Black Friday Thoughts

Margaret Mitchell at work

Several years ago, a plot for a short, Black Friday story popped into my head. I don’t write horror or Die Hard type action fiction, but we don’t actually get a say in what ideas coalesce out of the amino acids of the ol’ mind soup. This idea was something like: An innocent bystander witnesses a murder in the parking lot of a mall on Black Friday and spends the next ten or fifteen pages (or 100 if it turned out to be a novella) running from the killer in the mall. In other words, lots of opportunities for me to play up the entire Black Friday madness and mall culture in general. 

I never wrote the story. 

I did write a note on a scrap of paper and stuck it in this old stationery box with all my other (as yet) unwritten story and book ideas. Periodically–okay probably every day-after-Thanksgiving–I remember this story and consider working it up into a first draft. But I don’t. It’s just not my jam. I seriously doubt this is a story I’ll ever create. If you want to try, go for it!

(Maybe someone has written a similar story by now. If you know of one, let me know in the comments. I’d actually like to read it. I just don’t want to write it.) 

Last night, after a lovely Thanksgiving Day, I watched the Netflix Top 10 movie, Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy. This documentary was styled as an ironic AI-generated webinar for wannabe corporate executives looking to increase sales at any cost interspersed with interviews of former corporate sales gurus who now advocate changing our growth economy into a sustainable economy. Watch it here: https://www.netflix.com/title/81554996

Obviously, the timing matters. Between Black Friday and Christmas Eve, we are encouraged to buy, buy, BUY! In the movie, we are shown mountains of clothing washing up on third-world shores; plastic found in the guts of ocean fish; giant piles of discarded electronics. We are literally killing ourselves and the planet along with us in our capitalist zeal. Hey, I understand capitalism is the best we’ve come up with so far, but really? Isn’t it time for a new plan?

As I sat there, horrified but not exactly surprised, I started thinking about books. I thought about a recent article published in The Bookseller entitled “New publisher Spines aim to ‘disrupt’ industry by using AI to publish 8,000 books in 2025 alone.” See: https://www.thebookseller.com/news/new-publisher-spines-aims-to-disrupt-industry-by-using-ai-to-publish-8000-books-in-2025-alone

It’s beginning, friends. The AI disruption of our industry. In a market already flooded with books, here comes a tsunami of AI-generated content. Many of these will be ebooks, but plenty will be print, likely POD. I suppose this is better than printing and warehousing and then destroying the copies that fail to sell, but still. I began to wonder about the lifespan of today’s literary “products.” Are these cheaply produced POD books saved, treasured, passed along to younger generations? Or are they consumed and thrown away like last season’s sweatshop garment? 

For years, many indie (self) publishing gurus advocated quickly writing and releasing books to gain market share, surfing the Amazon algorithm to financial “success.” Perhaps the best-known of these strategies, The 20 Books to 50 K method, encourages a “high volume, low price” strategy. Pump out those books as fast as you can in hopes of establishing a backlist and making a living. Fine. Good. It works, or at least, it did. 

But what happens when EVERYONE does it? 

If we think of books as products, like widgets, how valuable are the widgets when everyone’s pumping out widgets? And where are all the widgets going once they are sold? 

Hey, I get it. I’ve published a couple of books. I’d like to publish some more. It would be nice to think I could make a living at this writing thing. Also, I’m not a fast writer. The thought of writing a book in twelve days turns me cold. I admit, I’m predisposed to disdain this mindset. Because I doubt I could do it even if I wanted to. So, yeah, this entire essay might just be a bit self-serving. But hear me out. 

I think it’s worth it for us in the publishing industry to consider sustainability. How much electricity is consumed with our Kindles and ebooks? How many trees are turned into paper? Where do the books end up? In a landfill? Burned? Adding to the carbon load? What happens when AI companies like Spines begin releasing 8,000 titles into the market per year? What happens when 100 similar companies spring into being? 

Will writing and publishing 20, even 40 books work in that market? Is our ambition worth the cost to the planet? What could we writers do to create a manageable, sustainable, and profitable-for-more-with-less market?

I visited Atlanta last week. The Margaret Mitchell museum, housed in the apartment where the author wrote Gone With the Wind, finally reopened after a remodel that started in 2020. Mitchell made a name for herself with ONE book. One. Yes, the book is problematic (and the museum does a good job pointing this out), but we can’t deny that GWTW made a giant splash and continues to be one of the best-selling novels of all time. 

The desk where Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone With the Wind

One book. Could what worked for Mitchell  work for us? What if we all slowed our roll? What if lower supply led to greater demand and prices? 

What if we created readership thirst? 

Maybe we should consider writing fewer books. Maybe we make designer books instead of fast-fashion books. Maybe we leave the silly Black Friday stories in the idea box and instead create books with substance and staying power. 

Just a thought. 

What do you think? As readers? As writers? I’m sure this may have touched some nerves. Let me have it. 

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The blurb industry

 How time flies! How can I already be late for my Type M post? Today I want to comment on what I see is an increasing trend in publishing. Review space in credible, respected publications such as  newspapers has been declining for years along with the number and size of those publications. Many have closed their review columns or disappeared altogether. They are being replaced by a plethora of "common man" reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and other websites and blogs, usually written by regular readers but often with no training of skill in the art of reviewing. Amazon in particular uses an algorithm that increases the visibility of a book based on how many reviews it has, so authors are flooding social media begging people to leave reviews, however brief and ill-informed. Numbers fuel sales, not quality. 

Publishers are also trying to hype their new releases and in the "good old days" used to print short, punchy  quotes from respected reviewers on the book jacket. In the absence of those, publishers are now leaning on fellow authors to create pithy quotes to put on the book jacket. If Stephen King likes the book, after all, it must be good.

In my experience, the publisher doesn't find these willing blurbers themselves, but asks the author to find authors willing to provide a blurb for their book. This practice has been going on since I published my first Inspector Green novel nearly twenty-five years ago. I was asked by my publisher to get a quote or two from fellow writers. The challenge is that the blurb should be by a well-known and respected writer (at least better known than you), writing in a similar genre as you.  Feeling foolish and presumptuous, I chose a couple of writers who knew my work. Luckily they agreed and provided great blurbs, both of which appeared on the cover. For my next books, the publisher pulled blurbs from reviews, and it was not until quite recently that I was again asked to procure blurbs from writers. Sometimes I complied and other times I ignored the request. I only wanted to approach writers who are not only well known but also personal friends writing in a similar style. I never approached the same writer twice, and I always felt it was an imposition. I also only approached one writer for each book.

As my career progressed, I began to get more and more requests for blurbs myself. Sometimes the request was by a personal friend in the writing community, but as this trend continued, I found the connections more and more tenuous. For example, a social media friend whom I had never met at any event and with whom I'd never had a conversation. I take these requests seriously. I want to support my fellow authors and I know the uncomfortable position they have been put in by their publisher, who is essentially downloading their publicity job onto the backs of their authors, much as they do all the social media promotion. But some of these requests come from authors who write very different genres than me, such as speculative or historical crime fiction. Some authors don't say why they chose me or even mention that they read my books. No personal connection.

When I accept a request, it's with the caveat that I will only write the blurb if I feel I can comment on it positively, which is awkward but necessary. It's my integrity on the line. I can't say wonderful things about a book I thought was poorly written. Then I read the entire book, which takes time from my own writing commitments, and I take the time to craft an original, catchy blurb that captures some of the book's strength. Writing a good blurb is a skill and it takes time.

What do I get out of it in return for the work put in? Beyond helping a fellow writer, nothing except my name underneath a couple of lines of text on the cover. Once again, the author is "donating" their time in exchange for exposure. Increasingly doing the job that the publisher has kicked down the food chain. 

But what is happening more and more often now is that authors in search of blurbs are using a scattershot approach rather than a carefully thought out choice of who to approach. They are requesting multiple blurbs, some from authors they may barely know, and presumably the publisher is picking only the ones they like best. Rather than appearing on the cover, the multiple blurbs are showing up on social media posts, websites, and promotional material, or on a whole page of blurbs inside the book. Free advertising copy at the expense of the author.

I'm not sure how other authors feel about doing blurbs, so I can't speak for them, but things have reached the point where I do feel that authors are being used. No one in this industry is making a lot of money, from publishers on down, but authors eager to get their book published and keep their publisher happy are being asked to do jobs that rightly belong to the in-house publicists, who are probably poorly paid and spread far too thin. It's a model that we need to rethink? Do blurbs really accomplish anything? Do quotes from reviews, even amateur ones, work just as well? What are others' experiences with this practice? In the meantime, I must learn to say no.