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The law of attraction

Someone surprised me last week by asking why it is that I think the publishing industry is so threatened and the publishing future so dark. What surprised me most about the question was that it apparently arose from a reading of this blog. (It strikes me of a sudden what a horrid word that last one is.)

Is that the way these posts read, full of foreboding? I don’t mean them to. With what’s happening pre-pub for our Spring list, this already is an exciting year for Unbridled. And I’m equally invigorated by the rich books we have coming in the Fall.

I think I’ve said all that here before—or implied it. And I know that if I think about the future of publishing in just the right way and then plan for it appropriately, and if we continue to find the right books to publish and believe in them as we always do, then all the stars will align for us.

So do I sound troubled? Maybe it was all the snow I shoveled this winter. Or maybe it’s just that I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Still, the allusion in the heading for my previous post was to hope, you know — that was the gift among all the demons Pandora brought.

All right, I could spin that allusion differently. There are some pretty bad indicators in the industry figures these days. And I’ll admit to running a shadowy scenario or two here for the forces redefining what we publishers do. But I don’t see that as necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, looking at the number of books released each year and the small percentage of titles amongst them that actually acquire recognition, I’m one of the people who think we could use some redefinition.

Besides, there are also good signs. The number of bookfolks at AWP was hugely assuring to me, even vital — and about half of them were students. Book festivals seem to grow and multiply yearly. As do book groups and book-group networks.

And from time to time a literary writer makes millionaire.

This weekend, my wife and I watched Stranger than Fiction and found out that in some abstract sense within the public arena (or anyway, in a star-filled movie), it is not foolish to assert that fiction really does matter.

And, of course, Scholastic is printing 12 million copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (Outpacing the 10.8 million first printing for volume 6.) It may be the only book anybody reads this summer, but it sounds as though readers will have no trouble finding a copy, even if they haven’t pre-ordered one. That’s faith. And we should take it as solace that a whole slew of folks are reading something (even if at any given moment the something is the same thing).

I just learned that Harvard Business School is using works of literature as practical source books for human insight — or, at least, to provide case studies for a leadership class. And look at Professor Badaracco’s reading list: Raymond Chandler, Chinua Achebe, Allen Gurganus, Barbara Kingsolver, Joseph Heller, and on and on. Some of those folks are actually living writers.

All of which is to say that, irrespective of the narrowing habits of the media, it’s fairly clear that the well-turned novel will still have a sizeable place in the disintermediated world. And for a while that novel just might be a traditionally bound one.

So while there are, admittedly, all sorts of new challenges in publishing these days, the truth really is that I’m optimistic about the sort of publishing we do.

It’s just that I’m wondering what The Secret is.

Fred Ramey
posted 3/20/07

 
 

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