It’s not easy to come to terms with this shift in the perception of what a book is (or can be). For someone like myself, who has always perceived books, not just as vehicles for literature but potentially as objects of permanent artistic and symbolic value, the fast-track publishing world of today that you describe here, Kris (and which I’ve seen a bit of, myself), seems almost incomprehensible. In and off the shelves in 90 days? That’s just awful.

How things change. Years ago, on a train going home from a day in London, I read Ruskin’s essay ‘Of Kings’ Treasuries’ for the first time. There’s a passage in that essay that had me out of my seat and pacing the aisle: it came so close to the heart of what I instinctively felt about books, but I’d never encountered anyone saying it before. All books, Ruskin writes, “are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time. Mark this distinction . . . It is a distinction of species.” A book is written, he continues:

“not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to perpetuate it. The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; – this, the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock if he could; saying, ‘This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved, and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory.’ That is his ‘writing’; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a ‘Book’.”

Is that concept now an outmoded notion, defeated by modern marketing methods? I don’t think so – not in the long run. It doesn’t offer any practical help to the author who needs to earn a living, of course. But it might provide a little reassurance for the soul.

That’s just beautiful, alan!

“Is that concept now an outmoded notion, defeated by modern marketing methods? I don’t think so – not in the long run. It doesn’t offer any practical help to the author who needs to earn a living, of course. But it might provide a little reassurance for the soul.”

No, I don’t think so either. And it does provide reassurance for the soul.

Nonetheless, it is distressing for an author to find a book that one has labored over for years (sometime decades) going OP within six months (or less sometimes). The reality is that authors want our books to have an audience, to be “seen” for what they are — not just for what marketing niche they happen to fill at that moment. And it’s more difficult to have this happen, if they can’t get out into the world because of a lack of reviews or shelf space or inadequate publicity. Books that don’t sell make it more difficult for authors to sell future books to publishers. It’s a real catch 22: How can an author’s books sell if they aren’t properly distributed, marketed or reviewed? When this happens, is it fair to blame the author?

Clearly the decks are stacked against most authors save for a lucky few.

On the plus side, I do think this brave new world of publishing offers a lot of creative possibilities for book artists — I’m still stunned to learn that 55% of books are sold via untraditional channels.

As I wrote earlier, I’m still figuring it out. I also think a lot of publishers are figuring it out too.