David Thayer

This post will reveal exactly where book publishing is today. The utility of this sliver of information is dependent on your status. Perhaps most useful for writers, it may provide some comfort for readers, librarians, the innately curious, and of course, journalists whose job it is to be curious. Let’s end the speculation and get right to it: Book Publishing Today.

Non-fiction: you once read non-fiction for the same reason you ate your vegetables. Non-fiction is good for you. After a few major biographies, your life takes on clarity. You are Eleanor Roosevelt or Dag Hammerskjold. As a force for good, a fountain of facts, you reach out to friends and neighbors with the gravitas of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Let the idiot across the street be a Keynesian, you’re a monetarist. Armed with BBQ for Dummies, you can cook too. Extreme non-fictionalists will attempt to repair household appliances. This is your era, this is a Golden Age of non-fiction.

Chain smoking readers of trashy novels, you’re in a world of hurt. An odd thing has occurred over the past four decades. The delicate flower that was publishing now resembles the Bank of New York. The curious thing about the Bank of New York is that it has no customers except other banks. They don’t want or need customers, they’re busy clearing transactions. It’s quiet in there. Money in digital form zips here and there, propelled by keystrokes. No one really understands how any of it works, but there is no need for deep analysis. Surrounded by granite, marble and polished wood, they toil, knowing that it must work, and somewhere there’s a person swathed in acres of blue pinstripe who keeps it all humming. This is The Chair. Near the Chair is the Committee who gather beneath The Portraits. All decisions are final. The Chair is vacated during the summer because it’s Too Hot. The end of the fiscal year is Far Far Away. Come autumn the Chair will return to read reports from the Committee; all is well. No customers? Customers are annoying, demanding, smelly in July and August, difficult to please, and when they assemble en masse, often unruly. After a busy few weeks come the Holidays, and after that, it’s Too Cold. The Committee will examine last year’s results with a view toward developing comparisons, examining trends, hiring consultants. All too soon it’s Too Hot again.

It’s Too Hot now. A warm front is moving from the Bahamas to Montauk Point; publiishing is thirsty work and no one in their right mind is going to try it this week. Trains to the south shore depart Penn Station on the hour. If you’re in Manhattan jump into Bethesda Fountain and wait for Labor Day. The forecast:

Chick Lit: partly cloudy with periods of dissent. Some fear of oversaturation at lower elevations.

Memoir: breezy, but storm clouds linger over Chicago. Prevailing winds should carry the day.

Crime Fiction: dark, but cats dogs and canaries enjoy the ocean breezes. Perfect conditions on Sheepshead Bay. Go ahead, dump the body.

Political Books: Dick Cheney’s daughter is a writer. Thunder and lightning from Ms. Coulter.

Ideal conditions in Beverly Hills for hiring ghost writers and finally getting that book done. Beware the personal trainer who knows a literary agent.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 10th, 2006 at 6:25 am and is filed under Publishing News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.