How iTunes Changed the World
What's on my iPod now: The Arcade Fire, "Keep the Car Running."
I have a theory about entertainment. And it impacts your chances of getting published.
I love music. I live and breathe my iPod. At last count, I had nearly 3,000 songs. I like mostly alternative music, but I also love jazz, classical, electronica . . . in fact, you will find every genre but country on my iPod. I have Rage Against the Machine for Demon Baby (his personal favorite) and I even have some pop tunes for Baby Girl. But iTunes definitely revolutionized the way I view quality in music.
When I was young, you bought an album--you liked two songs and played them repetitively over and over until your mother threatened to throw the album in the trashcan . . . the rest was crap. I find it hard to believe the record executives didn't KNOW the rest was crap. But with a few exceptions (Fleetwood Mac's Rumours comes to mind . . . as well my Springsteen albums), if something was in the mainstream, it seemed we all accepted that we got crap in with the good stuff. Sometimes, in the case of a "hit"--we got ONE song and ALL crap for the rest of it.
Until iTunes. Suddenly, I was able to edit out the crap. I could buy three songs off an album, or one. I got picky. Whole albums I buy are a rarity now. I bought all of Coldplay, and I buy all of his. All of theirs. All of his. But face it, I only like one hit of his for dance parties only.
You only need look at the dismal ratings for the new television season to know, I think, that some of the same thinking has changed the way we watch TV. Sure, cable changed it. Adults could watch The Sopranos, which didn't dumb down violence or adult content. But we used to only have three major networks, and at any given time, they might have one good show on a night, surrounded by, you guessed it, crap. Cable changed that--and there's still boatloads of crap--but there's also NetFlix, and DVD TV series packaging, and those of us who load shows on our iPods. Now we get to choose to watch things sans commercials, on our time frame (thank you tivo)--all at once instead of jumping from night to night so we don't even know when a show airs. We could also, as in my cable area, get BBC--so those of us with quirky taste get to watch what appeals to us and not . . . you guessed it, crap.
So it is with publishing, I think. In record numbers (!!!!), I have more friends getting rejected by editors who seem huge fans of the writer. Excited, energized, entertained. But they don't feel the author can break out of the box and compete with what's out there--this loud cacophony of entertainment. I think people don't just demand a decent book to pass the time. They demand A+ entertainment. And no, that doesn't explain when something we personally don't like becomes a phenomena. But yet . . . curious about my theory, I checked out some Amazon reviews. I consistently found if you tracked an authors career . . . there was a large percentage of people who turned against the author. "Not as good as x book . . . I'm afraid this will be my last." It was a phenomena repeated over and over and over.
Is it authors lose their mojo? Could be. Or could it be that we are so hyped-up on entertainment, on the choice we have, that we tolerate nothing but what rocks our iPod or makes us turn each page. Overall, is the entertainment bar set HIGHER with each passing season and each bit of technology? And I'm not talking about the crap that still gets greenlighted. There will always be crap. But as an overall bar . . . are we getting more demanding?
I am. So I'm curious . . . how about you?
I have a theory about entertainment. And it impacts your chances of getting published.
I love music. I live and breathe my iPod. At last count, I had nearly 3,000 songs. I like mostly alternative music, but I also love jazz, classical, electronica . . . in fact, you will find every genre but country on my iPod. I have Rage Against the Machine for Demon Baby (his personal favorite) and I even have some pop tunes for Baby Girl. But iTunes definitely revolutionized the way I view quality in music.
When I was young, you bought an album--you liked two songs and played them repetitively over and over until your mother threatened to throw the album in the trashcan . . . the rest was crap. I find it hard to believe the record executives didn't KNOW the rest was crap. But with a few exceptions (Fleetwood Mac's Rumours comes to mind . . . as well my Springsteen albums), if something was in the mainstream, it seemed we all accepted that we got crap in with the good stuff. Sometimes, in the case of a "hit"--we got ONE song and ALL crap for the rest of it.
Until iTunes. Suddenly, I was able to edit out the crap. I could buy three songs off an album, or one. I got picky. Whole albums I buy are a rarity now. I bought all of Coldplay, and I buy all of his. All of theirs. All of his. But face it, I only like one hit of his for dance parties only.
You only need look at the dismal ratings for the new television season to know, I think, that some of the same thinking has changed the way we watch TV. Sure, cable changed it. Adults could watch The Sopranos, which didn't dumb down violence or adult content. But we used to only have three major networks, and at any given time, they might have one good show on a night, surrounded by, you guessed it, crap. Cable changed that--and there's still boatloads of crap--but there's also NetFlix, and DVD TV series packaging, and those of us who load shows on our iPods. Now we get to choose to watch things sans commercials, on our time frame (thank you tivo)--all at once instead of jumping from night to night so we don't even know when a show airs. We could also, as in my cable area, get BBC--so those of us with quirky taste get to watch what appeals to us and not . . . you guessed it, crap.
So it is with publishing, I think. In record numbers (!!!!), I have more friends getting rejected by editors who seem huge fans of the writer. Excited, energized, entertained. But they don't feel the author can break out of the box and compete with what's out there--this loud cacophony of entertainment. I think people don't just demand a decent book to pass the time. They demand A+ entertainment. And no, that doesn't explain when something we personally don't like becomes a phenomena. But yet . . . curious about my theory, I checked out some Amazon reviews. I consistently found if you tracked an authors career . . . there was a large percentage of people who turned against the author. "Not as good as x book . . . I'm afraid this will be my last." It was a phenomena repeated over and over and over.
Is it authors lose their mojo? Could be. Or could it be that we are so hyped-up on entertainment, on the choice we have, that we tolerate nothing but what rocks our iPod or makes us turn each page. Overall, is the entertainment bar set HIGHER with each passing season and each bit of technology? And I'm not talking about the crap that still gets greenlighted. There will always be crap. But as an overall bar . . . are we getting more demanding?
I am. So I'm curious . . . how about you?
Labels: iTunes
posted by Erica Orloff at 12:23 PM
21 Comments:
I see those Amazon reviews too. Lots of them. When I've read the book in question I've tended to agree with the reviewer.
Maybe the author had to meet a deadline and typed up some crap. Maybe she didn't have anything but crap left inside of her. Maybe she was suffering from Publishitis and thought her crap didn't stink.
I have favorite authors I adored for years until, it seemed to me, they just ran out of things to write, but kept on writing.
I'm getting more demanding--with so many things competing for my attention, I have way less tolerance for "crap" shows than I used to.
But then, my version of "crap" is another man's gold. I relearn this every time I take a peek at the Nielsen ratings- and my shows never crack the top ten!
Funny, I think with so many choices sometimes we become a more accepting, although more discerning society. We're able to just try on anything, give it a whirl because there is so much out there. You can read pages of a book at Amazon, listen to bits of songs on iTunes, flick the remote and watch many shows at once if you're like me and DVR-less. As for publishing, I don't know. It remains a mystery to me. I do know that there are so many avenues to publishing these days, depending on what you want, that it's only the mainstream, NY publishing world that's tough to crack. Of course to me, that is what I want. But with so many options we can find just about anything, taste every flavor and decide what's right. I also believe that many of us know that we can be surprised where the good stuff shows up so we're willing, perhaps, to take more chances.
I just want to know how to crack the code so I am always above the crap.
I think that two of the world's best paid writers (according to this Forbes article) are mediocre writers, so I have to disagree. They've both been writing for a long time, so it's possible they lost their mojo. But I'm reading Tribute by Nora Roberts, and she still has her writing mojo. :)
As consumers we want the new thing, sound, book, idea what have you. That's why I think some authors break out all of sudden they write the NEW idea or the old idea in a NEW way. We go out and buy their backlist. Gobble 'em up. And then when the next book comes out it's no longer NEW.
A vicious cycle no one can prevent. I think that's why crossing genre lines is good for the writer and the reader.
I think the other commenters here are interesting, but I'm not sure I agree with them.
I do find it interesting: just today I read an interview with the crime editor of Soho Press in the MWA newsletter and they asked her what she thought of the small presses these days. She said--and I think it's correct--that on the one hand it's great because there's so much choice for readers now and potentially more avenues for writers, BUT, and here I think she's absolutely correct, with so many more authors being published--and in this case she referred specifically to small presses publishing mysteries--that it was making it harder and harder for authors to get noticed and break out because there was so much background noise.
That's my take on it, too. In that respect, I think we're seeing books start to see what happened when cable TV and pay-TV really took off--that the major networks lost audiences and market share; the same thing with movies, how indie films started to grow an audience, particularly in the video market; and God, in the music areas, where the only thing the major labels seem to do any more are blockbuster stars and flavor-of-the-month-pop-stars (doesn't that sound familiar?).
And with due respect to Edie and the Forbes articles, there are some really important points to that piece that should be pointed out:
1. JK Rowling made more money in 2007 than numbers #2 through #9 combined. But a lot of that money comes from movie and video games.
2. When was the last time Tom Clancy wrote a book himself? His money's coming from paperback originals with his name on them and from video games.
3. James Patterson doesn't write many or any of his book these days; most are "written with..." and it's doubtful if Patterson does much more than provide an outline, if that. And he's considering video games.
4. Janet Evanovich has several "written with..." books where she's now claiming she's the "editor" although it's not clear what that actually means.
I'll tell you, there was a lot of really disconcerting information in that Forbes piece for writers that wasn't specifically spelled out, but if you start breaking down the numbers, it was almost frightening.
And I also wondered: where was Mitch Albom?
Have you checked out the Fleet Foxes? I downloaded everything they have. Their music makes me so happy.
Sometimes, it's just that if you write the same thing, people get bored. Take Evanovich: the Ranger/Morelli thing really drives the series, but she's not living that up, lately, so the spark is fizzling with the same old mystery.
If you DO change, then people get pissed. Laurell K. Hamilton holy-crap big-time changed her series, and totally pissed people off. (From supernatural/horror mystery to kinky, non-stop sex.) If she hadn't, though, people would have gotten bored.
Some authors manage to change a little and stay the same just enough to ride that fine line. Nora did a good job, for awhile, of writing so much that she could provide more of the same and change. Now, though, her style is striving to be more literary, and it's just over-inflated and wordy. I know so many people who've stopped reading her because of it.
Hi Stephen:
But . . . see now, I think we are programmed to not accept crap FASTER than we used to.
E
alyson:
Agreed. Choice means . . . there are now more niches than ever. Which can be good for publishing. But then again, if you want to make a LIVING as a writer, niche writing may not be able to do that for you.
E
Amy:
True. As I was out walking today, I thought about the post. Maybe what iTunes and our entertainment glut means is we can pick a narrower niche of crap--one WE like, instead of mainstream crap.
;-)
E
edie:
I don't know. Maybe there is mainstream crap and niche crap. ;-)
I think my main point, I guess, is that in some ways, we are fighting for people's attention at an unprecedented level--and that hurts people's chances of getting published. I think Mark Terry has raised a similar point before. And some people felt, no, I'm not competing against the whole world of entertainment. But in a sense, no, it's not direct competition, but just struggling to find a space in the huge mass of stuff people can choose to watch, listen to, or read.
E
melissa:
Point well taken. Then again, sometimes writers cross genres and their readers get mad.
E
Mark:
You and I are of like mind on this topic. And here's the thing . . . again, if you want to be READ by anyone . . . someone . . . then yes, I think there are more chances. But if you want to earn a real living--which in my case has to support six people--it's tougher and tougher as the background noise gets louder.
E
spy:
I agree. I hear from readers who like x heroine or y--and then wonder why when they bought another book of mine, THAT character wasn't more like x or y, whom they liked. Yet, if I kept writing the same . . . I am sure people wouldn't care for that either. It's tricky.
E
I think in some ways we're getting more demanding, like for example, people are picking apart True Blood, when for a first season it is PHENOMENAL. But the first season of Buffy quite frankly, sucked, even if you can hide behind "campy." Buffy season 1 would never make it now.
But, on the book issue where people say they're done with an author...to me this seems to happen in series the most. Sometimes I think an author needs to stop chasing the money and know when it's time to end a series and write the final book.
Or let fans know ahead of time...this is how many books you can expect in this series. Harry Potter, we knew early on it was going to be 7 books. Now series just go on endlessly until the money truck stops and I think that's stupid.
How many Anita Blake books are there? Too many in my opinion. Not that Anita isn't entertaining, but she's run her course. It's time to put her away, IMO. Let the fans write fanfic, and move on to something else.
When we say books have really gone downhill I think they have often. The pressure gets higher, the books come out quicker, the editors either get scared to pick it apart because the author is a "name" now, or like Anne Rice, the author decides they don't "need" an editor in their business any longer.
But going back to reading earlier books that fans liked, they STILL compete even by today's entertainment standards. Because they are GOOD BOOKS. A lot of these later books just aren't as good.
I'm a huge Sookie Fan (Charlaine Harris's series), but...book 8 was weaker than book 7. They've jumped the shark. IMO it's time to put an endcap on it, wrap it up, and move on.
I laughed when I read Spy's comments. I think Nora is getting better. If she'd continued with what she'd done before, her writing might have getten stale. I don't think her writing is wordy or over-inflated. I like her mainstream edge. We all have different tastes, and that's good.
I agree more with what you said over on Joe's blog--that publishing is cyclical. If one space vampire/zombie meerkat novel hits big, then all the editors in New York will be scrambling to find more of the same.
The trouble now, as it has always been, is staying ahead of the trends. There's really no way to do that, so we might as well write what we enjoy and hope the timing works out.
Hi Zoe:
As an author who has occasionally seen a reader pick out ONE line or ONE tiny element to dislike in one of my books, that tendency (what's happening with True Blood) just makes me crazy. I don't think people need to watch poorly done shows, but by the same token a little development time is necessary.
E
Jude:
I totally agree it's cyclical. Totally. But I also think there's an element of the bar being a lot higher these days--and of the public's impatience as part of that.
E
Hi Edie:
I don't read Nora . . . so . . . can't comment. But I see opinions all over the map on her . . . .
E
OMG Erica, I swear if I hear one more person bitch about how Anna Paquin has a gap in her teeth and she isn't as "hot" (what yardstick of beauty are they using, she is SMOKING HOT), as they imagined Sookie would be, I will SCREAM.
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