What can writers learn from musicians?
By amy ross. Filed in books, publishing, writing |Tags: built to spill, desperation, fame and fortune, gravy train!!!!, indie labels, music industry, publishing, self-publishing, Steve Almond, writing
So lately I’ve been hearing from a lot of frustrated writers (though most recently from literary enfant terrible Steve Almond) about how the current publishing model needs to change, and we should all look to the music industry for a system that allows non-mainstream talent to find its niche and gain success.
It seems like a good analogy, at first glance. After all, writers and musicians are about equally arty, and both art forms are distributed via mass-media (as opposed to say, sculpture or… beadwork).
But as much as I love the idea of being the literary equivalent of Built to Spill or Gravy Train!!!!, I’ve spotted some crucial differences between music and literature. Musicians don’t need a label to distribute their work because they can build buzz and sell albums at shows. And it’s relatively easy for a band to get booked for small shows, because bars and clubs are desperate for talent. They won’t always pay, but at least there’s exposure and a fairly captive audience. If you’re good, it won’t be long before people notice.
Already famous authors can work a similar angle by doing local readings. But the world isn’t exactly clamouring to hear unknown authors read. The temptation for many of us is to put writing on the internet to build buzz, but the internet is the opposite of a captive audience. Only the very grabbiest, pulpiest fiction has a ghost of a chance on the internet (if produced by an unknown), and that’s very limiting.
Does it have to be this way? I don’t think so. I think it might be possible to create a world in which unknowns could read a few pages of their stuff to a room full of drunks and maybe get a little recognition, if they’re good — kind of like poetry slams, or amateur night at the Apollo, or the Gong Show. I’d personally love to see such a thing in action, but so far… I haven’t thought of any good way to make it happen.
So… I’m putting the idea out into the internet. Maybe somewhere out there is an unpublished author more desperate/enterprising than I am, and I’d be glad to jump on his bandwagon.
Thursday, February 25th 2010 at 1:36 am |
haha this. I’ll jump on the bandwagon. I’m afraid I’m just not punk enough to kick it off
Thursday, February 25th 2010 at 9:40 am |
But how? I’ve chatted about it with my peeps here in the program, but even in a college town with a thriving MFA program, it’s hard to see how to make readings by unknowns into popular events. Maybe if they were organized around a theme? And open mic?
Thursday, February 25th 2010 at 1:42 pm |
Maybe what you need is blogs that identify new writing and publish it – people who volunteer to read a lot of slush and publish the best of it, and who build a rep as good critics who can choose well, so that the captive audience is the people who come to that blog every day and read whatever today’s short story or poem is. I could totally see doing that. I think you’d be a great person to start the blog, too.
Thursday, February 25th 2010 at 1:55 pm |
hahaha, said like someone who hasn’t read a lot of slush. The problem is, there is a HUGE number of wannabe writers in the world, and most of what they produce is dreadful. And worse yet, it can be hard to tell from the first few pages — but no one has the patience to read 40 or 200 pages of something to find out whether it’s illiterate junk or the next avant garde masterpiece.
Maybe you’ve discovered another big difference between writing and music — pop music generally exists as 3 minute self-contained songs that go well with visual images. So a band only has to produce one snappy, catchy single with a hip video and it will be passed all around the internet. Novels just aren’t like that. Even short fiction isn’t like that.
When was the last time you watched a video online of an indie-band? When was the last time you read fiction online by an unpublished author you didn’t personally know?
If you google around, you’ll find there are a ton of sites, forums, blogs, etc. where people can post their works in progress. I used to read them occasionally but… the payoff simply isn’t worth the pain.