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Why you can’t popularize literary fiction

ByJohn Brown

T.C. Boyle is one of my favorite writers. He saved me in my undergraduate program. I was buying the The Best American Short Story, Pushcart, and O’Henry anthologies. I was reading for my coursework. And so much of it bored me to death. And then one day I began reading “The Ape Lady in Retirement” and my eyes hung out because finally the text was interesting. Finally someone wrote a story I could read start to finish.

I immediately bought his anthologies–Greasy Lake, If The River Was Whiskey, Descent of Man. I was in heaven. Now, not all of his stories worked magic on me. But when I was having a hard time finding one story in a whole anthology, his books seemed like a treasure trove.

He didn’t do as well in his novels. Oh, the writing was just as good. The characters and descriptions just as odd and stunning. But he didn’t keep my interest. The problems never built into anything. Nevertheless, I loved him.

I’ve been having a brief conversation with him and the fan boy in me is delighted to finally talk to this guy. And after reading an interview with him, I realize why he probably spoke to me. While the other literary fiction authors were following the tastes of the fringe group, Boyle at least wanted to entertain.

In his interview he says.

 Everybody has forgotten that literature, like all art, is, at root, entertainment. It is supposed to entertain you. It’s not supposed to be some conundrum to be resolved by some professors in the university. It’s not a game. It’s not masturbation. It’s art. And I think great art is great on all levels. But the first level on which it must be great is that it must be entertaining.

Amen, brother Boyle. Amen!

I’m in a top-20 MFA program in the West.  And I think it’s odd that many in these MFA writing programs, mine included, totally miss the boat on what readers want and bemoan it when nobody comes to buy their stuff. They don’t get it’s about entertainment. About being moved. About much, much more than the language.

Here the full Boyle AWP interview.

However, I still think he misses the mark. In it he says about bestsellers:

But it’s mainly vampire books and Tom Clancy and all the rest of it. I don’t understand why we can’t make our books more available to everybody-not by compromising what we do, but by popularizing them, getting them out to the public.
He also says about editors and MFA programs:
I think that now we don’t have great editors. We have editors who are basically trying to hold on to their jobs and who publish good books once in a while. They’re basically cheerleaders for the books. They’re not editors, really. They’re incapable of being editors; they don’t need to be. Because editing is done-self-editing is done-through the apprenticeship in the writing programs. Nearly everyone from my generation on to your generation and beyond will have been through an MFA program. It’s just the way it is now. It’s a different world. It’s essential.

I’d like to suggest that Boyle, despite his love of entertainment, still misses the mark in his interview because you cannot popularize something that only appeals to a small market. The reason why Stephenie Meyer, Patterson, et al sell exponential circles around folks like Don DeLillo or Louise Erdrich is because Meyer and gang are very good at delivering what the largest portions of the reading public want. They deliver types of entertainment that DeLillo and Erdrich do not. (And I mean “entertainment” in a very broad sense.)

We could point at the Oprah effect (whether you like it or not, Mr. Cold Mountain) and say that’s not true. It’s all PR and marketing. But that assumes publisers are idiots. And while some of them may be, I think it’s an extreme assumption. Publishers are in it for the love AND money. And you can be sure that the board of directors is looking for smart, money people to lead the companies. You don’t make money, you’re fired.

Which means that IF the publishers found literary fiction sold like hotcakes they’d promote it like hotcakes. But literary fiction too often fails to entertain anybody but a handful of fringe readers. And so trying to popularize it can only have a limited effect. When people are thirsty, not many are going to pass up tall glasses of ice water for the pickled jalapenos at the end of the line.

Meyer, Clancy, Grisham, Roberts etc are masters of entertainment. And, like it or not, that’s the main reason the small portion of the public who actually read go to fiction.

I think it’s fine to cater to the fringe audience if that’s your pleasure. But I think it’s ridiculous to think such fare is better than what most people enjoy. Or that it deserves any special veneration. The MFA programs I’m familiar with seem, by and large, to miss the point. Instead of teaching the meat of fiction (entertainment) they focus on teaching students to serve up the parsley with great pomp. And when the customers go elsewhere to get the meat they crave (or the salad for you vegans), they respond by saying the customers are simply too dumb to get it or have no taste.

Now, I’m not saying the folks I work with in the MFA program are idiots. Or jerks. Almost everyone I’ve met has been extremely nice and smart. They have great insights. But there is a strong pressure in that culture, amost a moral pressure, to think about fiction this way. And it’s based on their tastes.

I think we all do this. 90% of what’s out there is crap. But it isn’t, really. The truth is that 90% of what’s out there simply doesn’t appeal to us. And so because it doesn’t deliver the goods, it’s crap to us. The problem is when we don’t realize the difference and begin to think that because we don’t have the taste for something that it’s garbage.

It’s not.

And that’s one thing the gentle and smart people in my program have shown me. I’m just as liable to make this mistake as anyone.

So what MFA programs need to do is teach fiction. The meat. As well as the parsley. They need to teach all the genres, not just one. Alas, for the meat you have to go to communications departments to even talk about it. And then hope you find someone like Dolf Zillman, Bryant Jennings, Jenefer Robinson, or Peter Vorderer.

Which leads me to the next point. Boyle is wrong about editors and writers. The majority of the authors that actually sell never set foot in an MFA program. MFA’s teach students to write for a small fringe market. And so they’ll dominate that fringe market, but not the big markets. Not what most people actually read.

Since I haven’t worked with any editors in that so-called golden age of editing, I cannot comment on the difference. But I do know that the editors I and other authors have worked with do many edits on the projects they oversee. They are thorough. They want it to be the best story it can be. It’s true they won’t take something that’s a complete mess and work on it. But why should they? There are so many better manuscripts out there it only makes sense.

Anyway, I love Boyle. Probably becasue he loves plot and story as much as language. His shorts saved me in my undergrad program. They were one of the few interesting things I read. I just am dismayed that these writing programs are so far off in the weeds.

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  • Work hard for 45 minutes, then take a break

    ByJohn Brown

    My first semester in college I earned a GPA of, ta dum, 0.68.  How do you earn such amazing grades? Well, I’ll tell you: the super secret strategy is to get an F in everything except ballroom dance. In that you get an A.

    I couldn’t squeeze any juice out of my textbooks, but I sure could fox trot.

    And I wasn’t partying. Dope and beer bongs were never for me. I wasn’t skipping class. I was lugging this huge valise around with every textbook I had. I think it weighed something like forty pounds. I was stitting in classes looking studious and taking notes. Well, except for physics which started early. 7:30 a.m. if I recall. What kind of a nut job takes a class at 7:30 a.m.? I did. I tried really hard to stay awake. I know I saw the professor shoot a gorilla with a tennis ball once. But the rest of the time I was in la la land catching z’s.

    A 0.68, and I was in the honors program.

    Obviously, I didn’t know how to go about learning. I’m glad the university didn’t give up on me. They put me on probation and told me I had to take a class on studying. A class on how to take the reponsibility for learning into my own tentacles. A class that shared techniques that actually helped.

    One of the techniques was taking breaks. You were to work hard for 30 or 45 or 50 minutes and then take a break. Why? Well, because studies had shown that someone who, for example, was going to study for two hours could learn more by taking a ten or fifteen minute break in the middle than someone who worked the whole two hours.   Spending more time on studying actually meant you learned less.

    I’ve found this method applies to more than just reading textbooks.  It also applies to writing. My practice is to set a time for 45-50 minutes. My goal is to write as hard and fast during that period as I can. To be totally focused on the task at hand. And then, when the timer dings, to literally get up out of my chair, walk about, and take a break. Then come back at the top of the next hour and start another 45 minute session.

    But I’m not the only one doing this. A lot of folks use this method. Author Annie Bellet writes about her use of it in The Quest for Productivity and shares some of the reasons why it helps her. Read what she says there. If you haven’t done a 45/15 or 48/12 session, give it a go. See if you don’t actually get more done in less time.

    Oh, btw, as for my grades, not only did I NOT drop out (or get kicked out) and become a hobo living in a trailer by the river, I ended up getting a 3.8 in my masters of accounting program. I think it’s safe to say I figured that school thing out. 🙂

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  • “A Few Things Writers Can Learn from Harry Potter” by Cheryl Klein

    ByJohn Brown

    Klein (isn’t that a lovely photo with the arch, the girl, and the color? It feels Potterish and is perfect for Klein) is a senior editor at Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc. (Levine is the guy who purchased Potter in the US), and the continuity editor for the U.S. editions of the Harry Potter books. A “continuity editor” is responsible for ensuring that the world an author creates remains as consistent as possible through multiple books. A senior editor, on the other hand, finds likely books and acquires them for publication.

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    Lesson 8 finished

    ByJohn Brown

    If you write poopy-slow like me, you will finish 500-700 words of your draft in an hour. Let’s see what that means for various novel sizes.

    • 25,000 words: 50 hours
    • 50,000 words: 100 hours
    • 75,000 words: 150 hours
    • 100,000 words: 200 hours
    • 200,000 words: 400 hours

    And those requirements don’t count time you might need to spend re-imagining a piece or researching some gap in your knowledge or figuring out some knotty bit you couldn’t see was problematic when you first set out. A novel can be a big project and stretch over a few weeks, especially when you don’t have eight hours a day to write.

    In this lesson, you will learn that you need to treat the draft like what it is–a project–and use basic project management techniques to help you get the work done.

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  • How readers select books

    ByJohn Brown

    Gallup did a poll in 2005 asking readers how they selected the books they read. Here are the results.

    gallup-poll-how-readers-select-books

    What this says to me as an author is that the most important thing I can do to help my career is write the best dang story I can, seeing that almost 60% of what readers select is driven by the experience they or someone else had with the book.

    The next most important factor has to do with helping my book stand out for browsers. This would include the cover, store placement, blurbs, flap text, and the opening pages. The only part of this an author can really focus on is the opening pages–again, writing the best dang story I can.

    So it seems authors, especially debut authors, can’t do much to affect sales. But not being able to do much doesn’t mean they can’t do anything. Somewhere, somehow the first readers have to be enticed to give the book a go. Robert Sawyer talks about some of the methods to do that here.

    EDIT: 4/8/2011

    Kris Rusch adds more information that confirms the findings of the poll above in “The Business Rusch: Promotion”. READ HER WHOLE ARTICLE. Notice she does concede that publishers can get some notice for a book. So there ARE things that can be done to make the offer. But I agree with her advice that the best thing to do is get more product out the door. The studies she cites are:

    2010 Survey of Book-buying Behavior by VERSO Advertising. The key conclusion on book-buying is that “Multiple factors impact consumer awareness of a particular title, but final purchase decision (online and offline) driven by author reputation, personal recommendations, and price.” If I were you, I’d read the whole presentation.

    # Reason % Respondents
    1 Author reputation 52%
    2 Personal recommendation 49%
    3 Price 45%
    4 Book reviews 37%
    5 Cover artwork/blurbs 22%
    6 Advertising (including on-line) 14%

    2007 Survey on what motivates readers to by a book by Spier Advertising, reported in Publishers Weekly

    # Reason % of Respondents
    1 Friend’s Recommendation 49%
    2 Familiarity with Author 45%
    3 Description on Jacket 32%
    4 Reviews 22%
    5 Advertisement 21%
    6 Place on bestsellers list 17%
    7 Reading group pick 16%
    8 Cover design 12%
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  • Plot Basics

    ByJohn Brown

    In the comments to this week’s writing excuses on the 3 act structure, a writer asked if the try/fail cycle would really work with her chase story because her folks do not “fail to solve the problem” every time so much as “escape by the skin of their teeth”.

    I thought this was a great question because we ARE often led to believe that the characters need to fail in each attempt. But if we look at a number of stories we’ll see that this isn’t the case. The hero is NOT always failing in his scene or sequence goal. In fact, much of the time he succeeds. So how does plot really work? Here’s my post.

    [edited for clarity]

    Jen, fwiw:

    A few things finally opened up acts and plot to me. Maybe they’ll be helpful to you. I say this because a chase would work the same as anything else. I’ll just start at the beginning, although I’m sure you know a lot of this.

    1) Story is about someone solving a problem. The problem is one of happiness (danger or lack on some level–physical, social, freedom, etc.) or mystery.

    2) The reason why we tell stories about problems is because the solving of problems, if done a certain way, evokes suspense, surprise, and curiosity in the reader, and then a release of emotional tension. Why we humans like that ride, I don’t know. But we must keep this in mind when dealing with #1 because these effects are the main effects the bulk of people go to story for.

    3) Plot is simply the actions the characters take, the results of their action, and what they decide to do next. Except this can’t be any old action and result. It has to be action and result that builds the anxiety of suspense, surprise, and the mystery or puzzle.

    4) There are four possible answers to the question of “did the hero’s action solve the problem?”: yes, no, yes but, no furthermore.

    For example. Yes, you killed the monster. No, you didn’t. Yes, you killed the monster, but it bit you and now you have the virus that’s going to turn YOU into a monster. No, you didn’t kill the monster furthermore you woke up its mumma.

    Of those four possiblities, only the last two build suspense and curiosity. The first removes it totally. So it’s out. And a no answer leaves suspense unchanged. All you’re doing is delaying things with that. What you want to do is ratchet it up.

    So if you want to build suspense then when a character takes an action, that action has to make things worse. They may escape by the skin of their teeth, but now the federal police know where they are (yes-but). Or not only did they not escape the police, but now the mafia, the real bad guys, know where they are (no-furthermore). These escalations and complications to the plot/problem continue until the hero’s plan is in total shambles and it appears he really is done for. That’s when they get one last shot at it.

    If someone is trying to escape you don’t need a different plot structure. Their actions simply need to make it harder and harder and harder. Their plan needs to start to come apart. Things go wrong. Things they didn’t plan for make it worse. Someone double-crosses them or goes AWOL. We need to see them walking into dangers they didn’t plan for. If you go back and look at Prison Break season 1, you’ll see this all over the place in the last two episodes.

    5) Acts are just a nifty way of breaking up the problem solving process into parts. In act 1 (the beginning), as stated, you introduce the problem and show that the character won’t or can’t walk away. Often a big reversal or reveal (a big yes-but or no-furthermore) marks the end of that act. But the key thing is that the hero MUST act. The stakes or too high or they simply can’t get away.

    Now in act 2 (the middle) the hero says, aha, this is the real problem. Let’s try to solve it. Act 2 is a breeze to write IF you think about escalations and complications and nasty surprises–yes-buts and no-furthermores. He takes an intelligent action. BAM. It gets worse. And as these complications pile up we see that the hero comes to a point where his plans are in a shambles and the problem looks almost certain to squash him for good. In Star Wars, sure they saved the princess, but they led the empire to the secret base and the death star is going to blow them away (a grand yes-but).

    In the last act, the hero straps on his guns and trys one more thing. Sometimes it helps to think of acts 1 and 2 as the hero reacting and act 3 as the hero finally getting the inititative, although it appears to be almost too late, and strapping on his guns. In Star Wars they do this. They’re running, running, running, and then they attack the death star. But the odds are slim. And they only have one little chance.

    Remember: the odds are slim at this point and things get worse not because this is how problems are solved. Many get solved on the first try in real life. But because solving a problem in this way produces maximum suspense, surprise, and curiosity–the chief effects readers go to stories for. Any time you see a new plot structure or theory, you need to ask yourself what effect it has on the reader. If you can’t see any, junk it.

    So you might have three acts, four, five, seven (all variations I’ve seen). It doesn’t matter. An act usually ends with a huge change in the nature of the problem. See Robert McKee’s STORY. But the number of acts isn’t the issue. It’s the effect on the reader. The acts are just means to an end. If we don’t keep the end in mind we’re likely to misuse the techniques. 

    6) The key for moving through the acts is to ask myself about actions, obstacles, and results. Here are some questions I’ve found productive.

    Action. What are some intelligent actions the hero might take in this situation? What would I do? What are some logical steps that the reader might not think of?

    Obstacles. What happens? What are some compelling obstacles the hero will face in this attempt? Are there points of conflict with himself, someone else on his side, the antagonist or his henchmen, someone in the background, with the setting? What does the antagonist do to foil the hero? What is a logical but maybe an unexpected and surprising obstacle to both the reader and hero? How does the hero’s plan begin to come apart?

    Results. What happens? What are some possible results that pose a yes-but or no-furthermore? What would be unexpected, surprising to both the hero and the reader? How does the character’s action make it worse? How does the result reveal the problem is much worse than the hero and reader first thought?  I’m thinking of complications and escalations–things that make the problem harder to solve or more important because more’s at stake.

    In all of these, I choose the options that gives me the most zing and run with them. If they peter out, I try another (take 2, take 3, take 4), until I have one that works. Then I repeat it all over again and again until the hero is looking the gun in the face.

    7) The “hero’s journey” is nothing more than a bunch of mystical names for common elements in this specific type of problem solving structure. Why does the hero have to leave home? Not because of some mystical archetype mumbo jumbo. No, because this forces them out into unfamiliar territory–adventure, risk. Things go wrong. The hero has to face the problem.

    Why does the hero go to “the cave”? Again, not because of some mystical archetype mumbo jumbo. No, because turning and facing the monster, going onto ITS turf, poses the MOST RISK and hence most danger and hence most suspense for the reader.

    Always keep the purpose of the story in mind. Suspense and curiosity DRIVE the structure of most stories. Yes, there are other effects we go to story for. But the reason stories are structured the way they are is because of those two reader effects. And all the rest of those Joseph Campbell terms are useless to writers unless they make the connection and see how they play into suspense and curiosity.

    And even then I’ve found it’s wrong-headed to bind yourself to to a form just because. Or to think you need to slavishly follow it. The decision has to feel right for the story. It has to build anxiety and curiosity. And whatever does that well is right, regardless of whether it follows some formula. Although, I will say that certain story structures are used again and again because they deliver the goods to the reader better than other structures. Like biological evolution, they survive because of natural selection by readers.

    So that ended up longer than I intended. Hopefully the ideas were as helpful to you as they were to me.

    This writer’s question arises because of the common way of explaining the try/fail cycle sets us up to think there is only a no or no-furthermore option to each attempt by the hero. However, if we just look at a handful of stories, we’ll see the yes-but option is used all the time. What we want to avoid is the yes option, because that just stops the story. It stops the story because story is about solving a problem. And once the problem is solved, the story is over.  

    Other writers talk of formulas, however “pattern” has always been a more helpful way of looking at it than “formula.” I know, that’s semantic quibbling. But “formula” suggests to me THE way while “pattern” suggests to me something not so strict, something with some give to it and perhaps a great number of variations. Either way, pattern or formula, I found that unless I can understand the why of a part of the pattern, the effect it has on the reader’s experience, it’s not much use to me. It all comes down to plunging our hero into trouble or mystery, and then making the trouble or mystery worse SO THAT the reader feels increasing anxiety, curiosity, and surprise.

    BTW, here’s a good explanation of the 3 act structure with some tips from Stephen J. Cannell, an old pro. I really like his tips on act 2 issues and complications. Because if we make the antagonist an active force, he or she will provide many wonderful yes-but and no-furthermore options.

    You’ll find other excellent explanations of plot in TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER by Dwight V. Swain, HOW TO WRITE BEST SELLING FICTION by Dean Koontz, and THE SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING by William C. Martell.

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    Indie Thoughts: Publishers know profit, but haven’t tapped best seller lists

    ByJohn Brown

    In The Business Rusch: Generational Divide Kris Rusch points out that the new on-demand and long-tail market for books has changed the duration of the opportunity a book has to be successful, but that it seems the industry still isn’t recognizing this in how they measure success.

    The problems come from the fact that those of us who run things—people in our forties, fifties, and sixties—use metrics that were developed by our parents for their world, that tightly controlled Mad Men world where everyone was expected to be the same, not just in what they wore or bought but in what they listened to or watched or read as well.

    The bestseller list?

    It measures velocity. (A good essay on this topic, “The Meaningless Metrics of Fame,”  came from Mike Briggs, husband of Patricia Briggs, earlier this week. I’ve also dealt with it.)

    Reviews?

    They only want new books, and then only at the time of release.

    Brick and mortar bookstores?

    They only have room for the latest releases, and then only the ones that are the most popular with their customers (whoever those folks might be).

    Books have come late to this fight. Books have been available on demand for only about four years now, in the U.S. In other countries, there’s been even less time.

    And we’re all still fighting over meaningless metrics, to use Mike Briggs’ term, because those metrics only measure things that were important around the water cooler, not things which are important now.

    What’s important now?

    She goes on to say:

    The publishing industry isn’t even talking about new metrics. That idea hasn’t occurred to traditional publishing, and indie (or self) published writers are constantly seeking validation from the old system—trying to figure out ways to game the bestseller lists or to get a fantastic review from somewhere that has old-world prestige . . . But at some point, traditional publishers are going to have to develop new ways to figure out which products sell well and which ones don’t. All of their systems—from sales figures (which measure books shipped not books sold) to bestseller lists to critical acclaim—are based on the old models.

    Kris is a very experienced with publishing, but her last point conflates internal accounting with marketing. Publishers DO know which products sell.

    The primary measure of success in a financial enterprise s not new. It’s been around for 100’s of years. And on demand and long-tail markets don’t change it.

    The measure is how much a product or service contributes in profit to the bottom line. You take revenues, minus expenses, and that’s the contribution that product (a book in this instance) makes to your total profit. Or to covering your fixed costs.

    Booksellers have measured the success of their books with actual or estimated profits for quite some time. Publishers already know which books sell well and which don’t. No accountant in the world is going to report books shipped as the measure of success. And they don’t. The very fact that publishers have a profit and loss statement and show returns on royalty statements demonstrate that. They look very closely at actual and estimated profits. And to they do this by channel, which is reflected in a small way when they break out ebooks on royalty reports. This is all basic accounting.

    Here’s an example. Until Ender’s Game the movie, Ender’s Game the book hadn’t appeared on any best seller list since it was first released. And its release was 30 years ago! Yet over the years Tom Doherty touted its sales numbers many times. Tom knew that book was gold. Of course, he did. Because he doesn’t use best seller lists to tell him what’s selling well. He knows those lists are marketing devices. He has the real data in house. Why would he need a list to tell him anything?

    And Tom isn’t going to use books shipped either. Tor may report those numbers to Publishers Weekly for marketing purposes, but he will always multiply that number by an expected return rate to estimate sales. He wants to do that. Because books shipped is meaningless to the bottom line and everyone knows it, including the auditors.

    Publishers are well aware of the long tail. They see it with books that have been rotated out of the brick and mortar channels but are still selling in the online ones. They report it in their annual statements. They know the online channels work differently from the brick & mortar ones.

    The measure of success is still the same as it ever was—how much profit is this property contributing to our bottom line?

    Marketing, however, is a whole other ball of wax.

    What the long tail and on-demand allow are marketing campaigns that are impossible in the brick & mortar channel. In brick & mortar you have a limited time to advertise (roughly 8-15 weeks). After that period, most books are rotated out of the store. This means that any marketing for those brick & mortar buyers MUST coincide with the period when the books are in the stores.

    But the online channels open up all sorts of other opportunities. You can market forever. And the contribution margin is always positive. The online and POD costs are easily recouped with each sale. (Publishers are well aware of this profit potential; this is why we have so many making grabs for backlists.)

    And I see publishers taking advantage of these new marketing methods. This last week I saw publisher books not currently stocked by brick & mortar retailers on BookBub, BargainBooksy, and Book Sends. And the industry isn’t totally focused on new books for reviews. I just had a large newspaper agree to look at my book that was published four months ago. Still, Rusch is right when she says that the publishers haven’t adapted one of their biggest marketing tools to take advantage of the new opportunities–they haven’t done anything with the best seller lists.

    Amazon has lead the way in creating new ways of marketing books to different types of readers with their best seller lists. These lists create the excitement of discovery.

    But every one else is still reporting weekly sales on the big lists.

    If I were a publisher, I’d be asking USA Today to provide more than just the weekly view of the top 150 books. And USA Today is THE list to watch because their numbers are not based on units shipped to a sample of stores, but actual sales. Here are some lists that readers would be interested in.

    1. Most anticipated this week: based on pre-order totals
    2. Most anticipated this month: based on pre-order totals
    3. Hot new releases: based on weekly numbers
    4. Hot new releases for the month: based on monthly numbers
    5. Books with legs: last 3 months; I know it needs a different name (grin)
    6. Best sellers of the last 12 months: annual total of units sold
    7. Best sellers of the last 18 months: total units
    8. Contenders: for each of the lists above show the next 150 books (I always want to see the next 100 books after the top 100 on Amazon’s lists; why not show readers the top 300?)
    9. Movers: for each of the lists above show those that have the biggest rise in percentage sales and meet some unit minimum (you don’t want to feature books with 2,000% increase because they went from selling 1 unit to 20), even if they don’t break the best seller lists
    10. Genre: allow all of this to be sliced by genre.

    Let the reader select the view they want to see!

    Avid readers will gravitate towards the shorter time periods. Those that read fewer books will gravitate towards the longer periods. Everyone who wants to discover something new will go to the contender and mover lists.

    This is about marketing. Not publishers measuring success.

    And then armed with those numbers guess what the publishers will do? They will go back to the brick & mortar venues and pitch to have some of these same books carried in the stores for the first time (some publisher books are printed digital first) or carried again.

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