This paragraph from the excellent Raymond Carver, A Writer’s Life feels like something lifted from any piece being written today about the publishing industry. Apart from the last line. And more’s the pity.
In the 1970s, mainstream publishers began to reflect the changes that had washed across the American landscape in the 1960s. The business got bigger and faster – more books were published and fewer stayed in print. Shopping mall book emporiums began to replace traditional bookshops and force publishers toward larger wholesale discounts. To stay in play, publishers increased advertising budgets for a selected few books on their lists. They also sought new authors – the young, women, Asians, blacks – and new formats that suited busy people. Novels composed of story-length vignettes, fiction broken into text blocks with generous white space, books with movie tie-ins, and books about popular culture gained popularity. As writers who had attended MFA programs in the 1960s became college teachers, they passed their interest in literary short stories along to their students. This is the wave that Gordon Lish was riding when he turned himself into Captain Fiction. It was only a matter of time until book publishers discovered that short story collections could be marketed for a profit.
It does sound timely.
Amazing to think that was written about forty years ago. Perhaps we’ll still be saying it in 2050?