It is rare that an article has made me as angry as the recent one I read in Writer’s magazine on why the literary community should be less picky about their festival sponsors. Which argued that because - although they may kill babies for profit (Nestle) or support the environmental destruction of the earth (Baillie Gifford) - such sponsors at least spent enough money trying to distract from their bad reputations to allow some poorer writers to financially benefit from the arrangement.1
As if this was the only choice, and the publishers couldn't just use some of their huge profits to save authors from starving (or divide the royalties more equitably rather than most of them going to the richest few). Of course it's probable their share holders would never allow that, so I suppose that wouldn't be considered a serious alternative. Which is why the commentator argued it might be better to make deals with devils.
The problem is that writing (and most other arts) has largely become a pursuit primarily done by the rich, only published upon the approval of the rich (publishers), even if the average reader is still poor.
Of course the few working class writers (10%) often never get far enough to get published, and usually give up writing because the poor can't afford the failure it takes to become a success. The rate for other kinds of working class artists who make a living with their art is even lower (8%).2 A few very rich authors make most of the money while new ones desperately settle for pennies, and are unlikely to get noticed unless they have the right friends. If this trend continues, where will it end?
Earlier this year, I read Kurt Vonnegut's debut novel, Player Piano, about a future in which corporations control every aspect of society, including literature. Vonnegut himself came from a wealthy family, but the novel is concerned with a protagonist who longs to reject his privilege and live a simpler life. In contrast to this there is a sub-plot concerning a visiting dignitary known as the Shah of Bratpuhr, who at one point on his trip takes an interest in a woman hoping to earn some extra money, as her writer husband has become unemployed. She finds she cannot go through with the process of selling herself, and in the process of explaining her predicament we find out about how the process of getting published works in this dystopian future:
“I don’t do this every day,” she said, blowing her nose. “Please excuse me. I’ll try to be better.”
“Certainly. We understand,” said Halyard [a government minder]. “The whole thing has been a terrible mistake. Where would you like us to leave you off?”
“Oh, no — I’m going through with it,” she said gloomily.
“Please -” said Halyard. “Perhaps it would be better for all concerned if -”
“If I lost my husband? Better if he shot himself or starved?”
“Certainly not! But why would those terrible things happen if you refused to — That is -”
“It’s a long story.” She dried her eyes. “My husband, Ed, is a writer.”
“What’s his classification number?” said Halyard.
“That’s just it. He hasn’t one.”
“Then how can you call him a writer?” said Halyard.
“Because he writes,” she said.
“My dear girl,” said Halyard paternally, “on that basis, we’re all writers.”
“Two days ago he had a number — W-441.”
“Fiction novice,” Halyard explained to Khashdrahr [the Shah's translator].
“Yes,” she said, “and he was to have it until he’d completed his novel. After that, he was supposed to get either a W-440 -”
“Fiction journeyman,” said Halyard.
“Or a W-255.”
“Public relations,” said Halyard.
“Please, what are public relations?” said Khashdrahr.
“That profession,” said Halyard, quoting by memory from the Manual, “that profession specializing in the cultivation, by applied psychology in mass communication media, of favorable public opinion with regard to controversial issues and institutions, without being offensive to anyone of importance, and with the continued stability of the economy and society its primary goal.”
“Oh well, never mind,” said Khashdrahr. “Please go on with your story, sibi Takaru.”
“Two months ago he submitted his finished manuscript to the National Council of Arts and Letters for criticism and assignment to one of the book clubs.”
“There are twelve of them,” Halyard interrupted. “Each one selects books for a specific type of reader.”
“There are twelve types of readers?” said Khashdrahr.
“There is now talk of a thirteenth and fourteenth,” said Halyard. “The line has to be drawn somewhere, of course, because of the economics of the thing. In order to be self-supporting, a book club has to have at least a half-million members, or it isn’t worth setting up the machinery — the electronic billers, the electronic addressers, the electronic wrappers, the electronic presses, and the electronic dividend computers.”
“And the electronic writers,” said the girl bitterly.
“That’ll come, that’ll come,” said Halyard. “But Lord knows getting manuscripts isn’t any trick. That’s hardly the problem. Machinery’s the thing. One of the smaller clubs, for instance, covers four city blocks. DSM.”
“DSM?” said Khashdrahr.
“Excuse me. Dog Story of the Month.”
Khashdrahr and the Shah shook their heads slowly and made clucking sounds. “Four city blocks,” echoed Khashdrahr hollowly.
“Well, a fully automatic setup like that makes culture very cheap. Book costs less than seven packs of chewing gum. And there are picture clubs, too — pictures for your walls at amazingly cheap prices. Matter of fact, culture’s so cheap, a man figured he could insulate his house cheaper with books and prints than he could with rockwool. Don’t think it’s true, but it’s a cute story with a good point.”
“And painters are well supported under this club system?” asked Khashdrahr.
“Supported — I guess!” said Halyard. “It’s the Golden Age of Art, with millions of dollars a year poured into reproductions of Rembrandts, Whistlers, Goyas, Renoirs, El Grecos, D?gas, da Vincis, Michelangelos ...”
“These club members, they get just any book, any picture?” asked Khashdrahr.
“I should say not! A lot of research goes into what’s run off, believe me. Surveys of public reading tastes, readability and appeal tests on books being considered. Heavens, running off an unpopular book would put a club out of business like that!” He snapped his fingers ominously. “The way they keep culture so cheap is by knowing in advance what and how much of it people want. They get it right, right down to the color of the jacket. Gutenberg would be amazed.”
“Gutenberg?” said Khashdrahr.
“Sure — the man who invented movable type. First man to mass-produce Bibles.”
“Alla sutta takki?” said the Shah.
“Eh?” said Halyard.
“Shah wants to know if he made a survey first.”
“Anyway,” said the girl, “my husband’s book was rejected by the Council.”
“Badly written,” said Halyard primly. “The standards are high.”
“Beautifully written,” she said patiently. “But it was twenty-seven pages longer than the maximum length; its readability quotient was 26.3, and -”
“No club will touch anything with an R.Q. above 17,” explained Halyard.
“And,” the girl continued, “it had an antimachine theme.”
Halyard’s eyebrows arched high. “Well! I should hope they wouldn’t print it! What on earth does he think he’s doing? Good lord, you’re lucky if he isn’t behind bars, inciting to advocate the commission of sabotage like that. He didn’t really think somebody’d print it, did he?”
“He didn’t care. He had to write it, so he wrote it.”
“Why doesn’t he write about clipper ships, or something like that? This book about the old days on the Erie Canal — the man who wrote that is cleaning up. Big demand for that bare-chested stuff.”
She shrugged helplessly. “Because he never got mad at clipper ships or the Erie Canal, I guess.”
“He sounds very maladjusted,” said Halyard distastefully. “If you ask me, my dear, he needs the help of a competent psychiatrist. They do wonderful things in psychiatry these days. Take perfectly hopeless cases, and turn them into grade A citizens. Doesn’t he believe in psychiatry?”
“Yes, indeed. He watched his brother find peace of mind through psychiatry. That’s why he won’t have anything to do with it.”
“I don’t follow. Isn’t his brother happy?”
“Utterly and always happy. And my husband says somebody’s just got to be maladjusted; that somebody’s got to be uncomfortable enough to wonder where people are, where they’re going, and why they’re going there. That was the trouble with his book. It raised those questions, and was rejected. So he was ordered into public-relations duty.”
“So the story has a happy ending after all,” said Halyard.
“Hardly. He refused.”
“Lordy!”
“Yes. He was notified that, unless he reported for public-relations duty by yesterday, his subsistence, his housing permit, his health and security package, everything, would be revoked. So today, when you came along, I was wandering around town, wondering what on earth a girl could do these days to make a few dollars. There aren’t many things.”
“This husband of yours, he’d rather have his wife a — Rather, have her -” Halyard cleared his throat “ — than go into public relations?”
“I’m proud to say,” said the girl, “that he’s one of the few men on earth with a little self-respect left.”
Khashdrahr translated this last bit, and the Shah shook his head sadly. The Shah removed a ruby ring and pressed it into her hand. “Ti, sibi Takaru. Dibo. Brahous brahouna, houna saki. Ippi goura Brahouna ta tippo a mismit.” He opened the limousine door for her.
“What did the gentleman say?” she asked.
“He said to take the ring, pretty little citizen,” said Khashdrahr tenderly. “He said goodbye and good luck, and that some of the greatest prophets were crazy as bedbugs.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said, climbing out and starting to cry again. “God bless you.”3
In the end the largess of the Shah saved her and her husband from penury, and maybe enabled him a little more time to write words that might never be published. Some may argue that this is what is happening already, and for many this may very well be the reality. But fortunately there are still some agents who take a chance, who convince commissioning editors to to do so, and some of the public longing for something more substantial give such books a chance too.
Luckily, there are those whose genuine voice and message coincides with what is popular, or their relatable stories intrigue working people to pick up and read the pages, supporting the author in the process (although only a small percentage gets to them after the publisher's profits).
There are also small press publishers who print books that might be overlooked by bigger publishing houses, and there is the avenue of self-publishing which has allowed some who would be overlooked otherwise to get their stories to new readers. Besides this, there are still small theatres willing to put on new locally written plays, poetry performance nights, small periodicals which print short fiction, and other ways to tell tales. This leaves writers to find moments between their other work to pursue their labour of love, while leaving their work unseen by so many who might appreciate it, because profit comes first in the arts most of the time. Yet some of the greatest works, the ones we call the classics, still came from those 10% of working class writers who get published, yet who represent 90% of the population.4
I hope for a world in which possible great works that would otherwise be overlooked and forgotten due to upper class favouritism (or due to the practicalities of having to earn a living in less artistic pursuits) will find their place on the shelves, and in readers hands, and be read and remembered. What would that literary world look like? You'll have to wait for the sequel to this article to find out.
Note: I didn't call this The Once And Future Writer (rather than Author) because there will always be writers who write for themselves, just for the fun of it, or never intend for their work to be widely read. In fact most authors start out this way, and most stay this way, but this article is about the role of publishers and the publishing process in selecting, promoting and producing books.
Interested in how this might change? Read the sequel to this article:
Festival Fallout, Piers Blofeld, Writing magazine, August 2024.
A 2016 paper, published by Dr Dave O'Brien of Goldsmiths estimated that – of all authors, writers and translators - just 10% of those with parents in routine or manual labour.
There are half as many creatives from working-class backgrounds in Britain now (about 8%) than in the decades following the Second World War. The journal of the British Sociological Foundation.
Player Piano, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Chapter 24, 1952.
Note we are sharing this attached to a repost in a note.
Leaving this here on the original post as a comment to increase algorithm engagement with a long post. (hopefully)
Thank you for your patience with the grammar/structure. We never wanted to become a writer. But now... after a lifetime of escaping into books isolated from society. We have existed so rarely outside k
people keep telling us this Madness that spills is poetry.
We want to amplify and credit inspiration respectfully. So please let us know if there is a better way to leak prose into community.
But, here we feel we can share. We can speak.
We have knowlege
//recalibrating//
I have knowledge,
cut with lived reality.
If I could dare tell you the story of what happens from the POV of a Trans and Autistic visual artist (speaking only for me*) who could only ever
gain capital through exploiting their body//mind's hyperfixation/dissociation machine -
Without generational wealth(estranged), I was unable to dream of the possibility of being a "fine" artist.
(couldn't fit in woth the rich kids)
The visual/mixed media version of the PR department is graphic design. Even after the degree that has me so burried under debt that I could put a downpayment on a house if they took payment in negative numbers.We were paid so little that we still had to freelanced on the side... and in the end we still were never able to by pay enough to cover the medical bills from the stress caused.
Add it to the pile of debt.
www.shilohthehuman.com
(full story linkedin -
a plea from the last pilot.
lost the human, lost humanity.)
Burnt out after years of exploitation. Our joint pain is so excrutiating we can barely hold a pencil, type, hold a book/controller/cat toy, barely hold in the screams in on a second-to-second daily lived reality of endless pain - grip strength zero.
We can't work at all. (waiting on disability for two years, been told it'll be another 8 months to hear bck.)
We can't even afford to go to a doctor to stop the pain.
We haven't been able to keep up with tech. Resources slippong.
No phone, no lights, no motor car, not a single luxury.
Like Robinson Crusoe,
it's as primitive as can be.
When hunger madness takes us (we are housing/food insecure/literal starving artist) we make collages out of the magazines we find in free piles, smeared with duct taps and sharpies snatched from corporate entities.
There is nothing to lose when the pain will never end.
//Artists should not be forced to suffer to create.//
But, it is in the moments when we have nothing left to lose,
no deadline but urgent.
That is when we speak our truest words.
https://cara.app/calluscro
(*not all Trans folk are Autistic, not all Autistic folk are Trans. But, I live at that intersection.
It is a large and diverse community- this goes for every label of lived reality.)