7 ms·

Literary fiction in crisis as sales drop dramatically

40 points by f_allwein 9y ago

DrNuke 9y ago
Point is if we lose humanities and its highest expressions, we lose the historical and progressive enlightment how it came for societies more and more complex, in that reverting to simpler, mechanical, narrower, fundamentally brutal models. Less Facebook, then, more sophisticated novels, even the opportunity to choose them when we need them would be good enough.
SolaceQuantum 9y ago
I find it quite strange that literary fiction in particular is sinking when other kinds of fiction seems to be increasingly in a boom. Romance ebooks are taking off, for example. I wonder if it isn’t possible that these literary authors couldn’t move their work to electronic mediums like, well, Medium.
mirimir 9y ago
I don't know what "literary fiction" is, exactly. I suspect that, for the most part, it's been a status symbol. Back in the day, one needed copies of the latest stuff on tables and shelves. But on Facebook, one can fake it, based on Goodreads etc. No dead trees needed.
- Arnt 9y ago
  Around one in five, one in four books were bought with no intention of reading. On one hand that's a lot of faking, on on other, the other three fourths is much more and not fake. (Source: Editors I knew, over alcoholic beverages.) 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.)
  - jamesrcole 9y ago
    I have no idea how many books are bought just for show, but why would being an editor provide you with insight into the numbers? How could they know?
    - matt4077 9y ago
      Surveys? Or, possibly, the book:ebook sales ratios?
      - jamesrcole 9y ago
        Unless a survey asks specially about whether a person bought a book with no intention of ever reading it AND people actually provide an honest answer to that question, then I can't see how a survey could provide the answers. How do you think sales ratios could provide the figures about people's purchase intentions?
        SyneRyder 9y ago
        There do exist services for buying books purely for aesthetic reasons, like Books By The Foot. They've got a special now for "Holly & Ivy", for $49 per foot you can buy books with green or red colored spines to give your house a Christmas ambience: https://www.booksbythefoot.com/shop/pc/Holly-Ivy-3p232.htm 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.
        jamesrcole 9y ago
        Those figures would be interesting, but none of them are going to give accurate numbers for the numbers the original comment was talking about, because they tell you nothing of the number of people who buy the books (with no intention of reading them) by more conventional means. They don't provide any way to infer those numbers.
fractallyte 9y ago
Arts Council England: "we are saying that there is something so unique and important and necessary and fundamental about literary fiction in particular, that we need to focus on it and support it." 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.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Why do you consider literary fiction "navel-gazing" and why is SF that important? 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.
  - kybernetikos 9y ago
    There's a strong status separation between SF and literary fiction. If you get someone to read SF that has literary merit, they'll try to tell you afterwards that it wasn't SF.
    - galeforcewinds 9y ago
      The lack of vehicles for SF delivery have at times impeded literary acceptance and broader adoption -- take H.P. Lovecraft for instance, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Literary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Literary 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.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
galeforcewinds 9y ago
I have understood some drop in fiction book sales to be caused by the wind-up of the Harry Potter series in 2007. A 2011 article from The Guardian (Datablog section, author uncredited) linked to this spreadsheet of Harry Potter book sales numbers: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C6QriM1aMBd5Ab6Tn7hn2SzrveVnw0-u4pabuj-nP80/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C6QriM1aMBd5Ab6Tn7hn... 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.
- axedwool 9y ago
  "Literary fiction" is a category used in the publishing world to contrast "genre fiction". A publisher would consider Harry Potter genre fiction of some kind, whether in fantasy or young adult. I think it would be quite strange if it were included in the survey.
- pessimizer 9y ago
  Literary fiction as opposed to genre fiction. Literary fiction consists of pointless books about the middle class, by the middle class; genre fiction is everything else.
  - axedwool 9y ago
    Hey, let's be fair. Sometimes they're resentful books about the upper class, by the middle class.
  - igravious 9y ago
    Here's a quote from a bestselling non-fiction work, “Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.”
    - ci5er 9y ago
      I'm not sure that the Jubilee Bible was best selling.
scandox 9y ago
The negativity here about Literary fiction is interesting. A lot of people implying that readers don't enjoy it or that it's elitist or a status symbol etc... 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.
- YouAreGreat 9y ago
  > there is a group of people - perhaps small 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.
  - scandox 9y ago
    I think again to say "defined by not having much in the way of stories or ideas" is a level of dismissal that suggests something stronger than mere indifference. A lot of people have bad early experiences with literary fiction and I'd agree that when it's bad, it's the worst. But when it's good it can be exceptional. It also does not preclude strong stories, or idea driven stories. Of course a great deal of it is about capturing subjective human experience in a way that - when it fails for a reader - leaves them with nothing. But when it works it can be incredible. 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.
mark_l_watson 9y ago
My wife enjoys literary fiction and I enjoy reading scifi (most recently Chinese scifi). We spend quite a bit of money on new eBooks, books, and audible books. 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.
indescions_2017 9y ago
"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us." -Kafka 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. http://joycestick.com/ http://joycestick.com/

40 points by f_allwein 9y ago

Point is if we lose humanities and its highest expressions, we lose the historical and progressive enlightment how it came for societies more and more complex, in that reverting to simpler, mechanical, narrower, fundamentally brutal models. Less Facebook, then, more sophisticated novels, even the opportunity to choose them when we need them would be good enough.

SolaceQuantum 9y ago

I find it quite strange that literary fiction in particular is sinking when other kinds of fiction seems to be increasingly in a boom. Romance ebooks are taking off, for example. I wonder if it isn’t possible that these literary authors couldn’t move their work to electronic mediums like, well, Medium.

mirimir 9y ago

I don't know what "literary fiction" is, exactly. I suspect that, for the most part, it's been a status symbol. Back in the day, one needed copies of the latest stuff on tables and shelves. But on Facebook, one can fake it, based on Goodreads etc. No dead trees needed.

Arnt 9y ago
Around one in five, one in four books were bought with no intention of reading. On one hand that's a lot of faking, on on other, the other three fourths is much more and not fake. (Source: Editors I knew, over alcoholic beverages.) 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.)
- jamesrcole 9y ago
  I have no idea how many books are bought just for show, but why would being an editor provide you with insight into the numbers? How could they know?
  - matt4077 9y ago
    Surveys? Or, possibly, the book:ebook sales ratios?
    - jamesrcole 9y ago
      Unless a survey asks specially about whether a person bought a book with no intention of ever reading it AND people actually provide an honest answer to that question, then I can't see how a survey could provide the answers. How do you think sales ratios could provide the figures about people's purchase intentions?
      - SyneRyder 9y ago
        There do exist services for buying books purely for aesthetic reasons, like Books By The Foot. They've got a special now for "Holly & Ivy", for $49 per foot you can buy books with green or red colored spines to give your house a Christmas ambience: https://www.booksbythefoot.com/shop/pc/Holly-Ivy-3p232.htm 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.
        jamesrcole 9y ago
        Those figures would be interesting, but none of them are going to give accurate numbers for the numbers the original comment was talking about, because they tell you nothing of the number of people who buy the books (with no intention of reading them) by more conventional means. They don't provide any way to infer those numbers.

fractallyte 9y ago

Arts Council England: "we are saying that there is something so unique and important and necessary and fundamental about literary fiction in particular, that we need to focus on it and support it." 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.

icebraining 9y ago
Why do you consider literary fiction "navel-gazing" and why is SF that important? 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.
- kybernetikos 9y ago
  There's a strong status separation between SF and literary fiction. If you get someone to read SF that has literary merit, they'll try to tell you afterwards that it wasn't SF.
  - galeforcewinds 9y ago
    The lack of vehicles for SF delivery have at times impeded literary acceptance and broader adoption -- take H.P. Lovecraft for instance, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Literary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Literary 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.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

galeforcewinds 9y ago

I have understood some drop in fiction book sales to be caused by the wind-up of the Harry Potter series in 2007. A 2011 article from The Guardian (Datablog section, author uncredited) linked to this spreadsheet of Harry Potter book sales numbers: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C6QriM1aMBd5Ab6Tn7hn2SzrveVnw0-u4pabuj-nP80/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C6QriM1aMBd5Ab6Tn7hn... 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.

axedwool 9y ago
"Literary fiction" is a category used in the publishing world to contrast "genre fiction". A publisher would consider Harry Potter genre fiction of some kind, whether in fantasy or young adult. I think it would be quite strange if it were included in the survey.
pessimizer 9y ago
Literary fiction as opposed to genre fiction. Literary fiction consists of pointless books about the middle class, by the middle class; genre fiction is everything else.
- axedwool 9y ago
  Hey, let's be fair. Sometimes they're resentful books about the upper class, by the middle class.
- igravious 9y ago
  Here's a quote from a bestselling non-fiction work, “Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.”
  - ci5er 9y ago
    I'm not sure that the Jubilee Bible was best selling.

scandox 9y ago

The negativity here about Literary fiction is interesting. A lot of people implying that readers don't enjoy it or that it's elitist or a status symbol etc... 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.

YouAreGreat 9y ago
> there is a group of people - perhaps small 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.
- scandox 9y ago
  I think again to say "defined by not having much in the way of stories or ideas" is a level of dismissal that suggests something stronger than mere indifference. A lot of people have bad early experiences with literary fiction and I'd agree that when it's bad, it's the worst. But when it's good it can be exceptional. It also does not preclude strong stories, or idea driven stories. Of course a great deal of it is about capturing subjective human experience in a way that - when it fails for a reader - leaves them with nothing. But when it works it can be incredible. 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.

mark_l_watson 9y ago

My wife enjoys literary fiction and I enjoy reading scifi (most recently Chinese scifi). We spend quite a bit of money on new eBooks, books, and audible books. 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.

indescions_2017 9y ago

"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us." -Kafka 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. http://joycestick.com/ http://joycestick.com/