A GalleyCat reader dropped me a line earlier this week, suggesting that two recent newspaper stories, a NYT profile of Stewart O’Nan and a WaPo profile of Valerie Martin, made for an interesting one-two punch on the subject of how well the current book publishing model serves literary fiction. It’s true: Both pieces are, to a significant extent, about the question WaPo‘s Bob Thompson frames thusly: “What will it take to get the American public to pay attention to Martin’s book?”
Both authors enjoy strong critical reputations but, for the most part, have not enjoyed huge sales: Nielsen Bookscan reports 3,000 copies sold for Martin’s new novel, Trespass; it also says none of O’Nan’s last three novels broke the 6,000 barrier in hardcover. In O’Nan’s case, the problem is compounded by the fact that he reinvents himself as a writer with each new book, giving readers little sense of continuity beyond his name on the dust jacket. Yes, in an ideal world, that would be enough, but in this world, that leads to his former publisher, FSG‘s Jonathan Galassi, telling Motoko Rich, “He’s a very uncompromising writer who expresses his particular vision of the world very straightforwardly. It wasn’t easy for us to connect him with readers, that’s all.”
I know what you’re thinking: But FSG is supposed to carry the uncompromising writers whose particular vision doesn’t easily connect with readers, until it finally does, the same way Nan Talese stands by Martin (and, Thompson notes, stood by Ian McEwan). Isn’t that what they’re there for? Times, it would seem, are hard all over. Fortunately for us readers, neither author seems to be letting the situation get them too far down. “You always want more readers for the book,” O’Nan reflects, but “I don’t think you can worry too much about that as you are writing.”