Solar Flare: Science Fiction News

The SF Site has an interview with Jane Johnson who works as an editor for HarperCollins Voyager brand in the UK. In that role she has worked with the likes of Robin Hobb and George R. R. Martin as well as working with established book lines like those of J.R.R Tolkien. She helped found the Voyager imprint in 1995 and it is currently one of the most profitable science fiction and fantasy imprints in the world. Her answer to one particular question got my attention.

The problem with publishing in the genre at the moment, and it is a problem, in the UK at least, is that as publishers we are not driving the market, we are unable to shape our destinies and those of our authors. Over the past few years we have found ourselves at the mercy of a book trade which has focused exclusively on high initial turnover and short-term profits (the genre has traditionally worked as a long lived backlist, word-of-mouth area: so that hits us hard); a book trade moreover, in which the power resides in the hands of a very few (who therefore have no time to read, and when they are reading it’s rarely fantasy or SF). It’s incredibly hard to launch successful new writers in this field at the moment, and that’s deeply frustrating. So much of what we are doing at the moment is concentrating on our deep well of fine talent and doing our best to maximize sales for the authors we have. But every so often a truly extraordinary book will come along and we will get behind it with every ounce of effort and expenditure we can muster: Naomi Novik’s Temeraire is our future shining star. Authors like her can change the entire shape of the genre, and the list — as we have found with Robin Hobb and George R.R. Martin.

I think her comments apply not just to the UK market but also to the book market in the US. In fact if anything, it’s probably more true of the US book market. Only a handful of really big name authors dominate the bookshelves and in order to be a huge seller you have to get out of the bookstores and into the likes of Walmart where they only offer a few heavily discounted books.

But it does raise an important question. If the publishers are putting all their efforts into their existing authors, what about new authors? Sure Jane says that when they seem something extraordinary they get behind it. But what about the stuff that isn’t extraordinary. What about the stuff that’s simply good? I might like to read some of that stuff.

Link: The SF Site - Interview with Jane Johnson