If I was going to put a new book out, I might consider
finding a celebrity endorsement for it, a snappy picture or a cluster of key
words to bring it to the attention of google. I might make the cover yellow, I
might make it something gritty, something an audience can relate to- a tale of
childhood and abuse (true to life, obviously), neglect or perhaps even
abduction.
I won’t be doing any of these things.
I doubt I will ever be a best-selling author. If I wrote something
and decided to publish it, I would hope it would be done on merit and not on
the sheer need to sell someone some drivel with a ‘look at me, I was beaten’
slant to it. Sadly, I think this pretty much counts me out of the bestselling
book market. I’ll point out here that if Blackpool’s branch of Waterstones
closed, the residents of this town would be left to choose their books
primarily from the shelves of ASDA and TESCO- the future doesn’t look great, I
must admit.
The blog theme this week is a slightly contentious one, I’m
afraid- we’re going with “Literary vs Commercial Fiction”. I have an opinion on
this, as do all of you readers I am sure. Is it my place to tell someone what
to read? Is it my place to tell someone to put the bloody ‘based on true events’
book down and read something valuable? Is it even my place to rant on about the
lack of appealing fiction on the shelves and my sense of despair in passing an oversized
‘Biography/Autobiography/Celebrity Fiction/’Based on a true story’ section. Readers of this stuff- you have your opinions.
I’ll agree to hate you for them.
In terms of poetry, I am not quite sure where this theme
points me. For a long time I’ve been harping on about what is probably deemed ‘commercial’
as opposed to ‘literary’ stuff. Performance poets are snappy, direct and
deliver passion that is hard to deny but, on the page, it often doesn’t work.
Go the other way and have a look at more ‘page’ poets and perhaps they are held
back by a lack of performability. It is hard to attract an audience with these
poems and yet, they are often the poets we cling on to the most. As with the fiction,
I think being current helps. There are trends to follow and whilst right now
books about being beaten and battered in foster homes romances ending with
disease are great, I suspect lots of them will fall by the wayside when you
look back over the years, do we want our poems doing this.
I will finish here by just giving you readers a point to consider. Last year 35% of books that graced the fiction chart were published before 2010, meaning we are actually re-reading the older stuff, the stuff that has been hanging around, loved and recommended. Movie books, celebrity chefs and tales from the pens of cultural ‘icons’ will keep regenerating, of course, but with the likes of Dickens and Jane Austen proving ever more popular amongst readers, maybe the trick is to buy the books that can stand the test of time, not just shout for a week or two. I caught a reading by Lynton Kwesi Johnson earlier this year- a poet I have admired since studying his work some years ago- and afterwards was left thinking something was missing. There was no delivery, no punch to it and, after years of Black rights not being a massive issue in the UK media, I felt the poems were almost left behind with the time. These are good poems that rely heavily on delivery and if I have learnt anything for my own writing from the experience, it is that I never want to be a performance poet past his peak, much rather a page poet trying to find his feet. I hope to have a new poem up for next week, until then, keep writing.
I will finish here by just giving you readers a point to consider. Last year 35% of books that graced the fiction chart were published before 2010, meaning we are actually re-reading the older stuff, the stuff that has been hanging around, loved and recommended. Movie books, celebrity chefs and tales from the pens of cultural ‘icons’ will keep regenerating, of course, but with the likes of Dickens and Jane Austen proving ever more popular amongst readers, maybe the trick is to buy the books that can stand the test of time, not just shout for a week or two. I caught a reading by Lynton Kwesi Johnson earlier this year- a poet I have admired since studying his work some years ago- and afterwards was left thinking something was missing. There was no delivery, no punch to it and, after years of Black rights not being a massive issue in the UK media, I felt the poems were almost left behind with the time. These are good poems that rely heavily on delivery and if I have learnt anything for my own writing from the experience, it is that I never want to be a performance poet past his peak, much rather a page poet trying to find his feet. I hope to have a new poem up for next week, until then, keep writing.
Thanks for reading, S.