George R R Martin Answers the Flak

[Nick]

In an unusual move George R R Martin issued a response to people complaining about the delayed release of A Dance with Dragons the latest of his massive Song of Ice and Fire series. This is something that has troubled me for a long time about the pitfalls of blogging and forums in which some sort of perspective is lost. As much as we might feel empowered by the technology, Martin or any other writer for that matter only has a duty to the book he is writing, the art of it, the characters and the story he is telling. Fans place a very, very distant whatever in that calculation, otherwise we will get the fiction we deserve. Throwaway made to order tripe. (It is noticeable how Scott Lynch, R. Scott Bakker and even recently Joe Abercrombie have almost disappeared from fan forums they used to post to in this new spirit of right-on interactivity. They probably realise it screws up their artistic vision so much and creates so much white noise that there is a reason why that sort of interactivity doesn't, in nine cases out of ten, work.)

As much as we might like to think that it is all interactive and there is some sort of exchange going on, there isn't. A writer writes a book, solo and that is that. Readers either like it (and make what they want of it when reading it) or they do not and can simply vote with their wallets. The only loyalty a writer has is to where his or her artistic vision takes him. If he or she feels that he has nothing more to say in one genre then it is nobody's business but the writer's own if they move onto that. Publishers and editors may also protest but then we just get cookie cutter literature (and there is a LOT of that by some established authors even) dictated by nothing but a share holder's stock balance.

This ties in with the advent of e-books. I think this article is probably frighteningly spot on. Writers on the whole earn a pittance as it is but with the advent of e-books likely to go the way of i-Pods and file shares the writer's income is likely to shrink to nothing. As Jeff Goldblum says in Jurassic Park: 'Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should'.

Only the people who created e-books are business-orientated, the science is simply a means to an end: money. There must be money in it for them some way otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. But you can be certain it will mean less money for writers amid the leaking net that is The Net. E-books does not mean literature for everyone, it means pulp for everyone. In South Korea e-books are all the rage and what is it people are reading? Teen romances penned by off the cuff bedroom authors instantly downloaded for free onto phones, never mind e-books.

It's all very well being right on and liberal (as I tend to be in most things myself) but we will reap what we sow with this deluge of homemade instantly accessible text as literature. For every one piece of good literature - and a clear definition of the term can be readily arrived at and it isn't what you or I as an individual may happen to like, it's success as literature needs to be judged by a far more rigorous process than that. Only very soon it won't be. As in Jurassic Park 'life will find a way' the leaky Net will find a way to circumvent buying a new book and it will be distributed for nothing and the authors who sweated often for years - like Martin trying to make the best work of art/book/literature he with his acquired skills can make - won't see a penny from it.

[Rob Oakes]

I found this topic (rant?) to be of great interest, however, there are several points that I need to disagree with.

1.) While authors may disappear from forums while working on a major project, they usually seem to pop-in again once finished. That's the nature of writing I'm afraid. I think most authors are loners and outcasts, while at the same time requiring human contact and affirmation (paradoxical, I know, but there are few people needier than people who seek to entertain others for a living). The so-called social media just makes it easier for them to pop their heads up when said attention is required. I'm just starting to experiment with the power of social bullshit networking and other miscellaneous time wasters, but I think there may be unexpected dividends that you are overlooking.

It's not the involvement in forums, blogs, etc. that is bad, but rather, I think it may be the over involvement. People like Martin don't need to respond to every comment or take every criticism personally, just like the artists of yesteryear didn't need to listen to painstakingly respond to every review. Sure, the white noise may seem to increase for some because they are directly plugged into their fan-base; but many well known authors have always been drowning in correspondence. When Churchill was on one of his writing or speaking runs, he would employ four or five assistants to help him sort through it all. Modern authors like Neil Gaiman have been known to employ two. The advent of the internet, electronic books, and other communication tools made it easier to communicate, procrastinate, and waste time. But authors and artists have been able to do those activities for all of human history. I always considered the bacchanals of ancient times as a bit of artist de-stress week.

Instead of going back to their solitude, instead, I think that new media is going to require authors and other artists to learn to engage in the conversation. Those that can do this will thrive and prosper (while I seem to invoke him a lot lately, Neil Gaiman is a brilliant example of this). Those who don't are not going to be nearly so successful. But luckily, it is a skill that can be mastered; just like anything else.

2.) New methods of literary dissemination have always caused trouble. When the printing press became popular, more than one monk cried that the world would end and literary quality would suffer. When printing technology advanced during the Victorian era, the established printers had the same claims. And in a way, they were both right. Most printed news rags available following Gutenberg found its way directly into the outhouse. And in Victoria's time, the penny dreadfuls were generally known to be terrible. You get, afterall, what you pay for. In our own era, I think that we will find the same thing largely to be true. Most words written are the equivalent of literary fast food, only a very few novels and novelists are deemed timeless and valuable (and often everyone is surprised at who those end up being).

3.) E-Books. I'm not really sure what to make of e-books, but I don't think it will mean the end of publishing as we know it. They represent another tool in a writer and publisher's arsenal. Thus they supplement, not replace, the other tools. Just like when the printing press arrived (or desktop publishing and the vanity press), they will require the publishing world to adjust and change. I sympathize that is really hard to do (especially in publishing, which has more or less worked in the same manner since Gutenberg). In many ways, though, the rise of technology makes it easier and better for authors. After all, blogs and forums allow authors to directly connect with their audience. For those that are smart, this will mean an increased income (less middlemen etc). I'm not exactly sure what those strategies will look like or require, but it is important to remember one thing: people will always read and authors will always write.

As long as authors create a book that people want to read, they will be willing to pay for it. What the book looks like or how they get it may change, but poets and scribes will always be necessary. In that way, being an author is the best job security available. It is unfortunate that so many have starved while gainfully employed.

[Nick]

I wish I were as optimistic about it as you, Rob! The concept appears to be the same but I think this is something quite different. We will reach a point at which there is no actual physical item as such, nothing on paper (and publishers will reach a point at which they will not accept paper anymore, it hasn't happened yet but it will come) like stocks and shares. Text will be typed right onto a screen, sent to publishers who in turn will sell it to people via download (only ways and means will be found to flout this) and there will be a massive drop in production costs. You would think this would mean more royalties all round but that isn't the way business works.

I think it is likely to mean less royalties for the writer, many writers desperate to get 'published' haven't got much to fight their corner with unless they are the odd one who is the subject of a bidding war. That happens once in a blue moon. And unlike bands, some of whom have taken to giving their latest albums for free and hope to recoup the money by touring live, that won't work for writers. What price on binary data? Where is the DNA or feeling of breath that exists on a manuscript by Beethoven or Tolkien? They actually held this thing in their hands, breathed into it. A romantic notion, maybe, but we as a species are covetous by nature, we cherish objects. When the object ceases to exist as such so will its value. Once again you can forget about copyright. The Internet is viral. The hackers will find a way. You will get people at first being loyal to writers and paying for the latest novel, but the floodgates will not be able to be closed and that integrity will basically get washed away in the flood. We will be left with a miasma of text, no discernment or mediation, no collective workable consensus as to its substance as art, all become relative.

Corporates after ballsing it all up but still getting away from it with their tails and there wallets between their legs will then turn round and say there is no money to be made out of it anymore and then we will have a dizzying mass of global self-pubishing amid which all is relative. Search engines, forums etc things like Facebook etc springing up for folk to orientate themselves? Maybe. I hope I am wrong about the other stuff and wish I could be more optimistic about it! Hopefully I won't see it in my - again hopefully, farely substantial bit of it left - lifetime and get a book published up on a bookshelf and hold the actual object in my hands and turn the pages and smell the organic reality of the words on the page and see someone buy it! A romantic and (ironically blithely inconsiderate about the environment) notion I'm sure!

What will happen then? Fans go to book signings and authors use one of those pens that Fed-ex etc use to sign your Kindle?

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

[Rob Oakes]

It is a surprising turn of events when I turn out to be the optimist! And while I find the words gorgeous, I'm not quite ready to bury the beautiful present. Let's see if I can defend my fledgling optimism with something a little bit crustier: the cynics argument.

While you raise an important point about electronic media, I disagree that it will completely supplant the printed word. I've been experimenting with electronic books since the late 1990s, and while they work for some things (most notably reference and technical non-fiction), they are an inferior replacement for many other types of books. When it comes to works of history and fiction, the most convenient form of information dissemination is the printed page. Sure, I can carry dozens of titles using Stanza on my iPhone, but why do I need or want to? When I read fiction, it's one book at a time. The ability to carry a dozen titles is irrelevant. And don't get me started on the actual reading experience. Further, art reproduction within e-books is simply terrible. (We won't be seeing e-book compilations of art any time soon.)

If anything, e-books will exist as a supplement to the offline reading experience (much as they do today). They might be used to provide supplementary material that is too difficult or costly to produce for the written version (e.g. video, multimedia, etc). But they aren't going to replace them: they are simply too inconvenient. (I do think that this particular reorganization is going to thrash the publishing houses. While I much expect that they will continue as gatekeepers, the manner which they do so is going to change radically. I expect that it will be similar to the manner in which Academic journals now function. If you are persistent enough, you can usually get an article published anywhere. But, it is much better to publish in a top tier journal. It convenys respect, prestige, and ensures that it will be read and taken seriously. While worthwhile articles in lower tier journals are also eventually recognized, the process requires much more time.)

Nor are e-books cost effective for the consumer. They are nearly the same cost as their printed companions. To recoup the cost of your electronic reader requires the purchase of literally hundred of e-books. Even when I look into my technology crystal ball, things are not going to improve for quite some time.

Simple cost-benefit decides it up for me. Books aren't going anywhere because they are the best, and most cost-effective option. Sure, e-books are going to gain some mind and market share ... but I actually believe this will be due to the creation of new markets rather than the destruction of current ones.
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As an aside, I actually don't believe that the proliferation of self-publishing will result in the end of literary quality. It might even help to improve it. Many many excellent books aren't published because people don't believe a market exists. The internet flattens that field and allows for a market to be assembled. While I know fully that the internet isn't the answer to every problem (and causes many new ones), it can be a god-send for a writer.
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Oak-Tree.us/Blog

[Nick]

I do admire your cup-is-half-full approach, then Rob. I hope that your scenario and not mine turns out to be the right one!

[Nick]

A couple more authors have weighed in over the irate fans' 'How dare you put the release of your latest book back even further when you said...' debate:

Patrick Rothfuss and John Scalzi. Martin himself provided the link to Patrick Rothfuss's Blog from his own!

[Stephen Deas]

I think what winds fans up is the not knowing. If you follow Pat's blog, it's been clear for some time that A Wise Man's Fear is nowhere near ready. The problem is that a release date goes up on Amazon and doesn't change and doesn't change and doesn't change and then suddenly jumps a year into the future. I talked to some people from GRRM's UK publisher last Eastercon and they were nominally expecting Dance with Dragons last October - but they certainly didn't believe they'd actually see it then. Not knowing anything except not to believe whatever date you see on Amazon creates frustration, I think, rather than anger, and that's just not necessary.

I do think that an author who has built up any sort of following should recognise that those are the people who pay for them not to have to have a day-job. Writing a book takes as long as it takes, be it a month, a year or a decade. But we all have blogs and it's not exactly difficult to put up a post once a month to say 'this is where I'm at.'

[Rob Oakes]

That can be truly painful on a complicated or involved project. I spend my day job as a research scientist, and I just learned a few weeks ago that one of my biggest papers is finally going to be published. It took six or seven rounds of peer review (I've now forgotten) and nearly a dozen drafts to assuage the reviewer concerns. While the first several rounds were productive, useful and important; the final several rounds were not. In fact, they did little more than tie up either the acceptance/publication of the paper or its rejection. Much of the concern was in supporting material that was used to verify the original findings. What is ironic is that no-one but the reviewers and editors will ever see it. (That is until I can expand the data and write four additional papers out of it.) Yet, the revisions were horrifically painful affairs that required inordinate amounts of time, new experiments, and careful validation of some of the observations.

The data and findings were first presented at a scientific conference over a year ago, and while there is typically a lag between first presentation and acceptance in a peer reviewed work, it is not usually that long. This was somewhat worse since the findings were of major interest to my particular niche of the scientific world. So, since November of 2007, I have been forced to answer two awful question over and over, "Where is the paper? When will it be published?" My boss took up a similar mantra, "Where's my manuscript? When will it be finished?" At one point, he wanted daily updates on what had been accomplished and which experiments completed. Talk about utter hell. A year ago, I was enthusiastic about the research and paper; but six months ago while in the throws of revision? Not so much; in fact, most of my students took to avoiding me after most major meetings where the paper were discussed.

I think that Martin is probably feeling something similar. Except more so. He's years behind schedule and he has a lot more people asking him (both good naturedely and nastily) when that novel is going to be finished. Dealing with that psychological baggage when trying to deal with something that is complex and going to require effort is a long, nasty slog.

At some point right before it was accepted, I decided that I would only provide updates when the paper was actually finished. I then locked myself in my office until it was. When asked, "Where's my paper?" there's only one acceptable answer anyway. "Right here. Here's your fucking paper! Happy?"

[Stephen Deas]

Martin is (sort of) a lot more in control of this process. I say sort of because as a writer I don't think you're entirely in control of your own creative faculties. The only external reviewer he has to satisfy is his editor, who will probably be *desperate* to get the book out by now *UK publishers certainly were a year ago).

Internal review (i.e. fiddling until you're happy) is another matter. I'm willing to accept that what you describe here can go on all in one head, take every bit as long and be every bit as frustrating. Nor does any author have some obligation to write one particular story in preference to any others that might be in their head. My only real point is that all of this goes on in the same head, so it should be possible to keep ones fans appraised of roughly where one is at. It's not even that they have a right to know, just that it might keep the baying down to a more tolerable level.

[Milton Davis]

Although I agree that the creativity of a writer is his or her own business, the fact is that this is a business and your fans are paying customers. A writer or artist that continually disappoints their fans will lose those fans, no matter how good their writing. Publisher want to make money; if a writer continually misses deadlines the publisher will drop the writer. George RR Martin has the luxury of noteriety on his side; the rest of us would have been 'kicked to the curb' a long time ago. As a writer you are not totally obligated to your fans but you need to pay some attention to them. As much as we like to believe our ideas are our own what we write is influenced by what we sell. It's no way you can avoid it unless writing for you is a sideline, not a profession. Very few of us are talented enough to turn out diverse diamonds of literary genius every time we put pen to paper.

[Nick]

Looks like I'm out on a limb here, then! I don't think on this level that a writer has any responsibility to fans at all. The massive phenomenon of the internet etc. has just compounded things. If a writer is considering the expectations of fans in his or her fiction then he or she is compromised without even typing the first new word of a piece on the page. Really. Fans have no business or say in it whatsoever. the only way they can is to speak with their wallets if they are disillusioned by a wait. Only the world in itself exists in that novel and that has nothing to do with anyone except the writer. Nothing to do with the fans, either. If it is a question of deciding between career suicide or artistic suicide a writer worth their salt should choose career suicide every time. Easier said than done, I know.

Maybe this is where genre writers and perhaps especially fantasy writers come off worse than the mainstream/serious/literary fiction set (to me any work of adult fiction ought to aspire to this regardless of genre labels) because there is no default expectation that other writers should turn out the latest installment by the year and the yard. Is it any wonder why there is so much rubbish out there in the name of fantasy? so many clone trilogies etc? Nope. Career suicide first, artisitic suicide as a last desperate resort. The only loyalty a writer has is to the book they are writing. Anything else simply has no business whatsoever in that process. Don't give me what I want. Give me something great. Life is so mundane and workaday as it is. Must art too now conform to this, just merge into the slurry of off-the-shelf relativism in the supermarket of generic brand experience we have made of life, fiction a demanded and relatively instantly available commodity like almost everything else? The shelves are groaning under the weight of some absolute crud chruned out by established authors under the thumb of publisher and agent because the name is a guaranteed sell and a calculation has been made that enough numbers will be shifted before it becomes clear that it is rubbish. As long as some sort of profit can be made. (I won't name names.) Yep, definitely out on a limb, then! You take as long as you like, George. Salman Rushdie took five years to write The Satanic Verses (and got ten years in hiding under a death sentence for his toils and personally I think he ought to have spent five years writing something better). Joyce took almost twenty on Finnegans Wake busily working at making it almost unreadable! Tolkien took about twenty on The Silmarillion, unfinished. But like Schubert's symphony of that nickname it's still a bloody masterpiece on all sorts of levels. Yes, you take as long as you want, George, I say. If it really stinks then is the time to crow about it.

[Milton Davis]

In retrospect I understand where you're coming from. Any artist has to be dedicated to producing the best work possible regardless of outside influence. My only concern is the more time passes the more fans move on to other things. I'll be one of the first in line for A Dance With Dragons, but it's possible sales might suffer because of the long wait. This has more of an effect on Martin professionally than creatively. But like you said, he's one of the heavyweights. It might not affect him at all as long as his publisher spends the marketing dollars.

[Stephen Deas]

And what of the aspiring author, who may never be published if they write something great, but might if they write something commercial, which would allow them to then write something great and actually see it in print? Please consider also, that most full-time authors probably don't have the financial luxury of spending years on their next souce of income.

However, GRRM is not in either position. Dances With Dragons will sell well however good it is, and I largely agree with you. As a reader, I'd prefer to wait a long time for something awesome than have something mediocre now. He writes (in my opinion) some of the best fantasy ever printed and we should all be giving the man whatever freedom he needs to do it.

Still, no one (writer or whatever) can sensibly claim to have no responsibility for the opinions other people hold of their actions, because the actions are part of the causal chain in forming the opinions. Like it or not, that's simply the way things are.