Why?  Undoubtedly, it has to do with my preference for novels over short stories and for fiction over poetry.  I don’t read enough fiction or poetry collections, either.  But no doubt some of the problem is that I don’t want to be the nozzle on the hose of fiction.  What does this mean?  Well, it seems to me that there are two distinct fears present in this recent bout of articles.  The first is that literary magazines will go under, which is a very real possibility.  As someone who doesn’t read them, I can’t say that it’s a major fear of mine.  Still, as someone who reads lots of contemporary fiction, I no doubt benefit from the springboard such journals provide to young writers.  Maybe the literary agent doesn’t take a second look at that new manuscript if it isn’t for the publication history of its author.  And then, in turn, the editor at Riverhead doesn’t take note of that piece she read in Fence a few months ago (Indeed, something that none of the articles touched on exactly who the readers of these journals are.  In a way, if the readers tend to be tastemakers like editors and agents, that’s worth a lot more than a group of 1500 hobbyists.  It might not be enough to justify a for-profit business, but it might be something to sell the trustees of a university, should they come wielding the ax).  This leads us, logically, to the second fear:  if literary journals are losing influence and folding (and they are), how are we going to find the next generation of great writers?

That’s the question that concerns me a bit more, as I haven’t found an answer to that.  I love to read, but I want a book to have been vetted by somebody — a critic, a sales rep, a coworker or friend — before I’ll give it a try.  This isn’t because of intellectual cowardice on my part — I think I’m perfectly capable of determining whether a book is any good or not — but rather due to a limited amount of time.  I really don’t have the time to try your self-published novel, not because it isn’t any good, but because it might not be any good.  If this sounds harsh, well, welcome to reality.  The Virginia Quarterly Review, as well as all of those other ‘gatekeepers’ I mentioned a paragraph ago, are separating the wheat from the chaff for me.  I think they do a pretty good job of it, too, as I’m always finding great new books to read.  I don’t think we have a crisis of fiction being dead, as the article’s rather misleading and linkbait-y headline suggests, but we do have a crisis on our hands.

The crisis, it seems to me, is one of discovery and credibility.  It’s a crisis non-fiction doesn’t have to deal with, in part, I believe, because a work of non-fiction, sourced and corroborated, provides its own sort of credibility.  (Non-fiction faces a different challenge, as it often requires a more significant financial investment than fiction does.  While it takes time and energy to write a novel, it takes that and money for research and travel to write a longform work of non-fiction (except memoirs, of course).)

Fiction, on the other hand, needs a champion.  I haven’t yet put my hands on who that might be, though.  You might think, as a bookstore employee, that I would be one, but the truth in this case is that I come into play quite a long ways after a work of fiction has come into existence.  The writer has already written the book, an agent has taken an interest and sold it to a publisher, who has then given it to sales reps to push to buyers.  That’s a lot of people to be on-board in order for a book to make it into my hands, let alone yours.

The issue with this system seems to be that it doesn’t make enough money.  For anybody.  Authors are always getting the shaft, recouping a small fraction of the list price of a book, if anything at all.  Even the authors who hit it big and get a six-figure advance (do they still give those out?) are making a relatively small amount for their time.  It takes 3-4 years to write a decent novel, so getting paid $100,000 for it isn’t unreasonable.  It’s a fraction of what a hedgefund manager makes in a single year, for instance.  Publishers aren’t rolling in dough, either.  Too often they guess wrong on a big advance and end up losing money.  And independent bookstores?  Well, we all know our recent history.

I’m of two minds on this whole system.  On the one hand, I think it continues to deliver high-quality fiction at a rate I can’t keep up with.  And yet, if it’s unsatisfactory to so many of the people involved (we haven’t even touched on the writers who can’t, for whatever reason, gain access to this system), might there be a better way of doing things?  Can we just open it up to the readers and expect them to find the best fiction out of a mass of electronic files?  Isn’t that a recipe for missing the next Joyce or Beckett because their work isn’t easily accessible?  It’s a complicated issue, one that everyone who loves great literature has a stake in exploring.

• Farhad Manjoo looks at how Amazon can reach into its customers’ Kindle devices and delete books. ” The power to delete your books, movies, and music remotely is a power no one should have. Here’s one way around this: Don’t buy a Kindle until Amazon updates its terms of service to prohibit remote deletions. Even better, the company ought to remove the technical capability to do so, making such a mass evisceration impossible in the event that a government compels it.”  I think you all know where I stand on  this:  Amazon has shown, again and again, that it doesn’t care much about its customers’ rights.  None of this should be terribly surprising.

• At The Word Hoarder, Rich builds off my post on ads in ebooks, saying “Does the desire to place paid ads in book reflect a strategy to squeeze more dollars out of readers by making a substandard product the new norm (book with ads) and thus making a traditional book (no ads) the premium product?”  I think he’s right on here.  The hope is to create a “freemium” model (the buzz term of the moment in online circles, thanks in no small part to Chris Anderson’s book Free, which I mentioned last week) of books, where the casual fan can grab a book for little or no cost and have the cost of the book subsidized by advertising, while the hardcore book buyer will buy the ad-free “premium” version of the book for roughly what it costs now.  Lots of people I know, smart people, even, have said that this model is the future.  I remain a skeptic.

• Much has been made of this James Wolcott article on “cultural snobbery.” “Books not only furnish a room, to paraphrase the title of an Anthony Powell novel, but also accessorize our outfits. They help brand our identities. At the rate technology is progressing, however, we may eventually be traipsing around culturally nude in an urban rain forest, androids seamlessly integrated with our devices.”  I think this same point has been made here and here, by the way.

All three of these stories point to something fundamental about ebooks and reading:  ebooks and online/electronic reading experiences are fundamentally changing how we view the act of reading.  Reading has always been among the most private activities.  Other than when we are very young or very old, we read our own books, alone, in isolation.  And then we take that solitary experience and carry it out into the world.  It occurs to me that having read a book and never discussed it is like having only half experiencing it.  It’s not real until I’ve hashed over it with others (usually my wife, the best reader I know).  I doubt I’m alone in this (ironically!).  This is sort of the reader’s equivalent to the realization at the end of Into the Wild:  “Happiness is only real when it’s shared.”

As I’ve said in the past, I think there are ways that ebooks and online reading can enhance our enjoyment of books, but as Manjoo, Rennicks and Wolcott show, there are also ways in which they threaten it.  The next ten years should be fascinating to watch if for no other reason than to see the way this issue plays out.  What do you think?  What excites you most about ebooks?  Is it the instant access and portability?  The ability to share and discuss titles in new ways?  What worries you most?  The control you’re giving up by going digital?  The expense of reading devices creating even more of a literacy gap between rich and poor?  Tell me in the comments.