
Well, let look at it this way. A small press usually publishes about 500 copies of a book. To price it, they have to factor in how much people are willing to pay for a book against paying the author, paying for printing, and strict profit. No one makes a lot of money with books -- the money comes in volume, and only the mass market guys print that volume.
Now, let's imagine you're a publisher and you've calculated all of this, then your author puts out an electronic version of the book. What happens to your sales? There's the question. People are experimenting with this now (especially with putting books out for free online at the same time as printed pay-for-it versions) but right now the jury is still out on how successful it is. Conservative wisdom is that the publisher will lose money, so publishers don't like it. They don't want to compete, so authors usually have to sign over rights to the written word for a specified period... long enough for the publisher to reasonably make their money back. Digital books are after all considered just another formal like paperback and hardcover.
Once the book is out of print and the contract lapses, the author is free to do what he likes with the book (unless they signed a very bad contract), but until then very few publishers will let any other version compete with what they've invested in.
You must remember, of course, that the small press world is done for the love. Publishers often lose money or just break even on books they put out. Anything that threaten them making enough money to cover costs is something they'll shy away from. Trying to hold those rights would be impossible. The first-time author is better off finding a publisher who'll print both bound and electronic versions rather than seek two different publishers to handle each. Those publishers are growing in number every day. They all want to be on the wave, after all. Amazon sells more e-books than hardcovers, so it's clear there's something to the notion of ebooks.
I can see where you're coming from, but I think you're focusing too much on the fact that people can't easily obtain a specific book rather than realizing that by reviewing it, at the very least you're making people aware of the author. Yes, it's a shame Simon's first collection is nearly impossible to find, but if you know someone that would love stories from it, then chances are they'll love stories from Cold to the Touch, which is still available.
Further, I think you may be exaggerating the problem slightly. Very few of the books you've reviewed are impossible to find, and the number that are going to cost more than $50 each is roughly the same. Bear in mind that you love to get signed first editions, which are typically quite expensive, but there are usually cheaper alternatives. Off the top of my head, I know that Dark Regions always offers trade paperback version of their books, and the trade hard covers of nearly all Subterranean books can be purchased from Amazon, typically for 40% or more off.
@Simon: I suspected that something like what you describe was a major factor. Thanks for clarifying.
@Slayn666: you raise some very good points (and I do sometimes exaggerate things :) I can think of a number of specific books that need to be more widely available but aren't. And while it's true that some publishers are doing the right things (Dark Regions being one of them) this still can't make up for the fact that the latest book by Mark Samuels, to use only one example, isn't available more widely :(
Just to add something to the point that Simon made about the direction of publishing changing, one example of this change (still a newly-opened bud) is the publisher Chomu Press, with which I am involved:
http://chomupress.com/
The aim of Chomu Press is precisely to release the kind of material you're talking about, but to make it accessible to people and affordable, through POD technology.
Perhaps more independent publishers will begin to follow this model.
I can add that, as a writer, I have been frustrated to be ghettoised for years in limited print runs, in lavishly produced books that no one can get their hands on. It's not a model of publishing that is good for me as a writer, and it only probably really suits a particular kind of collector with spare money. On the publishers' side, I suppose it's a model that has been used to make a virtue out of a necessity. They can't afford a large print one, so they make a small one collectable.
While there is most certainly a place for collectable limited editions, I hope to see POD publishing and so on creating a way for the lesser known writers to escape the limited edition ghetto.
Quentin,
That's a fascinating way to put it: "the limited edition ghetto." As a collector, I love beautifully produced limited editions as much as the next guy but am a reader before I'm a collector and so would welcome more publishers following the example set by Chomu Press. I still think that the two models can peacefully coexist, even within the same publisher.
Thanks for your comment.
To echo some of the things that Simon and others have already said, I'd hate to see your site go, and I'd hate to see you stop reviewing small press titles, because there are a lot of amazing writers toiling in the small presses for whom reviews like yours are desperately needed. I don't know how many people you convince to try new things, but in just the short time since I started reading your site I've been turned on to new authors within my own genre by your reviews, and been convinced to try out books that I was otherwise on the fence about.
Orrin,
Thanks for your very kind words of support. I agree (obviously) that there are many amazing writers working in small presses. At the moment I'm leaning towards eventually starting to write reviews again...
"As a collector, I love beautifully produced limited editions as much as the next guy but am a reader before I'm a collector and so would welcome more publishers following the example set by Chomu Press. I still think that the two models can peacefully coexist, even within the same publisher."
Hello Ben.
Yes, I think ideally the two should coexist. In fact, it might be a good idea for publishers to do both at once.
Allo Ben,
I am a regular visitor to your website and would be most disappointed were you to discontinue Speculative Fiction Junkie. Perhaps with current trends and developments in publishing, excellence in short fiction will again find itself readily available to a wider audience, but for the immediate moment most of the best is confined to the specialty presses. Alas, this means a limited audience for the authors and an expensive purchase for the readers. That being so, such purchases should not be made lightly and your website provides some of the only reviews of some of these titles -- these reviews have both convinced me to pursue certain titles whilst abandoning the search for other titles. Ultimately, the choice is yours and you will do as you will, but I believe that readers such as myself as well as a great many of our best short fiction authors will be the poorer in your absence.
-E.S-
E.S.: Thanks for the encouragement. I'm glad that you fine this site useful and comments like yours give me ample reason to keep reviewing.
You're right about the purchases of many of these books being expensive, of course. I find myself buying books, then selling most of them later so I can buy more books. I guess this is a good thing in the sense that it's sort of like passing the book around...
Well if you're ever looking to sell Beneath the Surface, let me know :).
Hah! Not likely, but I will keep you in mind if that day ever arrives :)
Your blog is beautiful, your love for speculative fiction is bolstering, and your writing is excellent. I just found you and now I'm quite sad you're leaving. Plus you like cats. I hope someday you return.
Hello,
thought you might want to know that one 'Hubert', who I believe is the same Hubert Van Calenburg who translated Ray's Private Spectres, is trying to get in touch with you over at Ramsey Campbell's knibbworld forum. Good luck with the hiatus, hope to read you again soon.
Thanks for the heads up...I'm on a small vacation at the moment and have limited online access...Hubert can email me at .
sorry...specficjunkie@mbsmail.net
It's a shame that you've stopped. I can understand your reasons, but, having said that, your blog and reviews do give you a platform from which you could encourage publishers in the direction you'd like them to take.
For me, bringing new books to people's attention is part of the reason I review, but I do also enjoy the challenge. Trying to write a really excellent review (not something I feel I've yet done) is like building a model out of matchsticks, or solving an intricate puzzle.
And I have to admit, I like getting free stuff...
I don't think I've stopped for good but I haven't grown tired of this hiatus yet :)
I love your blog.
To jump into this conversation, while I do have the means to buy limited editions (if I hear of them before they sell out), I am a reader before I am a collector. What this means is that while I'm happy to spend $50+ on a finely produced book full of good fiction, I'm a little more hesitant to spend it on a book by a writer with whose work I'm unfamiliar, even if I have come to trust the publisher. Your reviews have been extremely valuable in making me aware of new writers, or simply of providing an independent opinion on a writer I've been curious about, but not quite $50 curious. (Unfortunately I sometimes sit on the fence too long and have managed to miss out on PUTTING THE PIECES IN PLACE.)
So, yes, even if particular books go out of print, you're an intelligent and articulate reviewer of books that don't get enough word of mouth, and even if I missed Russel's debut or Strantzas', I'm now more likely, thanks to your reviews, to snap up their new collections posthaste.
That said, I do wish there was a way to make these stories available. I know Prime was going to release Rhys Hughes' WORMING THE HARPY in an affordable paperback edition but I guess that fell through. I wonder whether any of these writers have considered posting some stories online under some sort of creative commons license. Or, going back to Rhys Hughes -- he recently released an eBook collection of all the short fiction from his various chapbooks that have gone out of print over the years. It's not the most slickly produced presentation of the material, but at least it's available in such a way that interested readers can afford it without dishing out enormous sums for used copies of collectibles, and that the author is presumably making some money on each sale. There's got to be some model out there that can get the fiction out at a price the average reader can pay.
Nathan,
Many many thanks for your kind words and for adding to the chorus of voices calling for greater accessibility to works like those discussed here.
Ben
Allo again Ben,
Whilst the hiatus carries on, I thought I would at least recommend a few horror/supernatural novel authors to you. Now I mostly read, and believe the best the field has to offer is found in, short fiction -- but given your enjoyment of the excellent Bill Hussey I want to suggest two other modern horror/supernatural novelists to you: Adam Nevill and Stephen Gregory. Nevill has his third novel due out shortly and Gregory is working on his fifth -- and with Gregory's work, I especially recommend his first two, shorter, novels. Good stuff!
-E.S.-
P.S. My apologies for not actually writing anything about the previous authors, but I am exhausted and others have adequately written about the previous elsewhere on the web.
E.S.: Thanks very much for the tips. I read Adam Nevill's first book and while I know he has a stellar reputation, I have to say that I did not enjoy his debut at all. Perhaps, I'll give him another try at some point.
Regarding Stephen Gregory, I've never heard of him but will definitely investigate. Thank you so much for the tip!
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