Celebrate Unknown Writers

I don't believe in putting down someone else to make oneself feel better.  Or in disparaging the creative efforts of others.  God knows creating anything is difficult enough as it is.  Just the fact that we do it at all should be celebrated.

But I have to weigh in on this.  I have to say something about what I saw at a local bookstore recently. 

I know the publishing industry is hurting.  I know publishing isn't what it used to be.  Nor are music and movies.  Technology has given us options for experiencing them, radically changing the industries that produce them.  In some respects, we've taken steps forward.  But, in other respects, we've taken steps backward.  As a result, the publishing industry is looking for books they can count on, books that will get people buying–and, not just buying, but buying a lot.  In short, books that will make huge amounts of money.   

So back to the local bookstore.

There I was, almost when I walked in, standing face to face, or face to display stand, full of E. L. James's latest book Grey.  There must have been more than a hundred copies, in a single location, which I assume was intended to make an impression on me, so I'd grab a copy and take it to the cashier. 

But I don't think that was the worst. 

Most of us know about Harper Lee's new release Go Set a Watchman, the follow-up to her classic, beloved To Kill a Mockingbird.  While I haven't read Watchman (I have no intention of reading it), I've read several reviews of it, and most aren't favorable, to say the least.  Entertainment Weekly, the smart and generally accurate bible of pop culture, a couple weeks ago gave it a D+, and called it a "cash grab."  The fact is, Watchman was basically the first draft of Mockingbird.  It was the primer Lee, encouraged by her editor, used to flesh out the real story she wanted to tell, the one that's deservedly sold more than 40 millions copies worldwide over the past fifty-plus years.

Yet, there's Watchman, on display stands all around Chapters stores, trying to get people's attention, trying to generate sales, trying to save the publishing industry.  A first draft.

What occurred to me, as I walked past yet another display stand with copies of Watchman on it, is how insulting Grey and Watchman are to all those wonderful writers who write their asses off, day after day, produce extraordinary books, and never see their work celebrated in the same way.  The sad fact is, the work of most writers never finds an audience and ends up on remainders tables, where it languishes until it's eventually destroyed.     

Yet, James's dreck and Lee's first draft, two poor excuses for writing, are positioned to save the publishing industry.

We can do better than that.  I know we can.