Patterson v. Schiffrin

Some good points, Rachel. I think that if we take a look at James Patterson and Andre Schiffrin as two sides of a weird publishing coin, we get some perspective on what drives people in the independent or small press. Large publishers depend on the likes of James Patterson to create popular works of entertainment and pay the bills. One thing we'll talk about soon in class is how small presses survive, and what concessions, if any, they make to be solvent.

Also, here's The New Press About Us page, which gives some, but not much, information on how it functions (a missing bit of info in the Punk Planet interview). The crucial part, for our interests, is posted below:

How does The New Press work?

While The New Press is guided by its not-for-profit mission and not by the bottom line, it functions in many ways like a commercial trade publisher: it identifies new authors, generally pays standard advances and royalties, and distributes its books nationwide. The difference is that at The New Press, any profit earned on a particular title does not go to owners, but back into the production of other books. Indeed, many commercially successful authors—including Studs Terkel, Marguerite Duras, and John Leonard—have chosen to publish their books with The New Press to support the non-for-profit publishing principle. As a 501C3 organization, The New Press uses foundation support to publish important books whose commercial potential is much less assured.

A wide range of foundations have recognized the need for the kind of broad non-profit publishing program The New Press has undertaken, and since its inception The Press has received support from nearly 40 private foundations.

I have been following the progress of The New Press with pleasure and pride. In these days of declining publishing, it is good to know there are independent editors at work.
— Doris Grumbach

The New Press is affiliated with the Technical, Office, and Professional (TOP) Union, Local 2110 UAW, AFL-CIO.

Entertainment Value

James Patterson is basically an entertainment machine. What he does is produce books merely for entertainments sake and not for literary value. Sure, these things are entertaining but does that make it right?

I guess I have two ideas on the subject. One being that people want entertainment. That's the reason we read, watch movies and television. If something wasn't enjoyable to us, why would we participate in it. So, entertainment is good, but I do feel that there needs to be something of value as well. Big deal that James Patterson doesn't produce great American literature. He's bringing something else to the table that not everyone has to participate in. Not gonna lie, sometimes I like to read cheesy trashy romance novels. They're ridiculous and fun, but do I categorize them as great works? NO WAY. They're just entertainment for entertainments sake.

The other idea is that if that's all people are willing to read what will happen to literature. In a way I feel like the numbers of people who want to read something of substance is diminishing and that James Patterson is contributing to that. He is part of the reason why the American people only go for the things that are purely entertainment instead of something like American Skin or even a classic like Pride and Prejudice. I don't like James Patterson books just because I think the writing is shitty, but that's because I'm looking at it from an authors perspective, not from the entertainment perspective.

So, is it wrong for people to want entertainment only? Or is it okay? He is bringing people into the bookstores and maybe those people who only read his books will stop and see a cover that catches their eye. Read the back or the book jacket and say "Hey, this looks really good, I'm gonna buy it." Or who knows, maybe they just bypass Juno Diaz, Norman Mailer and Toni Morrison and head straight for James Patterson, Stephen King and John Grisham.

Another thing that I'm surprised nobody talked about was the fact that he uses co-authors and pays them handsomely for their work. There's two sides to this as well. He is using his fame and fortune to help out a writer who he thinks has talent and can collaborate with him while offering them a paycheck so high they can quit their day jobs. The downside is, they're helping him to produce his campy trashy crime novels. The co-author of his newest book seems to be okay with that, I don't know if I could be, especially since James Patterson is keeping the rights to the book. That's a shitty deal in my opinion.

Now I'm starting to ramble.

Rachel OUT

Reading for next week

Zinebook

(and don't forget Part 2)

Some links from the first class

CLMP
Featherproof Books
Dalkey Archive
Right Reading (click through to parts 2 and 3)
McSweeney's
Soft Skull
Akashic
Coach House Books

The purpose of this blog

Here is where you'll be expected to interact outside of class, discussing various articles and issues as they arise, both in posts and in the comments section.