Reply to I can’t read serious books anymore

Forum Index » The DCUM Book Club

Reply to "I can’t read serious books anymore "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's not you. Most modern literary fiction is awful. There has been a lot written about this; if you're a white man, e.g., you can't get published. The big publishers and the reviewers have built a cabal that recycles only women / BIPOC authors who write about social justice-type issues, and a lot of what passes for "serious" writing is just YA fiction with bigger words. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was a great example of this--a terrible book, essentially YA, with a character list that could have been AI-generated for intersectional relevance. Go back to anything serious written between 1920 and 2000; there is a huge well of amazing writing that will make you realize that modern "literature" is a barren wasteland.[/quote]

I agree. There are still a couple of the old guard still writing who are doing a good job of it. John Banville is great and he's been going for decades. [/quote]

What an odd take.  Women and writers of color only write about social justice?  And white people only write about "serious" topics?  [/quote]

I think you're over-reaching here. [/quote]

Stating "if you're a white man you can't get published" is literally a lie.[/quote]

It isn't a lie, but an overstatement. It is true that it is very difficult for a straight white, middle-aged man to get published if he isn't already an established thriller writer.[/quote]

Isn’t it difficult for anyone to get published if they are not already an established author?[/quote]

Publishing has pretty much been divided into 2 areas: Diverse Voices and Established Bestsellers. It's always been hard for mid-level authors to succeed, but they could get published. Now it's nearly impossible regardless of how good the manuscript is. But if you are young and/or diverse in some way, telling a diverse story, it is fairly easy to get published. That said, so many of these books aren't working, so the wave of money that chased these books and the authors has begun to cut back.

As we are seeing with this thread, many dedicated readers who actually buy books will only spend so much on diverse books. And younger and diverse people are smaller percentages of the population, so already the readership is limited, then add that within any demographic only a small percentage actually buy books.

My guess is we will start to see some renewed purchasing of more mainstream books.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics