The main complaint I got from both agents and publishers about “Pray” was that my grandfather wasn’t famous, so the book wouldn’t sell. They said there was no market for it.
Since I’m at the point now where I’m actively trying to sell the book, I’ll admit that they had a point. I think, also, there was some subtext to the rejections: a book about an unknown person by an unknown author won’t sell. Because, really, if I was Toni Morrison writing about my grandfather, that book would probably do pretty well.
This is an interesting statement on the non-fiction market and, to a certain extent, the health of contemporary fiction. Non-fiction makes up the majority of the books sold in the U.S. these days, while the Young Adult category makes up the majority of the fiction sold. To take it a step further, the majority of non-fiction is either about or by someone famous (or infamous, as the case may be). Our bookshelves are currently dominated by fame and fantasy.
It makes sense, if you look at pop culture these days. Reality TV dominates. Genre shows are praised to the heavens. Why read a fictional story about the real world when it’s entirely possible to read something similar that actually happened? Why read about the real world when you can read about magic and vampires and aliens? It seems like we want our stories either as true as possible or as false as possible.
This presents a challenge for those of us who work in other areas.
The advent of self-publishing has made this even more difficult. I’ve had book store owners assume that my book was self-published, and thus brush me off, until I name drop my publisher and our distributor. Since “Pray” isn’t marketable by publishing standards, they assume I must have used a vanity press. They assume that I just put together some quaint little book that only my family will ever read.
Because these days everyone thinks their life is important enough to be the subject of a book.
And why wouldn’t we? Again, look at television. Look at the people who get on reality TV. Are they all that different than us? Are they better? More interesting? And, if not, then why aren’t we on TV? Our stories need to be told. We’re just as important.
Which is true, of course. The people on reality television are often, in my eyes, the least interesting people I’ve ever seen. They’re usually chosen because they can make a spectacle of themselves, not because they’re interesting. It’s the same as talk radio hosts. Most of them are just wind bags who rant and rave and who would actually be totally harmless if people just ignored them.
I suppose there’s the solution: I need a talk radio show or a reality television show. If only I’d thought of that while I was writing the book, I could have hired a documentary film crew to follow me around. Sadly, instead of focusing on becoming a spectacle, I focused on writing.
I like to think that the latter will allow for a longer shelf life.
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