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The Biblioracle: Stuck in the mid-list with you

As the impact of the Internet and digital technology continues to treat publishing like an Etch-a-Sketch, seemingly redrawing its rules and parameters every other week, it's hard to know who is "winning" and who is "losing."

According to Colin Robinson, co-publisher of OR Books writing in the New York Times, one of the losers is what's known as "mid-list" books. Mid-list novels tend to be literary fiction written by people you've never heard of that sell in modest or unprofitable numbers.


This piece first ran in Printers Row Journal, delivered to Printers Row members with the Sunday Chicago Tribune and by digital edition via email. Click here to learn about joining Printers Row.


It is a category of author with which I'm intimately aware, since I am one.

Economic pressures from both above and below have impacted the mid-list. Where publishers used to be able to justify nurturing a writer's career over several books in the hope that he might gain an audience, disappointing sales may strangle a potentially promising career in its crib. In a world where we know what sells, it's hard for businesses to justify producing a demonstrably unpopular product.

The winners are the authors and publishers that are able to harness the power of digital distribution. The Wall Street Journal recently highlighted one such author, Russell Blake, a pseudonym for Craig Osso, "a 52-year-old retired home developer," who has published 25 books in the last 30 months and sold "more than 435,000 copies."

In contrast, Saul Bellow wrote 14 novels between 1944 and his final work in 2000, "Ravelstein."

Blake writes action-filled thrillers, what seem to be Jason Statham movies on the page. His first efforts failed to sell, but as he says to the WSJ, he "kept writing as though there was tremendous demand," and started giving away the first book in a series for free. Next thing you know, he has a ranking of 6th in action and adventure writers, right up there with names we've all heard: Clancy, Cussler, Brown.

A recent Printers Row story from Heidi Stevens identifies other winners in the new publishing landscape: teenagers. Stevens profiles young authors like 13-year-old Jake Marcionette, whose debut "Just Jake," about "a sixth grader struggling to adjust to a new school and fly under the radar of a bully," will be published by Penguin imprint Grosset & Dunlap in February. Thanks to the Internet and social media and blogging, these teen voices can be heard without having to first be filtered through a traditional publishing hierarchy.

The winners have one thing in common, which is their willingness to put the product in front of the audiences almost as quickly as they can write it. The proof of quality is whether or not the work finds an audience, not necessarily an agent's or editor's stamp of approval. They are literally giving readers what they want.

It's impossible not to admire the hustle and unfettered creativity of these success stories. Giving people what they want is a time-honored American value. And authorial hustle goes back to a guy named Mark Twain who used a subscription-only model for some of his early books, relying on an army of sales agents going door-to-door in combination with his own barnstorming to spread the word. I have to believe that this most American of writers would've made a heck of a blogger.

At the same time, I can't help but note that sometimes there's a difference between what we want and what we need, and often, we don't know what we need until after we receive it.

I hope the mid-list isn't squeezed out of existence. The mid-list is often where we find the titles that surprise us with insights we'd never considered, rather than showing us things we already know.

Biblioracle John Warner is the author of "The Funny Man." Follow him on Twitter @Biblioracle.

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The Biblioracle offers readers recommendations

1. "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena" by Anthony Marra

2. "A Canticle for Leibowitz" by Walter M. Miller Jr.

3. "The Sisters Brothers" by Patrick deWitt

4. "The Salinger Contract" by Adam Langer

5. "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien

— Craig B., Chicago

This is a repeat customer who says I hit it out of the park with "The Sisters Brothers." The easy call here would be to follow it up with "True Grit" by Charles Portis, but who wants it easy? I think Craig will enjoy the wit and the heart of "Wonder Boys" by Michael Chabon.

1. "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates

2. "The Winter of Our Discontent" by John Steinbeck

3. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn

4. "Just Kids" by Patti Smith

5. "Blue Highways" by William Least Heat-Moon

— Sara S., Reno, Nev.

An eclectic reader usually makes for an easy match, but there's always a certain amount of unpredictability. It took me awhile to get to this memoir by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward, but I'm glad I did. Not necessarily a pleasant read, but a vital and searing one: "Men We Reaped."

1. "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay

2. "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak

3. "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt

4. "The Luminaries" by Eleanor Caton

5. "The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son" by Pat Conroy

— Amy L., Chicago

Doing a little inferring, I'm guessing that Amy has read some of Conroy's other books and therefore has some appreciation of my neck of the woods, Charleston, S.C. For that reason, I'm recommending another Charleston novel, Sue Monk Kidd's "The Secret Life of Bees."

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