{"id":557,"date":"2012-07-06T22:37:09","date_gmt":"2012-07-07T05:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/?p=557"},"modified":"2012-07-06T22:37:09","modified_gmt":"2012-07-07T05:37:09","slug":"a-few-good-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/a-few-good-books\/","title":{"rendered":"A Few Good Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The picture above? It’s one of five such bookcases I have in the family room. There are another five up in my room. All are filled nearly edge to edge with books. I have about 30 books sitting on the floor waiting to be filed (fiction downstairs, non-fiction up, alphabetically by author). They will displace the few remaining pictures and nicknacks displayed on the shelves.<\/p>\n

I have space in my room for one more bookcase, maybe another 20 linear feet of books can go there. I’m likely to fill that within a couple years, despite using a Kindle <\/a>for books that are more fluff and fun than scholarly or literary. But there is a trend afoot in publishing that may impact how I fill that limited space, and how the art of white binding next to blue, tall book next to short looks once the new shelf is filled.<\/p>\n

There are so many tiny gems of books — think On Chesil Beach<\/a>, Steve Martin’s Shopgirl<\/a> or just about anything by Margaret Drabble<\/a>. Slim volumes that take up an inch or so of a shelf. You think there will always be room for one more of them. Or bigger works, like Shadows on the Hudson<\/a> by Isaac Bashevis Singer that fill up multiple inches, whose covers you can spot across the room. If you turn it sideways, you can stalk a few Singer novels together and pack more onto a shelf. Increasingly, though, there are stretches of board-feet that have a similar look because authors are writing trilogies, quartets, even quintets of books. George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire<\/a> series is expected to be seven books before the author finishes with it. There’s the All Soul’s<\/a> trilogy by Deborah Harkness, The Hunger Games<\/a> by Suzanne Collins, and the very fine Millennium Trilogy<\/a> by Stieg Larsson.<\/p>\n

In the past, series seemed to be for children’s literature — think Beverly Cleary’s Ramona <\/a>books — but after Harry Potter<\/a>, the trend started creeping up to young adult fiction — Twilight <\/a>anyone? — and ultimately it seems to be bleeding into adult titles, too. Fifty Shades of Gray<\/a> may not be considered literary by anyone whose opinion I respect, but it’s making money hand over fist and that matters to publishing companies and the agents who sign wannabe authors like me.<\/p>\n

I have to wonder whether in the future an author with an idea for a single book, regardless of how salable it is, will be passed over for an author who might not be as fine a writer, but who has an idea for a series, probably involving zombie vampires and characters from Georgian novels. Or for an author who can turn one idea into 24 books, each starting with a subsequent letter of the Greek alphabet. How much space is left on the bookstore shelves for my book, or another slim stunner by some little-known writer from a cold northern clime whose choice of words and turn of phrase can strike even me dumb?<\/p>\n

I have friends who are closer to the wheels that turn the publishing world, and I’m curious what they think. I get that I have to create a platform, develop my audience (I’m listening Christina Katz<\/a>!), compose stellar prose, and market my product. But will I now have to have a handful of products ready to go before I can save a little slice of bookshelf for a book of my own creation?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The picture above? It’s one of five such bookcases I have in the family room. There are another five up in my room. All are filled nearly edge to edge with books. I have about 30 books sitting on the floor waiting to be filed (fiction downstairs, non-fiction up, alphabetically by author). They will displace…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,166,35,478,36],"tags":[479,484,481,483,482,480,485,486],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-reading","category-words","category-writers","category-writing","tag-50-shades-of-gray","tag-christina-katz","tag-harry-potter","tag-lotr","tag-stieg-larsson","tag-the-hunger-games","tag-vampires","tag-zombies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":560,"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions\/560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}