<\/p>\n
Let’s have a brief, wintertime Margin article.\u00a0 A little warm up
\non a cold day here at Great Society.\u00a0 Let’s take a quick look at
\nauthor Ray Robertson.\u00a0 He’s one of my personal favorites, a close
\nfamily friend, and a good writer who can’t break into the US market for
\na variety of reasons, including US publisher’s doing a little bit of
\nracial profiling — white guy writing about troubled white guys?
\nNot this year.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in Canada, Ray’s a living writer, traveling in the arty Publishing is business.\u00a0 So is writing.\u00a0 It’s all about cash, But let’s leave cynicism aside for once.\u00a0 In the shadow of the Getting this work to the reader is the constant sticking point. That’s all fine and good, but what happens when the publisher doesn’t It’s the myth of big money that blinds writers.\u00a0 Truth is, a new, Combined with that support, the self marketing I’ve advocated in past But author friendly, tolerant presses aren’t the norm.\u00a0 The norm This is becoming a serious issue in the US as, from the bookshelves to The cost?\u00a0 Authors like Ray don’t make it to your Of his books, I consider the top of the class to be Moody Food<\/em>, Ray’s one of the legion of authors ignored or shortchanged by US Ray Robertson’s got several books under his belt.\u00a0 From human Next time:\u00a0 Your $50,000 advance.\u00a0 One writer’s formula on how much you really get.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[352],"tags":[353,127],"class_list":["post-2474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gsarchive","tag-gs-archive-2004-2008","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2474"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2838,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2474\/revisions\/2838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\njet-set of Toronto. Those filthy Canucks are enjoying the Robertson
\nride while the out of touch, ill-advised whims of US publishers focus
\non stuffing The Da Vinci Code<\/em> down your throat.\u00a0 We all
\nknow how the big publishers work:\u00a0 Daddy wants a circular
\ndriveway!\u00a0 And Daddy wants a Mercedes for that driveway!<\/p>\n
\nsuccess, royalty checks, fees collected, mouths to feed, distributors
\npaid, resellers fighting each other in the streets and writers trying
\nto get out of their awful cubicles to land themselves in the river of
\ncreation.\u00a0 It’s a terrible, goddamned, muckraking business with
\ndrug-like rewards, heavenly choirs and soul-shattering failures.<\/p>\n
\ndark angels of publishing and commerce stand a large group of people –
\nreaders, writers and arts advocates – who believe in good writing, and
\nin getting good books to the masses.\u00a0 Sometimes the unexpected
\nlightning flash of success lands something truly different on the
\nbestseller lists, sometimes the unknown and hardly known simply
\ncirculate through a group of friends and the literate elite, trudging
\nalong with mid-range sales and building a cult, a thin fanbase that,
\ngiven time and circumstance, may grow…or fade.<\/p>\n
\nI’ve talked in past articles about self-marketing, getting your name
\ninto the dull-witted minds of the common Jane and Joe.\u00a0 More often
\nthan not, it’s very much the author’s responsibility to do this.
\nAn agent sets up the meet and greets, a publisher may wave a flag if
\nthey’re desperate or trying to make a point, but everything boils down
\nto what the writer does once he or she hits the ground.<\/p>\n
\neven give it a try?\u00a0 What happens when the gamblers and the
\nadventurers become conservative or are relegated to unknown small
\npresses, limited by finances, clutching a catalog full of friends and
\nfamily?\u00a0 With the economy flagging and literacy on the
\ndecline,\u00a0 the small press finds itself alone in a cut-throat
\nworld, underpaid, overworked, hyperstressed and with an uncertain
\nfuture.\u00a0 Getting the money to cover the author and everything else
\nremains a tall order even in the world of print on demand.\u00a0 Once
\nthe money is discussed, it takes a brave hearted and adventurous author
\nto ride a roller-coaster that may not see immediate success.<\/p>\n
\nground-floor author may see less money from a big publisher than they
\nwould from an author-friendly small press.\u00a0 A first timer will
\nprobably enjoy more cooperation and support from a small press than
\nthey would from one of the big boys. Some of these struggling presses
\nrepresent what publishing used to be — people who work along with the
\nauthor to help promote the book and push it just a few more inches
\nforward.\u00a0 A publisher who loves good books.\u00a0 Period.<\/p>\n
\narticles has the potential to bring authors to the forefront for the
\nfirst time in…a long time.<\/p>\n
\nis just what folks like Ray Robertson deal with – unusual demands,
\nstrange brush offs, and the wildly misguided ideas of illiterate, 25
\nyear old development editors.\u00a0 In the 80’s, Alphaville taught us
\nthat you were big when you were big in Japan.\u00a0 In 2005, the
\nsniveling editor at a major, medium and even minor publisher can’t find
\nJapan on a map and, seriously, fuck you, anyway.\u00a0 Back to the
\ncircular driveway.<\/p>\n
\nthe publishers, support for writing and the overall craft of literature
\ndeclines.\u00a0 You accuse me of being cynical?\u00a0 You’ve never
\ndealt with a publisher, then; the standard line of burnouts, excited
\nfor what the author represents financially but not really interested in
\nthe writing itself.\u00a0 Not in that<\/em> way.\u00a0 The way you<\/em> should be thinking.\u00a0 The remaining champions of the craft are a noble few standing against a horde of barbarians.<\/p>\n
\nbookshelves.\u00a0 You even have to struggle to find them on
\nAmazon.\u00a0 Special fees, discounts drying up, ships in 2 to 3 days
\nor longer and, for a couple of his titles, simply not available.
\nJumping ship to Amazon.ca gets to be a pain in the ass, though his
\ntitles are on there and briskly selling.\u00a0 Land in Toronto and duck
\ninto a bookstore and you’ll find him.<\/p>\n
\nhis fictionalized account of singer Gram Parsons and Toronto’s
\nYorkville District – the Haight-Ashbury you’ve never heard of.
\nOne of the early reviews summed up Moody Food, and Ray in general, with
\none terrific quote:\u00a0 Moody Food is a very rare and unusual
\nbeast–a good novel about a rock band, and a good novel about the
\n’60s…Robertson’s storytelling is lively, his language is rich, and his
\nstory is far more than mere bubble gum.<\/em><\/p>\n
\npublishers.\u00a0 As even the small presses begin to pull their punches
\nand avoid taking wild chances, American literature – with few
\nexceptions – has begun a sort of homogenization.\u00a0 There are still
\nthe heavy hitters out there, the strange and off center, the diamonds
\nin the rough…\u00a0 Generally speaking, though, you know what’s
\ncoming next.\u00a0 You know what’s climbing those bestseller
\nlists.\u00a0 You know what’s going to be said.\u00a0 You probably even
\nknow what’s popping up in those artsy coffee table circles.\u00a0 It
\nmay be good writing, but it’s rarely new<\/em> writing.<\/p>\n
\nfiction to essays on writing.\u00a0 You haven’t heard of this gifted
\nauthor, but you should run out and grab what you can.<\/p>\n