I’ve noticed misprints and errors becoming WAAAYYY more common nowadays than even five years ago. And with every. single. publisher. Extend your deadlines! We can wait! In fact, we really need to learn to wait for things. Please take longer to release copies of books, publishers.
Unfortunately, publishers aren’t pushing out copies to satisfy readers, it’s a broader issue that involves budgets and turnover. It’s a complicated issue, and the issues of capitalism are at its core, not the readers and their expectations.
It doesn't take longer to edit a book. With a trad pub timeline of up to 2 years from acceptance to publication, there is more than enough time to edit. What is lacking is investment. They won't pay for multiple rounds of edits and proofreading. And for indies, with editing costing $1000 to $5000 per book, it quickly becomes prohibitive.
Everything is being pushed out too fast nowadays. Writers, artists, scientists, engineers; nobody is given enough time to do things thoroughly anymore!
its really interesting that half of the time people are like "if you don't read you're stupid" and the other half is "what you read is wrong" no wonder many people don't even try to start to read for fear of being judged.
As a voracious reader who took on the challenge of reading all the classics when I was in Jr. High in the 60s...and deciding I didn't like most of them!...when my preteen son didn't like reading, I pushed comic books and manga. Any reading is better than no reading!
My mother has changed her reading preferences from the harlequin romances she read ravenously when I was young. Since she's expanded her reading genre she frequently comments on things she's read. I'd get the same book so we could have book club type discussions, but I can't keep up with her book a day habit 😊 In this case I do think it has made a difference what is read.
What kills me, and I've met several people who take this stance, is the view that written fiction is wrong because it's "not true", so they only read non-fiction, BUT they watch a lot of sitcoms. This is not to slam sitcom watchers or non-fiction readers, just wishing people could take the next step and be aware they're still choosing fiction if they're watching sitcoms.
Not to mention judging/looking down on people for using audio books. As a kid I was a prolific reader. When my ADHD became more pronounced with age, reading a physical book became very difficult for me. If people look down on me for using audio books, they can absolutely go do one.
My mother was a librarian. She believed anything you read was good for you and would eventually lead you to reading other stuff. Cereal boxes, magazines, comics were all just gateway drugs to other literature.
This is a bit random, but I feel this video about dime novels and newspaper serialisations and the backlash against them explains the attitude towards Jo's newspaper stories in Little Women from her future husband. Instead of being like "hey, it's so cool you write these sensational stories about fantastical murders and stuff, cause it's fun to read and you can take care of your sister" he does the snobby outrage "you are polluting the minds of the public and I would sooner my niece and nephew go blind than read such trash".
YES and also just how that whole story line plays out in the movies (it's been a few years since I read the book), but while I was researching this video I was so stuck on how Jo would have/should have been looking to women like Ann for career inspiration and motivation. Knowing what I've learned, it really changes Jo's story...adds a lot of context and nuance to it.
This got me thinking about Little Women. In part 1 of the book Jo is originally inspired to start writing sensationalised stories after hearing about a woman who makes a living writing them. The negative attitude towards that type of writing appears in part 2 of the book. Part 2 was written several years after part 1 was written and published. I wonder if Louisa May Alcott changed her mind and started to dislike sensationalised stories after part 1 was published. And I wonder if being traditionally published influenced her opinion.
It's also really frustrating--Alcott wrote so many trashy novels (A Long Fatal Love Chase is the one that got republished a number of years ago--it features bigamy, spousal abuse, and someone falling in love with a priest) and her moralising in her better-known works seems extremely hypocritical in contrast.
I feel like you touched on this a little bit, but this ‘X are destroying the Y’ (especially when X are young people, women, poor people and Y is something that older, wealthy, privileged folks have attached a nostalgic sense of prestige to) is one of those awful cyclical trends that we should get rid of, and this ‘iron flame controversy’ is just the latest iteration. Honestly very boring by this point.
but they will keep at it. i remember the d&d then the early video games, they couldnt get too hard at the arcades because you dont take them home, but anything that allows regular people have fun has got to be bad seems to be the problem.
Oh yh ive caught myself doing it recently... Made me realize im getting old. I do still find it hilarious thought that my Generation (millenials in their 30s) have already convinced themselves that their favorite Media were the Last time good Media was Made ever. The amount of people i know who even try to listen to new music and instead live in their nostalgia bubble where Bad music Just didnt Happen (dragostea din Tei, anyone? Owl City? Those weird las Ketchup people?). It helps that i read a Lot of old and even ancient stuff. Reading about people complaining about how horrible the "youth" from their time period is, really Drives Home that im Not Special. Just getting old 😂
Many classic authors started with serials like Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo. They were paid by the word, so that's why there are so much descriptions and subplots.
Dickens would have been huuuuge on AO3. 300k+ meandering slow burn fics where the main characters are all orphans who get assaulted in various ways before hitting it rich with a hot 1%er spouse with Trauma. Add ABO dynamics to Great Expectations and change the character names to those of a popular ship and its show and he'd be the unquestionable ruler of fandom
My mom has a learning disability and dyslexia and dyscalculia and she learned how to read from short romance novels in the 1970's and 1980's that were the modern equivalent of dime novels. She says that she eventually realized that they all have about the same plot (😂) , but that they helped her want to learn to read because they were interesting and she was driven to find out what happened next. I think that dime novels and penny dreadfuls probably similarly brought about the literacy of the United States lower classes, which is a happy state of being, given that we are mostly literate this day and age. ☺️❤️
I used to struggle a lot with reading myself. Probably connected to my ADHD somehow (I still have trouble with writing). Anyway reading light novels like Nancy Drew got me reading. And it kept me reading. I would never have moved on to reading the classics if I didn’t start somewhere. Also I use what I refer to as “popcorn literature” (cause it’s light and easy to digest) between series or during recovery from an intense read. They definitely have their place. And I have noticed that it takes some skill to write them well. Otherwise they can get very repetitive. Setting, character, and language must be just so as to both be light enough to read casually and be engaging enough to enjoy. It’s a skill.
If I had a dollar for every time people got together to drag female authors and their readers through the mud for spurious reasons I'd be a billionaire...
Probably, but not by much. It's an almost constant humm going on in the industry. As a female author of romance I see almost daily criticism of female authors on facebook and other social media platforms. The funny thing is the industry is far more accepting of romance and romance authors than the average Joe, considering it earns more than any other genre, they know where their bread is buttered and aren't daft enough to bite the hand that literally feeds them. But the public is not nearly as respectful, or even understanding. The criticism that romance authors cause women to have unrealistic expectations, such as respect and open affection, is constant. @@debblouin
Many of them are excellent authors. Their work is not why they're being criticised. They're being criticised for being female in a public space. Tell me, @@juliajs1752 did the guys pick you yet? If not, your internalised misogyny is showing loud and clear, so I'm sure they'll get to you soon.
I am a librarian, and girls and women that approach me to look for books with romance always act so ashamed. It takes so much courage for them to even ask and even after that when I try to probe to find out what they like (there's a lot of variety for different taste), it can be quite difficult for them to voice it. I get so annoyed with discussions about how terrible whatever new female author of these kind of books is. I hear it everywhere, from the TH-cam comment section to dinner parties. Even people who say they realise how sexist and classist the reaction to Twilight was will try to justify why this time it's different and their sexist and classist mocking of this new book is fine and good this time. This just results in women and girls being ashamed of their taste and afraid of voicing what they like or becoming incapable of asking for what they want. I am so tired of this bs.
Some of us (probably not the majority) didn't go ew at Twilight (or even hear about it) until they started making movies and we found out that it was written by a mormon with a lot of mormon influences, and that there were so many old women being super gross at the very young actors just because the actors were playing their favourite "hottie". Basically a combo of anti-mormonism and anti creepy "old" ladies (30+) being disgusting fans of something that seemingly was not written for them but for teens. So, basically very unfair bias because of a vocal gross minority part of the fandom, like talking shit about "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic" because of the creepy minority fans or talking shit about "Rick & Morty" because of the creepy minority fans who harassed underpaid McD workers. It's really ridiculous to judge a work by their fandom (especially a vocal minority) and I try to avoid falling into that trap now that i'm older and wiser, but it wasn't sexism that fuelled our annoyance with it. ..I'm trying to remember what the heck the point of my comment was. Probably that sometimes this sort of shaming can get worse because the sexists get unintentional reinforcements from people who are against sexism just because we get bogged down with being against specific details and don't realize that it doesn't achieve what we wanted to. I had no interest in bullying teens for liking what I thought was a poor quality book, past me wanted "old" people to stop taking up space in the Twilight fandom because I thought they were unable to be part of it yet remain moral towards teen and near-teen actors. Plus wanting the teens to be aware of the mormon biases in the books. When you don't evaluate your actions within the framework of the bigger whole, it's easy to contribute towards great harm. It's good to ask jerks (like past me) what they think they will achieve with their shittalk, how they think their venting will affect the greater discourse. Because usually they don't think, they think they don't count, that as an individual they can't contribute with much harm at all.
@@Call-me-AlI don't think it started with the movies, since I remember when those books came out, and I was right at the age when all the girls I knew were reading them - I didn't even hear that the author was Mormon until fairly recently, so if anything, people thought the books were too spicy. I always thought it began when adults became "aware" of them.There might be some problems with those books, but a lot of the other media teenage and younger girls liked got mocked too - Justin Bieber being another good example - so there's definitely some sexism involved.
@@GriffinHuntress yeah, definitely a lot of sexism. It just really sucks that the sexism spread further because of us who didn't realize that our insults of the material itself just emboldened the sexists and made their shaming seem more ubiquitous than it was.
One of my favorite author intrusions in a book is when Jane Austen defends novel writers *and* readers in Northanger Abbey. ♥ "Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried."
Nora Robert's is most prolific under a couple of pen names, as is Stephen King, James Patterson, and many others. Carolyn Keene was actually several people writing simultaneously to keep up with demand. I run a school library, and many of the author names repeat across all across graphic novels, fiction, and nonfiction. Dickenson wrote pop fiction, Alcott wrote it, and were not considered great authors until decades later. Shakespeare wasn't either. Time decides who gets to be a classic, not people. Unbending and enjoy what pleases you, folks.
As someone who worked in the library field for years one thing that the big publishers don't seem to get is that libraries are not preventing people from buying books. I say this because publishers need to stop charging libraries up to 10x more for books then they do the general public. The reality is that libraries probably encourage people to buy books because they can easily find an author they like without running the risk of buying a book but once they fall in love with an author will probably buy the books.
100% At $10-30/ book there is *no way* I’m doing anything other than learning about a new author at the library. If I love them (and after reading their back catalog), when they release their newist book, I won’t wait around for three/four months for the hold schedule to get to me; I’ll buy their book because $20 for a guaranteed day of entertainment is worth it to me. But not until I know that the entertainment is *guaranteed*. There are several authors I have on an auto-buy schedule, but at the prices publishers set, it’s *never* going to be a new author unless she’s also an indie selling her ebook for sub-$5/6.
I try to check out a book I'm kinda interested in a read it and sometimes it makes me go out and buy my own copy and saves me money! I love the library and it has many books that I don't tend to see on many shelves in store!
I had heard a few people saying, “the publishing industry is becoming similar to fast fashion” and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why it didn’t sound right but you perfectly explained it!
I was doing some research into the early history of ice skating in Vermont, and it went through a similar period of critique as dime novels where concern started with men and then quickly went to women. At first, when it was associated with boys and men, people were primarily concerned with how many people died. Then in 1851, women picked it up with a vengeance, and the critiques suddenly went to, “Everybody who ice skates is a straight up slut,” then “Omg just let women skate because at least they can’t read novels when they’re on the ice.”
Oh my god please tell me more about any of this (I figure skate and am fascinated by stuff that starts as “mens” and becomes “women’s” or the other way around and am generally fascinated by everyday ppl American history)
Sorry for bringing in a few male examples; Shakespeare was the original SNL of his time, and Bacon was the French language art house. Both Sherlock Holmes and Dorian Grey were written on a bet; Holmes was published as a serial before being bound. No one remembers that ACD was the GRRM of his time, becoming famous for his historical fiction first. I am currently following Jill Bearup's saga on the self-publishing of Just Stab Me Now, and it is fascinating.
@@Call-me-Al something terfy iirc. But I never really followed her so I didn't really catch most of it. I just remember Bernadette's discord being abuzz
I love that it was such and affectionate parody, though. Like, yes, it makes fun of Catherine for her taste, but in the same way people make fun of their younger selves' love of Twilight. Which tracks, given that Twilight is basically the spiritual successor to those trashy gothic novels
I work in comics, and while similar there are differences but 100% this. I see dime novels a bit like tv shows, they’re for the masses and produce sensational entertaining stories to consume, and there will still be people going “ew you watch TV? You should read more.” Then when they do read they read stuff similar to the TV they like and its “oh i didn’t mean when i said read those books!”
11 years ago Geek & Sundry made a video of them singing about how freaking long GRRM was taking to write Wind of Winter. It was called Write Like the Wind. The man's writing speed has become a meme at this point.
This is all very valid and interesting, I think the main thing people were complaining about though about the rushed release of Iron Flame was the fact that 75% of the books were misprints, and there were like 8 DIFFERENT kinds of misprints. Missing chapters, repeating chapters, crooked spine titles (as in halfway across the front cover crooked), flat out the wrong title on the spine, etc etc etc...
I hope that people keep them, as they could be worth something. Not because its that good, but the rarity and infamity make them probably valuable to collectors.
eaders and book lovers then to be a lot more critical about what they buy. Most people will save up money to buy a book, because we know is supposed to be impossible to make a book for cheap, even if is for the worng reasons (publishing is expensive and writters are paid very little). I don't know about the US, bbut here in Brazil we know books are expensive, but accept that as a sign of quality. I you want a cheap book you can buy second hand and it's fine.
Man, that description of how dime novels went from being written by big-name authors to simply being a process hits close to home. I've been working as a ghostwriter off and on for over 15 years now, and my gods the dip in quality and pay is outrageous. We're supplied with a plot that hits certain key tropes (I'm in the unenviable position of trying to work these plots to make sense, as I fix the story and then write it, hooray, look Ma, I'm using my history degree!), and then have to churn out however many words per week. The pay is absolutely LAUGHABLE, but in this economy, what can you do, y'know? When I started, I could kind of, sort of, eek out enough money to pay my rent and some other bills. Now, writing the same amount in the same genre, I can maybe cover groceries for the month. Maybe. All those historic romances with the bad covers? Yeah, you're welcome, and holy crap do we need a union. There's been a boom in the purchasing since Bridgerton, but that is NOT reflected on the poor souls churning them out. This also doesn't touch on the race/gender issue with publishing either. Diversity in publishing is being paid lip service, but the reality is way different. My real name I get paid under is very, very androgynous (like I usually get male-oriented advertisements), and I keep my ethnicity very carefully under wraps (even now, I'm using my husband's account to comment because I can't afford to get it traced back to me). When going back and forth with a publisher about a specific nonsense plot point, the moment it was revealed I was a woman, I was instantly "too emotional" to continue the discussion, when I was about as invested as I was in what colour socks I was going to wear that day. Ghostwriters that do big, flashy political or celebrity biographies tend to be men, and the ones like me slapping together bodice-rippers are women and paid pennies.
Thank you for leaving this comment. It was interesting to read, because these niche issues don't get much mainstream attention. Your work has so much value; you and your peers deserve better compensation.
So it seems Abby totally missed how yes even fiction can suffer from a “sweatshop” system. When she said that it couldn’t I went - have you met capitalism? trust me, it definitely can and is happening.
GRRM ruined unfinished book series for me. The thought of starting an unfinished series now fills me with anxiety. I can't even read Brandon Sanderson series until he's finished them, and that man cranks out books like a Ford assembly line.
Ok i saw a tiktok where Sanderson was signing books and he went into this whole thing about how he developed a signature that doesn’t require him to move his wrist and yeah that man is a damn machine 🤣
I really appreciated that he had a plan. GRRM does not. I can deal with it, but there is a difference. Yes, some don't like Sanderson's writing to the end of WoT (I was fine with it), but it was respectful and following Jordan's plans.@@Tisiloves
So, I love the historical background in this video, as always. It's fascinating to see women's prominence in the world of dime novels. That being said, as an indie bookseller, I think the fast fashion comparison is apt. Not because of the content of the books - though I think they needed editing, much like most of the self-published books that get picked up and turned out by trad pubs without the usual level of care they put into their original books. But because of the way the release happened. I can't tell you how horrible this release was for literally everyone involved. They kept the accompanying holiday edition of Fourth Wing secret until after people found it and started preordering it without even knowing what it was - we booksellers had to sign NDAs and couldn't tell anyone. They (Red Tower / Macmillan) pushed us to host those big midnight release parties and then poured their resources into the chain bookstores instead of indies. They shipped out the books at the last minute, and only SOME bookstores who placed orders even received our copies. A ton of bookstores - that had taken preorders from customers, and placed their orders months in advance - had their orders canceled because there wasn't enough stock. For a little bookstore to have to refund customers for preorders is a huge, huge blow. And then when we got them, they looked like shit. I'm the one who unpacked and received hundreds of copies of Iron Flame and the holiday edition of Fourth Wing, and I had to ignore printing defects and damaged books that I would normally remove from stock because they don't pass our muster to sell to customers - because there was no ability to replace those copies. And then, unsurprisingly, yes, customers got upset because the books looked terrible. The title was wrong, the books were printed upside down, the maps were missing, the sprayed edges were rushed and looked awful, the stain rubbed off on your hands, there were so many more typos than normal - there was no quality control on this release. And it's because they rushed it out to get it on the shelves before Christmas. Even though they could've waited a few more months and put out actual decent quality books, and sold just as many copies. And whom do people get mad at when their preorders don't arrive, or their copies look bad? Who has to take returns and lose time and money on the refunded sales? Who's always the face of this, despite having little to no control over it? Booksellers. Indie booksellers more than most, especially because we have to charge, you know, the price printed on the cover of the book instead of selling at heavy discounts like chain stores or online retailers, and so many people already think we're swindling them because of that. It sucks. But just this once, people actually transferred their frustration onto the publisher for putting all of us into this situation, and we had a wider conversation about the industry. That's a big deal. So unfortunately I have to agree with the fast fashion comparison. They pumped out this release as quickly as possible, knowing the quality was bad and that the books consequently would not be the investment they were advertised as. The original Fourth Wing release was so much better than the "fancy" (and more expensive!) special releases - the quality of the book was better and the dragon edges were actually really cool. They didn't keep the stenciled edges on the special releases specifically because it would take longer - they were prioritizing getting the book out faster over making a book of similar quality to the first one, because they knew everyone was going to buy it regardless, so why bother? (Yes, the reason the stenciled edges were gone was confirmed by reps.) And then loads of people ended up with duplicate copies of a book they already own and read, thinking it would be something special, and it's not. It's just a mediocre use of resources sitting on their shelf, forgotten and dismissed. [And re: B&N making a comeback - yes, BookTok has been huge, but don't underestimate James Daunt's work. Once he came on board, they had an immediate turnaround. He's secured so many B&N exclusives and it's giving them a huge advantage. (And yes, indie booksellers are bitter about being left out once again...)] Anyway, apparently that's my whole thesis. Maybe some people are using the fast fashion term dismissively, but I really think it's a valuable comparison.
I agree with your comment. Fast fashion is an apt description. It isn't a dime novel, these books and special editions are pricey. Publishers take advantage of the reader's enthusiasm and put out these rushed copies. The disrespect to all involved is astounding.
I hope some of that keep the editions art least to like that could get collexters value if they hever various misprints. Its not even fast fashon, fanfics and that did always exist, and thats, i guuess that. As did smut and that. The thing is the erotic and trashy media, always had its own place, pulp magazines being no different. And valuable. As that Like ther should be a different between not always good but entertaining faster experimental, and a finished novel thats overworked. And the price there definitly isnt.
I was working at a publisher when James Daunt came onboard. I'm in Canada, so his work hasn't affected me directly, but I loved reading all the stuff about his approach in industry journals and newsletters. The picture they painted of him made me cheer on B&N's success even though I've never been to one.
Any time anyone mentions Fourth Wing, I feel compulsively obligated to mention Dragonfall--another dragon book that came out the same day and has a queer romance and is super fun! Also thanks for this!
7:03 Wow this is blowing my mind. Also, if Mary Shelley can ‘Frankenstein’ as a summer project, I’m sure there are equally if not more thrilling stories of authors during that time.
As a local librarian, thanks for the shoutout. Go to your local library and read whatever catches yout fancy, be it the smuttiest books ever or the longest classical novel. What matters with reading is how much you enjoy it! Also, I really want to read the Milliner's apprentice now, where can I find it?
I find it funny that this printing method is how Charles Dickings got his start. His stuff came full circle that printing chapter by chapter for a working class audience, and is now considered classic literature. The cheep print them fast publishing is also how penguin books and ladybirds books got started.
he didn't just get his start either - he went on to set up and run a magazine that published other people's work (including a lot of the ones who went on to become classics e.g. Elizabeth Gaskell's books)
As an editor, I do find myself looking up a lot of different topics to fact-check the authors I work with. It's an experience at times--none of the publishers I work for have the kind of budget available to hire someone to do in-depth checks of foreign language use, so my authors are stuck with me and my linguistics degree to check those. I try to steer my authors to be sensitive and thoughtful when including minority and other vulnerable populations in their stories, but I can only do so much.
Maybe I'm expecting too much, but it seems like--if I were a writer, and I'm not--i would get a proofreader who actually speaks the language to check over any attempted use of languages I don't speak. Otherwise, it would come off as "blah blah, words that don't matter because they're not in English"
@@birdyfeederz7940An author could definitely do that, but the issue is money. Only the most successful authors make money and specialist freelancers are especially expensive. A basic copyedit in Canada is $30-50 per hour. (Copyeditors do accuracy checks, not proofreaders.) A copyeditor who can work in multiple languages, such as Quebeçois editors, can charge twice as much because there are fewer of them. There are definitely authors who spring for it, but it'll be from their own savings.
It’s tricky, because you generally have to hire a proofreader, and you aren’t getting paid to write your first manuscript. I’m working on a historical fiction project, and I’m super lucky to have a friend who is an extremely experienced editor who knows a lot of history who is helping me avoid blatant anachronisms, and is doing it for free, but not everyone has a bestie who speaks a “niche” language like Scots Gaelic. And in my experience folks tend to cut corners on costs even if they intend to do everything to the fullest (expensivest) when they start off with a project. Which reminds me - I have like 5 hrs of a very dry history book to get through before I can write about 8 lines with some accuracy so I need to log off TH-cam 😂
aww thank you for placing title names on the screen when you use episodes of TV shows\movies🤩👍 this is such a nice quality of life touch, it also shows that you care about your audience, and care if we understand what you're saying in the video, and also not expecting us to know every movie and show in existence. Just wonderful, I personally really appreciate it!
Unfortunately we live in a society where anything that is loved by women is dragged through the mud and labeled as "silly" "superficial" "not good enough" by others, especially hobbies and interests of young girls and women. But hobbies that men and young boys have are never put under as much scrutiny and ridicule.
Tbh I've heard this before and I disagree. It implies a few things, that reading is only criticized because women like it and not because writers can release bad books, that the things men and young boys like aren't scrutinized in it's own right, and that this whole thing stems from misogyny which nowadays feels more like a deflection from critism in my eyes. This might be confirmation bias or just a lack of deeper research, but I dont think I've ever heard of any criticism of the book space that surrounds itself around the "women bad" crowd, especially since a majority of the detractors of these bad books tend to be women. Its okay to enjoy things that people few as trashy and bad, but when people have genuine criticism of it then it should probably be taken note of as often as all the praise instead of being immediately dismissed as sexism
@@arkkon2740 thank you for your input on the topic, and while I agree that much of the scrutiny comes from women, on "bad books" or books that is perceived as bad (not every book is everyone's cup of tea) but I have also personally been shamed for reading specific book types, like romance, because its perceived as shallow and "not real literature." I have also seen criticism for romantasy and young adult books that are marketed mostly for women and young girls. This is a conversation that has points on both sides and I could talk about for ages.
@@kayliekat6158 yeah its pretty toxic to just push your dislike for a book onto its reader, thats bad. Thats what happened with twilight back then too and I think we all remember that, kinda thought we grew past that. However the fact that its marketed towards a female audience really shouldn't mean much in the case of talking about the bokm rather than the readerbase because its target audience might not be its actual audience. At the same time, a majority of the books that get a lot of attention tend to be female targetted so I feel like at the stem of the discussion, its more about the types of books being hyped up imo. Imo the past few years I've seldom seen books targetting male audiences get this hype and I believe thats part of the reason why you dont see those books get that same scrutiny in the first place, If its was 50/50 and it's a majority of women writers who get shit then that is definitely a discussion But onto the topic of content, these books percieved as bad have very "shallow" praise, thats kinda the best I can word it. People say the books are fun, or they're there for the spice, or its a fast, but those factors tend to be a negative for people because there's nothing more to it despite the book being hundreds of pages. Fourth Wing is a good example of this as there are many people who didn't like the book, and they've also said the "romantasy" aspect is really just a shallow romance with a nonsense fantastical aspect. The word "romantasy" implies that an audience that might not want one half would look for the other, but the people looking for the fantasy don't like it, and the people looking for the romance have complained about how bad the characters are connected.
This explanation of the publishing industry gives me a lot more compassion for some of the authors I read. When I get frustrated about the typos and serious plot issues, I always get frustrated that they don’t have better editors around them, but it might actually be that their editing timelines don’t actually allow the author time to make the book better because the publisher just wants the book released.
As a professional editor, I actually don't get frustrated by typos because all editors and proofreaders are human, so we're not 100% perfect. Even with several rounds of editing, things slip through. Especially if the editor is given a shorter timeline than they'd prefer from the publisher (many of whom are freelancers btw).
This is a welcome video. Three of my non-fiction books were published by Random House in London 1989-1992. No details, but I never made a profit. The expenses for photography alone exceeded the advance on the first two. I feel that you very clearly laid out the process and issues. Thank you.
Remember that authors like Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle etc were originally published in serial form in magazines and Jane Austen amongst others "self published " at least one of their books, not to mention Virginia Woolf and co starting their own publishing company in order to publish their books.. And Jane makes frequent reference to the "fashion" for "gothic novels " which scandalized "society " in her day...
They did not market Fourth Wing as a "Dime Novel". That's the problem. They hyped it as if it was the next LOTR or something akin. It's just dishonest.
As a fellow lurker in the shadows and certified Book Dragon, I approve this video! Some times a good, trashy novel is exactly what a woman needs. But comparing such things to fast fashion, Temu and Shein and their ilk is preposterous!
I think that there definitely is a problem with snobbery and elitism when it comes to this. However, I also think that it's problematic how it's now becoming possible for some books to get a ton of attention purely because they went viral on tiktok. The books can be awfully written (in the worst case they can be marketed to YA audience but feature really problematic relationships) yet still sell a ton of copies. Because let's be honest, we have a problem today with wanting to consume content that is easy to understand, really quickly. And then books that might be actually written really well but aren't as short-form content friendly just don't get as much attention. I also don't see many people admitting that many of these viral tiktok books are just like a book form of soap operas or romcoms. There is zero problem with wanting to consume trashy content for ones enjoyment. I love reading classics but I enjoy reality tv sometimes. But call those trashy novels what they are! Besides, a book can be simple to understand and still written well. I just worry that small authors really don't get the recognition they deserve because they are shadowed by these authors that got big thanks to the tiktok algorithm.
You have to always remember that things go viral or become popular for a reason, because it's well liked. So what if it's "problematic", thats just another word for book elitism, only "great" classics or books written by men are allowed to be problematic because they are seen as "smart" while getting minimal backlash in comparison to the massive backlash every other author gets (grrm is a very obvious example).
Yeah!! My friend picked up the first one for me (it’s on the mantle in the video) and she’s gonna get me the second one too! I love looking at it - it’s so wild to me to think that those books are sold in Japan 😭
@@AbbyCox it made me really happy for you, also the 18th century is really popular on Japan thanks to the Rose of Versailles manga so it makes sense. (France gave a very fancy official medal to the author for helping share French culture over there) There's also been an interesting shift in the last few years of lol1ta fashion brands making more historical inspired looks, like bustles, 18th century inspired dresses or 1840s inspired bodices, it's all beautiful
Louisa May Alcott actually wrote a lot of potboiler sensationalistic stories under the name A.M. Barnard, before Little Women and her other wonderful children's lit. She was the main support of her family most of her life.
Me too! After so many years, I can't get one out of my mind about a girl who falls in love with a half-man, half-horse that was kept hidden on a nearby horse farm!
Also, many of the books that we now consider classics were originally published as serials. They only became classics because they were popular enough to persist!
I absolutely agree with you on this topic, however I have to say that books are really really expensive these days. Rushed stories/ books are not a dime anymore. So I understand the frustration and disappointment to an extent when you pay a high price for a book that the author had not enough time to really think through and edit. I know libraries exist, but as someone who isn’t from the us it is really hard to get access to certain books you are interested in. Not every book gets translated so you have to buy them.
This is why I'm glad I live in the uk, we have The Works, a store that sells all kinds of cheap stuff including book. All the dime popular books are really cheap £1-£8. Most of them being an average of £4-£6. Idk what that is in dollars lol
Wow, yes, what a problematic comparison. Honestly hadn't thought this through and I'm glad you named it. Enjoyed learning the history of publishing, another terrific Abby deep dive 🙌
You should look up G.K. Chesterton’s essay, “A Defense of Penny Dreadfuls.” May not be exactly your speed, but he makes an interesting case for not losing our heads in fear of “the decline in ART”. He says something to the effect of, “Stories are essential; literature is a luxury.”
Another thing to bring up about ethics in the publishing industry is that those who produce and edit books are often paid poorly--there's a lot of freelancing and a lot of competition and that leads to the publishers being able to exploit the people who make up a significant portion of the publishing process. I recently saw an article that recommended authors submit books to a publisher who I know from experience does not pay their proofreaders--proofers are paid in ebooks from the company, with the vague promise that if one of their paid editors leaves the company, the volunteers from their proofer group will be first under consideration for hiring. I proofed a couple novels for the company when I was first starting out and needed experience for my resume, but didn't stay for long because I can't eat ebooks. I'm a good editor, but the amount I make from editing doesn't reflect the time and skill I bring to the table, so I'm currently working on pivoting into a different career. The reality that most books don't make a lot of money contributes to this problem.
I've recently been watching more book review youtubers and I find it interesting because my understanding was it's become more like fast fashion in that booktok is pushing people to consume more and more, to own more and more books so people can have bookshelves full of books that they'll toss out in a year or two. Not a bookshelf full of beloved books they truely care about. This video was super informative and gave me lots of thought about aspects I hadn't considered from that statement, though. My experience with booktok has been relatively non-existant as When ai have posted to it it has been reviews of books I checked out from the library, reguardless of if they're new or not.
That's how I understood the statement too. Just in the sense of the overconsumption of the books, not necessarily in the sense of HOW they're made. The comparison is not great, in retrospect, since it almost makes fast fashion look not as bad as it really is.
According to "common sense," the publishing industry is perpetually on the verge of collapse. And the end of Great American Writing is always upon us. Twenty years ago, it was Twilight and its fanfiction 50 Shades of Grey, and in this time, some phenomenal books have been published and been loved. Life goes on and it might be sisyphean effort to parse through the hundreds of books published a year and a truly immense back catalog but thats part of reading. Remember to visit your local library and use your library card
I think that perhaps the most annoying thing about the comparison of “TikTok books” to fast fashion is that books are (obviously) made of paper and are thus much easier to recycle whereas fast fashion is terrible for the environment. So regardless of the quality of the books, I would much rather people be buying books and reading then buying ridiculous amount of clothes from places like shein.
Speaking as a fiction author who has been affected (both positively and negatively) by today’s fast publishing, I think the "fast fashion" metaphor is apt - and also an example of pearl-clutching. On the positive side, fast publishing and specifically indie publishing have removed a lot of the power of gatekeepers in the publishing industry. No publisher wants to publish your works - not unlikely when there are only about five main publishing houses in the US and they're all in NYC - or they want to pay you a smaller percentage than you (believe you) deserve? Or they'll publish your work in journals but aren't interested in short story anthologies? No problem! You can self-publish now. Take control into your own hands and keep more of the royalties than they would have given you. On the negative side, the gatekeepers aren't defending the gates so much anymore. You barely passed sixth-grade English and haven’t got a clue about story arcs or character development? No problem! If the Big Five publishers don't like your work, you can just self-publish. And if all you care about is getting as much money in royalties as possible and don't even want your own name or pen name on it, you can use ChatGPT or another AI program to create "books" that make our beloved Hallmark Christmas movies look as complex and well-developed as LOTR and publish them under someone else's pen name just to get whatever royalties you can and who cares that the real authors whose names you're abusing cringe at the fact that you’ve clearly never even MET an actual editor. I'm currently dealing with the mess caused by one of these "writers" dropping six of these bombs onto my author page in as many months, so I'm personally aware of this problem. And yes, if this particular person/people didn’t use ChatGPT to create those bombs, they really need to go back to their middle school reading and spelling classes. But we'll survive. We're already learning that it's necessary to trademark your pen name, not just copyright your actual work. Maybe we'll get laws passed to make that trademark actually mean something, maybe we'll find other ways to differentiate quality work from that of middle-school dropouts even when they try to pass their work off as ours, and maybe we'll do both. There might be more chaff on the market, but there will also be more wheat available. And, just like when the penny novels first made the written word accessible to the working class and created a market that hadn't existed before, the wheat that is able to come to this new market will remain when the cringeworthy chaff has mostly all blown away.
If the publisher or whoever is selling books from other authors under your name and not paying you royalties, that sounds like something a lawsuit should take care of rather quickly.
I have SO many 'dime novels' at home. Small size (smaller than a notebook), same paper quality, even same colour in some cases! It's popular novels of the era, as well as classics, some non-fiction stuff, education, political, just all sorts of things. I have PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in one of those editions!
The comparison of fast fashion and booktok I've seen till now was mostly focused on promotion of overconsumption - book hauls (similar to clothing hauls), book trends (less space for creativity and talking only about new, trendy books instead of slightly older ones - and I by "older" I mean few years old modern fiction, not "classics"), focus on reading as much as possible because it is "productive" and sounds "smart" to say you read so much (like speeding up audiobooks or choosing shorter books to have more books read in total etc.; focus on "more" and "faster" instead of quality and fun), focus on book ownership instead of book reading resulting in huge home libraries full of unread books or books someone read just one (historically a status symbol) etc. Book industry may be more environmentally friendly than fast fashion but if we keep producing more than we need (like plenty of books that will just sit on the shelfs for years, being read once, twice or never) is still very wasteful - paper may be recycled but what about everything else (energy, transport, factory buildings and machines, other materials etc.)? Also, just because "something is an industry standard" or "has been there since forever" doesn't mean it's good - cheap materials and underpaid workers are industry standard and has always been like that but no one says it excuses fast fashion. Also, the excuse "book sales are good for authors" is only preventing us from trying to find solutions that do not require overconsumtion to provide income to author and publisher; it's accepting status quo
Yes, this is such an important addition to the conversation! The fast fashion angle is NOT just about the stories being told, even if the primary article in question didn't hit all the points it could've. It's about the consumption, the quality of the physical items being purchased, and the lack of investment in the things we're buying. Not to mention that, just like with clothes, people think they can just donate their old books and they'll magically go away - even though a huge number of donated books are impossible to resell and just end up in the trash anyway.
When I think that most of our famous French 19th-century authors would write in newspapers before publishing, and how we are snobbish about it. It makes me laugh.
I actually already watched a booktube video about that article, disagreeing and pointing out the two industries are not comparable. Glad to see the history of dime novels and further commentary to back it from this video. Plus, the Fourth Wing book was originally published as a fancy sprayed edge edition, which doesn't exactly match the "cheap" part of fast fashion's description. Actually, books in general are still expensive lol.
As a huge fan of Sarah J Maas and Fourth Wing (I LOVED Iron Flame), I appreciate your respect when explaining trends and book popularity without dragging fans under the mud. I also think that current historical romance novels (such as Bridgeton) or "trashy" smut novels (which I totally read when I'm on my period) are completely representative of formulaic writing and massive fast production. Furthermore, as an avid reader since I was a child, I'm glad that booktok revived the industry and gave more authors the ability to present their work to a wider audience. Although I was a bit wary because of the title, I loved this video essay and the historical lesson. (English is not my native language so please excuse any errors)
Love the shoutout to ruby dixons books those books were so good and fun they convinced me i dont need to write something super serious i can just make a pen name and write some trashy fun scifi shit and who cares if its the next great literature (though hard agree she belongs there lol) so long as its fun
From Fredric Wertham accusing comic books of causing juvenile delinquency to accusing video games of causing violent tendencies, it’s amazing how the criticism of popular media hasn’t changed at all.
An author I know, who has gone full time, publishes 4 full length novels a year, and she's three books ahead in her series. *THREE BOOKS!* When she was finally able to quit her day job because she made enough to do so, we all breathed a sigh of relief that maybe, now, she'd be able to rest a bit. It is so hard to get published traditionally, and they're bullshit. Self publishing has it's own problems. I'm an alpha reader for a couple of authors, and we do not have much time with them before they have to be to the editor.
I've read some nice fantasy books by a guy who wrote the whole trilogy, then self-published them about 9 months apart. The author's note says he does it that way because 1. He doesn't want to leave the reader waiting on the sequel, and 2. It lets him revise book 1 if the plot of book 3 is going somewhere that needs a bit more foreshadowing. He doesn't want to ever have the "there's things I'd have changed about book 1 by the time the series developed, but .." moment
@@birdyfeederz7940 That makes sense. This particular author (Seanan McGuire, you should read her if you like Urban Fantasy) has been plotting her story for a very long time, and knows where all the beats are. We get one of that particular series a year, and it's truly amazing just how much of book 18 she foreshadowed in book 1.
@@Evaleastaristev Seanan is amazing, even if I'm mad at her for the last Incryptid book. I am at least excited to see how the Third Act of Toby ends! Do you know of Ilona Andrews? They have 2 series I'm aware of, one called Kate Daniels and the other Innkeeper Chronicles. They self publish, so their books are hard to find, but the writing and world building is so good.
There are also absolutely predatory publishers in the fiction world as well, mostly those that prey on desperate authors and charge them for services to get the book published, while knowing that the book will not sell enough to ever make up those costs.
These big best sellers are what allow publishers to take “risk” on newer authors and “riskier” books. it’s similar to celeb memoirs that always get published near Xmas, the money from those sales from people that don’t typically buy books funds a lot of the debuts for the time following their release…
This is such a hard, nuanced topic for me. I've been in the bookselling business for eight years, I've taken bookselling courses that touch on the publishing side of things, I've been to conferences, met authors, met reps, and obviously deal with publishers in the everyday workings of the bookstore. There is SO MUCH I want to complain about in regard to predatory publishing, the industry in general, amazon's grip on publishers AND readers, publishers declaring record profits while independent bookstores (even some of the most well-known and successful!) declare bankruptcy and close their doors, or set up gofundmes to keep the lights on. But absolutely, "fast fiction" is not comparable to fast fashion. Full stop. There are definitely problems in the industries of publishing and bookselling, but successfully advertising a product is not one of them.
Dime novels getting ragged on reminds me of Wattpad and similar apps getting ragged on but it is a completely viable and old school method to self-publish first through serialisation and subscription via platforms like Ream.
A very well thought out commentary. Well done. I had to laugh when you noted the apparent formula that enables writer Ruby Dixon to be so prolific because it immediately brought to my mind James Patterson who seems to work the same way. Isn’t escapism the whole point of reading fiction regardless of the genre? Nothing wrong it’s escapism, especially in this day and age.😊
I don't know why, but it reminds me of what was reportedly the response from Michael Bay over criticism that his movies are plotless excuses for explosions and cleavage. Some variant of "I make movies for teenage boys. Sue me!". Sometimes you're just in the mood to watch things blow up or read something with a formulaic happy ending
People are really quick to jump to slandering people these days. As you said at the end there’s a difference between disliking something and going to claim that they got AI to do their work for them.
People really need to support indie/self-published authors. That's where the marginalized tend to publish because the main industry is so white, etc. I love reading books that no one has heard of and hyping them.
As someone who has studied Victorian serial novels I know the history of the publishing industry. I encourage people to read whatever makes them happy. I do still find booktok to be leading towards alarming trends of people willing to spend $20 or more on writing that is the same quality as what they can get for free online. If I’m going to spend the money on something professionally published, I expect something of a higher quality than what I can find on ao3. Increasingly that is just not the case and it’s harder and harder to find books that seem worth the money you spend because booktok has made cheaper quality books so profitable for the publishing industry.
Worked for Waldenbooks in the early 2000's. Anyone who thinks this is a new problem should check out Nora Roberts (who also writes as J.D. Robb) and James Patterson, who have a slew of ghost writers to keep up with their insane release schedules.
I worked at Barnes and Noble for years. I have had so many customers ask me, "So is Barnes and Noble going out of bussiness?" Then there was my favorite, people who didn't like the price or that we didn't have EVERYBOOK EVER WRITTEN in stock at this one store, and would have to order the book they wanted, "I guess that's why Barnes and Noble is going under." Now there were a lot of problems there, but not having all the books wasn't one of them.
I think that's just retail in general. Also, people want a simple cause and effect. They want to see one thing they think is wrong and they want it to have a single cause and a single solution. They don't want to examine decades of geopolitics, epidemiology, supply chains and logistics, infrastructure management, and how their own personal decisions over the last fifty years have led them to this point. No, I'm obviously only talking about books.
You know, we still have "dime novels", they just cost more. Harlequin and Silhouette (and, once upon a time, Loveswept) release a set of 6 books a month in various subcategories (about 180 pages each) and then they're gone. Jayne Anne Krenz and Janet Evanovich got their start doing that.
An amazing video, as always! I'm so glad you brought this to light as I highly questioned the comparison of fast-publishing to fast-fashion, but couldn't put my finger on why I thought the pieces didn't belong in the same puzzle, so to speak. I also appreciated the note you made at the end saying it's ok to not like the books you don't like, but people being shamed and judged by what they do like to read needs to stop.
I remember my Victorian great-grandmother ironically smacking me with a newspaper when she found me reading on of her own daughter’s smut novels and said, “No dime novels in my house!” I had no idea what she was talking about, but she was a librarian, so I figured it meant junky stuff like Disney.
I don’t fully agree that the majority of the conversation should be focused on non-fiction BUT I loved the history on publishing. It was really interesting! Also excellent points about comparing *true* fast fashion to issues in publishing.
As a historian i am horrified that face reading is trending. Thank you for putting out this content. I hope that it helps end the tread. I enjoy watching your videos on fashion. Im glad to see you using your platform to inform people on the dangers of "face maping"
I'm so glad you used the Lady's Home Journals I sent you! This is Jenna, the Librarian! See libraries are awesome lol! This is also a great topic, so of course, I'm super interested!
As someone who used to work in publishing, the self-publishing arena makes me cringe. So many self-publishing presses take advantage of first-time authors who don't know how publishing works (editing, copyediting, marketing, etc) and use contract loopholes to sell the book behind the author's back. I had to walkthrough a picture book author why she can't do anything about her press selling her book through Amazon when she wanted to sell only through her website.
Very well done. I spent my working life in trade publishing as a production editor and copy editor. Delighted to see you understand the industry and its 19th-century origins.
Thank you so much for this video. Over the past few months my #4 son and i have talked about turning his "worlds" into books. He is a 15 year old high functioning autistic child with ADHD and mild cerebral palsy. While he scores very high on iq test...because of his other peculiarities more mainstream jobs are not going to work for him. BUT he has AMAZING world building and storytelling abilities. We homeschool so i have been looking into programs that teach writing and if you research publishing...well you will be 2 times more confused. We were talking about really getting down to business after the first of the year chaos ends.. and here you are... Thank you again.
He should practice writing, whatever regulary to start with. to get a routine. If thats in a way done however. Praxis might be good? And not be perfectionist, which might be hard , i guess..
Ann Radcliffe's books, no matter how silly they are from any point of view, caused an insane fascination with gothic art within the regency society of England. It gave work to a lot of painters, landscapers and other authors. So yeah, silly entertaining books can cause more things than take our minds off things. And I'm sure they had typos too. 😅
Barbara Cartland, the Queen of Romances, could dictate one book a day. Also very formulaic. Some were good, most were meh. My bff in high school loved them. I preferred the more modern romances and regency ones. Georgette Heyer is an amazing romance author who still gets reprinted every couple of years or so.
Barbara would shamelessly rip off Georgette Heyer with a wimpier female lead - I used to be outraged as a teenager (who went on to study Mech Eng and still reads Romance 20 years later)
If you love Georgette Heyer try Patrician Veryan- she was named “a worthy successor to Georgette Heyer” in the mid 1980s. Although I think she’s a mixture of Heyer and Baroness Orczy.
This couldn't have come at a better time, for me! I am a published author, but not in the mainstream. I am preparing my first, made for the mains, book based on my fathers life! Also, I am now going to cover my damn camera! You scare me! LOL
Hi Abby, I just wanted to say this was really well put-together and informative (which, honestly, your content always is) and I appreciated the insights from your own publishing experiences. Much love!
I’ve noticed misprints and errors becoming WAAAYYY more common nowadays than even five years ago. And with every. single. publisher.
Extend your deadlines! We can wait! In fact, we really need to learn to wait for things. Please take longer to release copies of books, publishers.
Unfortunately, publishers aren’t pushing out copies to satisfy readers, it’s a broader issue that involves budgets and turnover. It’s a complicated issue, and the issues of capitalism are at its core, not the readers and their expectations.
It doesn't take longer to edit a book. With a trad pub timeline of up to 2 years from acceptance to publication, there is more than enough time to edit. What is lacking is investment. They won't pay for multiple rounds of edits and proofreading. And for indies, with editing costing $1000 to $5000 per book, it quickly becomes prohibitive.
Everything is being pushed out too fast nowadays. Writers, artists, scientists, engineers; nobody is given enough time to do things thoroughly anymore!
its really interesting that half of the time people are like "if you don't read you're stupid" and the other half is "what you read is wrong" no wonder many people don't even try to start to read for fear of being judged.
As a voracious reader who took on the challenge of reading all the classics when I was in Jr. High in the 60s...and deciding I didn't like most of them!...when my preteen son didn't like reading, I pushed comic books and manga. Any reading is better than no reading!
My mother has changed her reading preferences from the harlequin romances she read ravenously when I was young. Since she's expanded her reading genre she frequently comments on things she's read. I'd get the same book so we could have book club type discussions, but I can't keep up with her book a day habit 😊
In this case I do think it has made a difference what is read.
What kills me, and I've met several people who take this stance, is the view that written fiction is wrong because it's "not true", so they only read non-fiction, BUT they watch a lot of sitcoms.
This is not to slam sitcom watchers or non-fiction readers, just wishing people could take the next step and be aware they're still choosing fiction if they're watching sitcoms.
Not to mention judging/looking down on people for using audio books. As a kid I was a prolific reader. When my ADHD became more pronounced with age, reading a physical book became very difficult for me. If people look down on me for using audio books, they can absolutely go do one.
My mother was a librarian. She believed anything you read was good for you and would eventually lead you to reading other stuff. Cereal boxes, magazines, comics were all just gateway drugs to other literature.
This is a bit random, but I feel this video about dime novels and newspaper serialisations and the backlash against them explains the attitude towards Jo's newspaper stories in Little Women from her future husband. Instead of being like "hey, it's so cool you write these sensational stories about fantastical murders and stuff, cause it's fun to read and you can take care of your sister" he does the snobby outrage "you are polluting the minds of the public and I would sooner my niece and nephew go blind than read such trash".
YES and also just how that whole story line plays out in the movies (it's been a few years since I read the book), but while I was researching this video I was so stuck on how Jo would have/should have been looking to women like Ann for career inspiration and motivation. Knowing what I've learned, it really changes Jo's story...adds a lot of context and nuance to it.
I also thought of Alcott and her mentions of dime novels in Eight Cousins; her character uses the same 'mind rotting, morals destroying' comments!
This got me thinking about Little Women. In part 1 of the book Jo is originally inspired to start writing sensationalised stories after hearing about a woman who makes a living writing them. The negative attitude towards that type of writing appears in part 2 of the book. Part 2 was written several years after part 1 was written and published. I wonder if Louisa May Alcott changed her mind and started to dislike sensationalised stories after part 1 was published. And I wonder if being traditionally published influenced her opinion.
Little Women was original published in a magazine, Saint Nicholas if I remember correctly.
It's also really frustrating--Alcott wrote so many trashy novels (A Long Fatal Love Chase is the one that got republished a number of years ago--it features bigamy, spousal abuse, and someone falling in love with a priest) and her moralising in her better-known works seems extremely hypocritical in contrast.
I feel like you touched on this a little bit, but this ‘X are destroying the Y’ (especially when X are young people, women, poor people and Y is something that older, wealthy, privileged folks have attached a nostalgic sense of prestige to) is one of those awful cyclical trends that we should get rid of, and this ‘iron flame controversy’ is just the latest iteration. Honestly very boring by this point.
but they will keep at it. i remember the d&d then the early video games, they couldnt get too hard at the arcades because you dont take them home, but anything that allows regular people have fun has got to be bad seems to be the problem.
Oh yh ive caught myself doing it recently... Made me realize im getting old.
I do still find it hilarious thought that my Generation (millenials in their 30s) have already convinced themselves that their favorite Media were the Last time good Media was Made ever. The amount of people i know who even try to listen to new music and instead live in their nostalgia bubble where Bad music Just didnt Happen (dragostea din Tei, anyone? Owl City? Those weird las Ketchup people?).
It helps that i read a Lot of old and even ancient stuff. Reading about people complaining about how horrible the "youth" from their time period is, really Drives Home that im Not Special. Just getting old 😂
Yes😊😊
I feel like this is just part of the human condition honestly 😂 we’ve always been a superstitious lot! 😅
Many classic authors started with serials like Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo. They were paid by the word, so that's why there are so much descriptions and subplots.
Dickens would have been huuuuge on AO3. 300k+ meandering slow burn fics where the main characters are all orphans who get assaulted in various ways before hitting it rich with a hot 1%er spouse with Trauma. Add ABO dynamics to Great Expectations and change the character names to those of a popular ship and its show and he'd be the unquestionable ruler of fandom
I cannot express to you just how thoroughly this comment changed my view of Great Expectations (the only school-assigned book I ever hated) 😂
Common misconception: Dickens wasn't paid by the word! Can't speak on Victor Hugo though
My mom has a learning disability and dyslexia and dyscalculia and she learned how to read from short romance novels in the 1970's and 1980's that were the modern equivalent of dime novels.
She says that she eventually realized that they all have about the same plot (😂) , but that they helped her want to learn to read because they were interesting and she was driven to find out what happened next.
I think that dime novels and penny dreadfuls probably similarly brought about the literacy of the United States lower classes, which is a happy state of being, given that we are mostly literate this day and age. ☺️❤️
I just commented on how these easy to read stories helped me regain my ability to read. I could probably come up with at least 10 benefits of them.
I used to struggle a lot with reading myself. Probably connected to my ADHD somehow (I still have trouble with writing). Anyway reading light novels like Nancy Drew got me reading. And it kept me reading. I would never have moved on to reading the classics if I didn’t start somewhere. Also I use what I refer to as “popcorn literature” (cause it’s light and easy to digest) between series or during recovery from an intense read. They definitely have their place. And I have noticed that it takes some skill to write them well. Otherwise they can get very repetitive. Setting, character, and language must be just so as to both be light enough to read casually and be engaging enough to enjoy. It’s a skill.
If I had a dollar for every time people got together to drag female authors and their readers through the mud for spurious reasons I'd be a billionaire...
A disabled female author too 😔
Hyperbolic much?
Probably, but not by much. It's an almost constant humm going on in the industry. As a female author of romance I see almost daily criticism of female authors on facebook and other social media platforms. The funny thing is the industry is far more accepting of romance and romance authors than the average Joe, considering it earns more than any other genre, they know where their bread is buttered and aren't daft enough to bite the hand that literally feeds them. But the public is not nearly as respectful, or even understanding. The criticism that romance authors cause women to have unrealistic expectations, such as respect and open affection, is constant. @@debblouin
Meh, being a female author is no excuse for delivering mediocre storytelling.
Many of them are excellent authors. Their work is not why they're being criticised. They're being criticised for being female in a public space. Tell me, @@juliajs1752 did the guys pick you yet? If not, your internalised misogyny is showing loud and clear, so I'm sure they'll get to you soon.
Can we all agree that Abby clipping her microphone to a bar spoon is a mood?
💯 😂😂😂 We used to have a set of those we used for iced tea! Glad someone else noticed. 😂😂😂
YUP 😀
I need one of those!
I am a librarian, and girls and women that approach me to look for books with romance always act so ashamed. It takes so much courage for them to even ask and even after that when I try to probe to find out what they like (there's a lot of variety for different taste), it can be quite difficult for them to voice it. I get so annoyed with discussions about how terrible whatever new female author of these kind of books is. I hear it everywhere, from the TH-cam comment section to dinner parties. Even people who say they realise how sexist and classist the reaction to Twilight was will try to justify why this time it's different and their sexist and classist mocking of this new book is fine and good this time. This just results in women and girls being ashamed of their taste and afraid of voicing what they like or becoming incapable of asking for what they want. I am so tired of this bs.
Some of us (probably not the majority) didn't go ew at Twilight (or even hear about it) until they started making movies and we found out that it was written by a mormon with a lot of mormon influences, and that there were so many old women being super gross at the very young actors just because the actors were playing their favourite "hottie". Basically a combo of anti-mormonism and anti creepy "old" ladies (30+) being disgusting fans of something that seemingly was not written for them but for teens. So, basically very unfair bias because of a vocal gross minority part of the fandom, like talking shit about "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic" because of the creepy minority fans or talking shit about "Rick & Morty" because of the creepy minority fans who harassed underpaid McD workers. It's really ridiculous to judge a work by their fandom (especially a vocal minority) and I try to avoid falling into that trap now that i'm older and wiser, but it wasn't sexism that fuelled our annoyance with it. ..I'm trying to remember what the heck the point of my comment was. Probably that sometimes this sort of shaming can get worse because the sexists get unintentional reinforcements from people who are against sexism just because we get bogged down with being against specific details and don't realize that it doesn't achieve what we wanted to.
I had no interest in bullying teens for liking what I thought was a poor quality book, past me wanted "old" people to stop taking up space in the Twilight fandom because I thought they were unable to be part of it yet remain moral towards teen and near-teen actors. Plus wanting the teens to be aware of the mormon biases in the books. When you don't evaluate your actions within the framework of the bigger whole, it's easy to contribute towards great harm. It's good to ask jerks (like past me) what they think they will achieve with their shittalk, how they think their venting will affect the greater discourse. Because usually they don't think, they think they don't count, that as an individual they can't contribute with much harm at all.
@@Call-me-AlI don't think it started with the movies, since I remember when those books came out, and I was right at the age when all the girls I knew were reading them - I didn't even hear that the author was Mormon until fairly recently, so if anything, people thought the books were too spicy. I always thought it began when adults became "aware" of them.There might be some problems with those books, but a lot of the other media teenage and younger girls liked got mocked too - Justin Bieber being another good example - so there's definitely some sexism involved.
@@GriffinHuntress yeah, definitely a lot of sexism. It just really sucks that the sexism spread further because of us who didn't realize that our insults of the material itself just emboldened the sexists and made their shaming seem more ubiquitous than it was.
"Romance is the only genre judged by its worst examples." Someone said - not me, I just agree.
One of my favorite author intrusions in a book is when Jane Austen defends novel writers *and* readers in Northanger Abbey. ♥ "Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried."
Nora Robert's is most prolific under a couple of pen names, as is Stephen King, James Patterson, and many others. Carolyn Keene was actually several people writing simultaneously to keep up with demand. I run a school library, and many of the author names repeat across all across graphic novels, fiction, and nonfiction. Dickenson wrote pop fiction, Alcott wrote it, and were not considered great authors until decades later. Shakespeare wasn't either. Time decides who gets to be a classic, not people. Unbending and enjoy what pleases you, folks.
Bless you for running a school library right now!
As someone who worked in the library field for years one thing that the big publishers don't seem to get is that libraries are not preventing people from buying books. I say this because publishers need to stop charging libraries up to 10x more for books then they do the general public. The reality is that libraries probably encourage people to buy books because they can easily find an author they like without running the risk of buying a book but once they fall in love with an author will probably buy the books.
Agreed! I don’t own many books but I would probably own even less if I had to buy them all first. I will purchase my favourites after I read them
100%
At $10-30/ book there is *no way* I’m doing anything other than learning about a new author at the library. If I love them (and after reading their back catalog), when they release their newist book, I won’t wait around for three/four months for the hold schedule to get to me; I’ll buy their book because $20 for a guaranteed day of entertainment is worth it to me. But not until I know that the entertainment is *guaranteed*.
There are several authors I have on an auto-buy schedule, but at the prices publishers set, it’s *never* going to be a new author unless she’s also an indie selling her ebook for sub-$5/6.
I think that works often with music too.
I try to check out a book I'm kinda interested in a read it and sometimes it makes me go out and buy my own copy and saves me money! I love the library and it has many books that I don't tend to see on many shelves in store!
Not to mention that libraries are one of the biggest purchasers of books in the first place.
I had heard a few people saying, “the publishing industry is becoming similar to fast fashion” and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why it didn’t sound right but you perfectly explained it!
I was doing some research into the early history of ice skating in Vermont, and it went through a similar period of critique as dime novels where concern started with men and then quickly went to women. At first, when it was associated with boys and men, people were primarily concerned with how many people died. Then in 1851, women picked it up with a vengeance, and the critiques suddenly went to, “Everybody who ice skates is a straight up slut,” then “Omg just let women skate because at least they can’t read novels when they’re on the ice.”
Oh my god please tell me more about any of this (I figure skate and am fascinated by stuff that starts as “mens” and becomes “women’s” or the other way around and am generally fascinated by everyday ppl American history)
Sorry for bringing in a few male examples; Shakespeare was the original SNL of his time, and Bacon was the French language art house. Both Sherlock Holmes and Dorian Grey were written on a bet; Holmes was published as a serial before being bound. No one remembers that ACD was the GRRM of his time, becoming famous for his historical fiction first.
I am currently following Jill Bearup's saga on the self-publishing of Just Stab Me Now, and it is fascinating.
LOVE Jill Bearup !
Yes!
Loved Jill... To bad she's not an Ally to LGBTQIA :/
@@natnuss98 ???? What? I haven't followed her stuff lately, what happened?
@@Call-me-Al something terfy iirc. But I never really followed her so I didn't really catch most of it. I just remember Bernadette's discord being abuzz
4:04 We need to bring Victorian trash literature back. Jane Austen wrote parodies of gothic pieces.
I love that it was such and affectionate parody, though. Like, yes, it makes fun of Catherine for her taste, but in the same way people make fun of their younger selves' love of Twilight. Which tracks, given that Twilight is basically the spiritual successor to those trashy gothic novels
I had to read some of them due to her. Like, was Radcliffe that bad? Radcliffe was fun!
I assure you the gothic is back and there are at least a dozen modern gothic novels out there right now
@@jeannetteng775 Then that’s awesome
I work in comics, and while similar there are differences but 100% this. I see dime novels a bit like tv shows, they’re for the masses and produce sensational entertaining stories to consume, and there will still be people going “ew you watch TV? You should read more.” Then when they do read they read stuff similar to the TV they like and its “oh i didn’t mean when i said read those books!”
11 years ago Geek & Sundry made a video of them singing about how freaking long GRRM was taking to write Wind of Winter. It was called Write Like the Wind. The man's writing speed has become a meme at this point.
I’m def drinking the “he’ll never finish the series” kool-aid at this point 🤣
I gave up after Feast for Crows.
This is all very valid and interesting, I think the main thing people were complaining about though about the rushed release of Iron Flame was the fact that 75% of the books were misprints, and there were like 8 DIFFERENT kinds of misprints. Missing chapters, repeating chapters, crooked spine titles (as in halfway across the front cover crooked), flat out the wrong title on the spine, etc etc etc...
I hope that people keep them, as they could be worth something. Not because its that good, but the rarity and infamity make them probably valuable to collectors.
eaders and book lovers then to be a lot more critical about what they buy. Most people will save up money to buy a book, because we know is supposed to be impossible to make a book for cheap, even if is for the worng reasons (publishing is expensive and writters are paid very little). I don't know about the US, bbut here in Brazil we know books are expensive, but accept that as a sign of quality. I you want a cheap book you can buy second hand and it's fine.
Man, that description of how dime novels went from being written by big-name authors to simply being a process hits close to home. I've been working as a ghostwriter off and on for over 15 years now, and my gods the dip in quality and pay is outrageous. We're supplied with a plot that hits certain key tropes (I'm in the unenviable position of trying to work these plots to make sense, as I fix the story and then write it, hooray, look Ma, I'm using my history degree!), and then have to churn out however many words per week. The pay is absolutely LAUGHABLE, but in this economy, what can you do, y'know? When I started, I could kind of, sort of, eek out enough money to pay my rent and some other bills. Now, writing the same amount in the same genre, I can maybe cover groceries for the month. Maybe. All those historic romances with the bad covers? Yeah, you're welcome, and holy crap do we need a union. There's been a boom in the purchasing since Bridgerton, but that is NOT reflected on the poor souls churning them out.
This also doesn't touch on the race/gender issue with publishing either. Diversity in publishing is being paid lip service, but the reality is way different. My real name I get paid under is very, very androgynous (like I usually get male-oriented advertisements), and I keep my ethnicity very carefully under wraps (even now, I'm using my husband's account to comment because I can't afford to get it traced back to me). When going back and forth with a publisher about a specific nonsense plot point, the moment it was revealed I was a woman, I was instantly "too emotional" to continue the discussion, when I was about as invested as I was in what colour socks I was going to wear that day. Ghostwriters that do big, flashy political or celebrity biographies tend to be men, and the ones like me slapping together bodice-rippers are women and paid pennies.
Thank you for leaving this comment. It was interesting to read, because these niche issues don't get much mainstream attention. Your work has so much value; you and your peers deserve better compensation.
So it seems Abby totally missed how yes even fiction can suffer from a “sweatshop” system. When she said that it couldn’t I went - have you met capitalism? trust me, it definitely can and is happening.
Before watching the video, my hottake: It's capitalism more so than TikTok.
GRRM ruined unfinished book series for me. The thought of starting an unfinished series now fills me with anxiety. I can't even read Brandon Sanderson series until he's finished them, and that man cranks out books like a Ford assembly line.
Ok i saw a tiktok where Sanderson was signing books and he went into this whole thing about how he developed a signature that doesn’t require him to move his wrist and yeah that man is a damn machine 🤣
Oh, my sweet summer child, some of us were scarred by Robert Jordan
Patrick Rothfuss…
I really appreciated that he had a plan. GRRM does not. I can deal with it, but there is a difference. Yes, some don't like Sanderson's writing to the end of WoT (I was fine with it), but it was respectful and following Jordan's plans.@@Tisiloves
@tracybartels7535 oh yes, the end was fine when we actually got it, but some of us were waiting a very very long time
So, I love the historical background in this video, as always. It's fascinating to see women's prominence in the world of dime novels.
That being said, as an indie bookseller, I think the fast fashion comparison is apt. Not because of the content of the books - though I think they needed editing, much like most of the self-published books that get picked up and turned out by trad pubs without the usual level of care they put into their original books. But because of the way the release happened.
I can't tell you how horrible this release was for literally everyone involved. They kept the accompanying holiday edition of Fourth Wing secret until after people found it and started preordering it without even knowing what it was - we booksellers had to sign NDAs and couldn't tell anyone. They (Red Tower / Macmillan) pushed us to host those big midnight release parties and then poured their resources into the chain bookstores instead of indies. They shipped out the books at the last minute, and only SOME bookstores who placed orders even received our copies. A ton of bookstores - that had taken preorders from customers, and placed their orders months in advance - had their orders canceled because there wasn't enough stock. For a little bookstore to have to refund customers for preorders is a huge, huge blow. And then when we got them, they looked like shit. I'm the one who unpacked and received hundreds of copies of Iron Flame and the holiday edition of Fourth Wing, and I had to ignore printing defects and damaged books that I would normally remove from stock because they don't pass our muster to sell to customers - because there was no ability to replace those copies. And then, unsurprisingly, yes, customers got upset because the books looked terrible. The title was wrong, the books were printed upside down, the maps were missing, the sprayed edges were rushed and looked awful, the stain rubbed off on your hands, there were so many more typos than normal - there was no quality control on this release. And it's because they rushed it out to get it on the shelves before Christmas. Even though they could've waited a few more months and put out actual decent quality books, and sold just as many copies.
And whom do people get mad at when their preorders don't arrive, or their copies look bad? Who has to take returns and lose time and money on the refunded sales? Who's always the face of this, despite having little to no control over it? Booksellers. Indie booksellers more than most, especially because we have to charge, you know, the price printed on the cover of the book instead of selling at heavy discounts like chain stores or online retailers, and so many people already think we're swindling them because of that. It sucks. But just this once, people actually transferred their frustration onto the publisher for putting all of us into this situation, and we had a wider conversation about the industry. That's a big deal.
So unfortunately I have to agree with the fast fashion comparison. They pumped out this release as quickly as possible, knowing the quality was bad and that the books consequently would not be the investment they were advertised as. The original Fourth Wing release was so much better than the "fancy" (and more expensive!) special releases - the quality of the book was better and the dragon edges were actually really cool. They didn't keep the stenciled edges on the special releases specifically because it would take longer - they were prioritizing getting the book out faster over making a book of similar quality to the first one, because they knew everyone was going to buy it regardless, so why bother? (Yes, the reason the stenciled edges were gone was confirmed by reps.) And then loads of people ended up with duplicate copies of a book they already own and read, thinking it would be something special, and it's not. It's just a mediocre use of resources sitting on their shelf, forgotten and dismissed.
[And re: B&N making a comeback - yes, BookTok has been huge, but don't underestimate James Daunt's work. Once he came on board, they had an immediate turnaround. He's secured so many B&N exclusives and it's giving them a huge advantage. (And yes, indie booksellers are bitter about being left out once again...)]
Anyway, apparently that's my whole thesis. Maybe some people are using the fast fashion term dismissively, but I really think it's a valuable comparison.
I agree with your comment. Fast fashion is an apt description. It isn't a dime novel, these books and special editions are pricey. Publishers take advantage of the reader's enthusiasm and put out these rushed copies. The disrespect to all involved is astounding.
I hope some of that keep the editions art least to like that could get collexters value if they hever various misprints.
Its not even fast fashon, fanfics and that did always exist, and thats, i guuess that. As did smut and that. The thing is the erotic and trashy media, always had its own place, pulp magazines being no different. And valuable. As that
Like ther should be a different between not always good but entertaining faster experimental, and a finished novel thats overworked. And the price there definitly isnt.
I was working at a publisher when James Daunt came onboard. I'm in Canada, so his work hasn't affected me directly, but I loved reading all the stuff about his approach in industry journals and newsletters. The picture they painted of him made me cheer on B&N's success even though I've never been to one.
Any time anyone mentions Fourth Wing, I feel compulsively obligated to mention Dragonfall--another dragon book that came out the same day and has a queer romance and is super fun!
Also thanks for this!
GOOGLING NOW TY 🫶🏻🙏🏻
Well..... guess I need to read that now.
And the author actually lives in Scotland and is such a sweetheart
7:03 Wow this is blowing my mind. Also, if Mary Shelley can ‘Frankenstein’ as a summer project, I’m sure there are equally if not more thrilling stories of authors during that time.
After such an important and fascinating discussion, the "spider monkey" clip truly pushed me over the edge into hysteria. A brilliant video as always
As a local librarian, thanks for the shoutout. Go to your local library and read whatever catches yout fancy, be it the smuttiest books ever or the longest classical novel. What matters with reading is how much you enjoy it!
Also, I really want to read the Milliner's apprentice now, where can I find it?
Please drop a link if you find it!🙏
I find it funny that this printing method is how Charles Dickings got his start. His stuff came full circle that printing chapter by chapter for a working class audience, and is now considered classic literature.
The cheep print them fast publishing is also how penguin books and ladybirds books got started.
he didn't just get his start either - he went on to set up and run a magazine that published other people's work (including a lot of the ones who went on to become classics e.g. Elizabeth Gaskell's books)
As an editor, I do find myself looking up a lot of different topics to fact-check the authors I work with. It's an experience at times--none of the publishers I work for have the kind of budget available to hire someone to do in-depth checks of foreign language use, so my authors are stuck with me and my linguistics degree to check those. I try to steer my authors to be sensitive and thoughtful when including minority and other vulnerable populations in their stories, but I can only do so much.
Maybe I'm expecting too much, but it seems like--if I were a writer, and I'm not--i would get a proofreader who actually speaks the language to check over any attempted use of languages I don't speak. Otherwise, it would come off as "blah blah, words that don't matter because they're not in English"
@@birdyfeederz7940An author could definitely do that, but the issue is money. Only the most successful authors make money and specialist freelancers are especially expensive. A basic copyedit in Canada is $30-50 per hour. (Copyeditors do accuracy checks, not proofreaders.) A copyeditor who can work in multiple languages, such as Quebeçois editors, can charge twice as much because there are fewer of them. There are definitely authors who spring for it, but it'll be from their own savings.
It’s tricky, because you generally have to hire a proofreader, and you aren’t getting paid to write your first manuscript. I’m working on a historical fiction project, and I’m super lucky to have a friend who is an extremely experienced editor who knows a lot of history who is helping me avoid blatant anachronisms, and is doing it for free, but not everyone has a bestie who speaks a “niche” language like Scots Gaelic. And in my experience folks tend to cut corners on costs even if they intend to do everything to the fullest (expensivest) when they start off with a project.
Which reminds me - I have like 5 hrs of a very dry history book to get through before I can write about 8 lines with some accuracy so I need to log off TH-cam 😂
aww thank you for placing title names on the screen when you use episodes of TV shows\movies🤩👍
this is such a nice quality of life touch, it also shows that you care about your audience, and care if we understand what you're saying in the video, and also not expecting us to know every movie and show in existence. Just wonderful, I personally really appreciate it!
Unfortunately we live in a society where anything that is loved by women is dragged through the mud and labeled as "silly" "superficial" "not good enough" by others, especially hobbies and interests of young girls and women. But hobbies that men and young boys have are never put under as much scrutiny and ridicule.
Tbh I've heard this before and I disagree. It implies a few things, that reading is only criticized because women like it and not because writers can release bad books, that the things men and young boys like aren't scrutinized in it's own right, and that this whole thing stems from misogyny which nowadays feels more like a deflection from critism in my eyes. This might be confirmation bias or just a lack of deeper research, but I dont think I've ever heard of any criticism of the book space that surrounds itself around the "women bad" crowd, especially since a majority of the detractors of these bad books tend to be women.
Its okay to enjoy things that people few as trashy and bad, but when people have genuine criticism of it then it should probably be taken note of as often as all the praise instead of being immediately dismissed as sexism
@@arkkon2740 thank you for your input on the topic, and while I agree that much of the scrutiny comes from women, on "bad books" or books that is perceived as bad (not every book is everyone's cup of tea) but I have also personally been shamed for reading specific book types, like romance, because its perceived as shallow and "not real literature." I have also seen criticism for romantasy and young adult books that are marketed mostly for women and young girls. This is a conversation that has points on both sides and I could talk about for ages.
@@kayliekat6158 yeah its pretty toxic to just push your dislike for a book onto its reader, thats bad. Thats what happened with twilight back then too and I think we all remember that, kinda thought we grew past that. However the fact that its marketed towards a female audience really shouldn't mean much in the case of talking about the bokm rather than the readerbase because its target audience might not be its actual audience. At the same time, a majority of the books that get a lot of attention tend to be female targetted so I feel like at the stem of the discussion, its more about the types of books being hyped up imo. Imo the past few years I've seldom seen books targetting male audiences get this hype and I believe thats part of the reason why you dont see those books get that same scrutiny in the first place, If its was 50/50 and it's a majority of women writers who get shit then that is definitely a discussion
But onto the topic of content, these books percieved as bad have very "shallow" praise, thats kinda the best I can word it. People say the books are fun, or they're there for the spice, or its a fast, but those factors tend to be a negative for people because there's nothing more to it despite the book being hundreds of pages. Fourth Wing is a good example of this as there are many people who didn't like the book, and they've also said the "romantasy" aspect is really just a shallow romance with a nonsense fantastical aspect. The word "romantasy" implies that an audience that might not want one half would look for the other, but the people looking for the fantasy don't like it, and the people looking for the romance have complained about how bad the characters are connected.
This explanation of the publishing industry gives me a lot more compassion for some of the authors I read. When I get frustrated about the typos and serious plot issues, I always get frustrated that they don’t have better editors around them, but it might actually be that their editing timelines don’t actually allow the author time to make the book better because the publisher just wants the book released.
As a professional editor, I actually don't get frustrated by typos because all editors and proofreaders are human, so we're not 100% perfect. Even with several rounds of editing, things slip through. Especially if the editor is given a shorter timeline than they'd prefer from the publisher (many of whom are freelancers btw).
This is a welcome video. Three of my non-fiction books were published by Random House in London 1989-1992. No details, but I never made a profit. The expenses for photography alone exceeded the advance on the first two. I feel that you very clearly laid out the process and issues. Thank you.
Remember that authors like Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle etc were originally published in serial form in magazines and Jane Austen amongst others "self published " at least one of their books, not to mention Virginia Woolf and co starting their own publishing company in order to publish their books..
And Jane makes frequent reference to the "fashion" for "gothic novels " which scandalized "society " in her day...
“I only read smut” you’re a legend for that Abby fr
They did not market Fourth Wing as a "Dime Novel". That's the problem. They hyped it as if it was the next LOTR or something akin. It's just dishonest.
who is they? booktok or the publishers?
As a fellow lurker in the shadows and certified Book Dragon, I approve this video!
Some times a good, trashy novel is exactly what a woman needs. But comparing such things to fast fashion, Temu and Shein and their ilk is preposterous!
I don't know why these ppl think "trashy" books is only just becoming a thing, like no, trashy books have always existed lmao
Whatever your opinion on the current quality of books and publishing industry, I cannot urge everyone enough to get a library card!!
I think that there definitely is a problem with snobbery and elitism when it comes to this. However, I also think that it's problematic how it's now becoming possible for some books to get a ton of attention purely because they went viral on tiktok. The books can be awfully written (in the worst case they can be marketed to YA audience but feature really problematic relationships) yet still sell a ton of copies. Because let's be honest, we have a problem today with wanting to consume content that is easy to understand, really quickly. And then books that might be actually written really well but aren't as short-form content friendly just don't get as much attention.
I also don't see many people admitting that many of these viral tiktok books are just like a book form of soap operas or romcoms. There is zero problem with wanting to consume trashy content for ones enjoyment. I love reading classics but I enjoy reality tv sometimes. But call those trashy novels what they are! Besides, a book can be simple to understand and still written well. I just worry that small authors really don't get the recognition they deserve because they are shadowed by these authors that got big thanks to the tiktok algorithm.
You have to always remember that things go viral or become popular for a reason, because it's well liked. So what if it's "problematic", thats just another word for book elitism, only "great" classics or books written by men are allowed to be problematic because they are seen as "smart" while getting minimal backlash in comparison to the massive backlash every other author gets (grrm is a very obvious example).
That reminds me, I found your book in a Japanese bookstore! I was pleasantly surprised when I picked it up
Yeah!! My friend picked up the first one for me (it’s on the mantle in the video) and she’s gonna get me the second one too! I love looking at it - it’s so wild to me to think that those books are sold in Japan 😭
@@AbbyCox it made me really happy for you, also the 18th century is really popular on Japan thanks to the Rose of Versailles manga so it makes sense. (France gave a very fancy official medal to the author for helping share French culture over there)
There's also been an interesting shift in the last few years of lol1ta fashion brands making more historical inspired looks, like bustles, 18th century inspired dresses or 1840s inspired bodices, it's all beautiful
This was not a crossover in my interests that I saw coming but I am HERE for it!!! 😂 *chef's kiss* Abby!!
Louisa May Alcott actually wrote a lot of potboiler sensationalistic stories under the name A.M. Barnard, before Little Women and her other wonderful children's lit. She was the main support of her family most of her life.
I remember reading serialized “spicy” stories in Red Book at my grandma’s in the early 80’s when I was bored.
Me too! After so many years, I can't get one out of my mind about a girl who falls in love with a half-man, half-horse that was kept hidden on a nearby horse farm!
Also, many of the books that we now consider classics were originally published as serials. They only became classics because they were popular enough to persist!
I absolutely agree with you on this topic, however I have to say that books are really really expensive these days. Rushed stories/ books are not a dime anymore. So I understand the frustration and disappointment to an extent when you pay a high price for a book that the author had not enough time to really think through and edit. I know libraries exist, but as someone who isn’t from the us it is really hard to get access to certain books you are interested in. Not every book gets translated so you have to buy them.
plus library waiting lists are sometimes SUPER long, the more popular the books is.
This is why I'm glad I live in the uk, we have The Works, a store that sells all kinds of cheap stuff including book. All the dime popular books are really cheap £1-£8. Most of them being an average of £4-£6. Idk what that is in dollars lol
Wow, yes, what a problematic comparison. Honestly hadn't thought this through and I'm glad you named it. Enjoyed learning the history of publishing, another terrific Abby deep dive 🙌
Thank you! 🥰🥰
You should look up G.K. Chesterton’s essay, “A Defense of Penny Dreadfuls.” May not be exactly your speed, but he makes an interesting case for not losing our heads in fear of “the decline in ART”. He says something to the effect of, “Stories are essential; literature is a luxury.”
Another thing to bring up about ethics in the publishing industry is that those who produce and edit books are often paid poorly--there's a lot of freelancing and a lot of competition and that leads to the publishers being able to exploit the people who make up a significant portion of the publishing process. I recently saw an article that recommended authors submit books to a publisher who I know from experience does not pay their proofreaders--proofers are paid in ebooks from the company, with the vague promise that if one of their paid editors leaves the company, the volunteers from their proofer group will be first under consideration for hiring. I proofed a couple novels for the company when I was first starting out and needed experience for my resume, but didn't stay for long because I can't eat ebooks. I'm a good editor, but the amount I make from editing doesn't reflect the time and skill I bring to the table, so I'm currently working on pivoting into a different career. The reality that most books don't make a lot of money contributes to this problem.
I've recently been watching more book review youtubers and I find it interesting because my understanding was it's become more like fast fashion in that booktok is pushing people to consume more and more, to own more and more books so people can have bookshelves full of books that they'll toss out in a year or two. Not a bookshelf full of beloved books they truely care about.
This video was super informative and gave me lots of thought about aspects I hadn't considered from that statement, though. My experience with booktok has been relatively non-existant as When ai have posted to it it has been reviews of books I checked out from the library, reguardless of if they're new or not.
That's how I understood the statement too. Just in the sense of the overconsumption of the books, not necessarily in the sense of HOW they're made. The comparison is not great, in retrospect, since it almost makes fast fashion look not as bad as it really is.
According to "common sense," the publishing industry is perpetually on the verge of collapse. And the end of Great American Writing is always upon us. Twenty years ago, it was Twilight and its fanfiction 50 Shades of Grey, and in this time, some phenomenal books have been published and been loved. Life goes on and it might be sisyphean effort to parse through the hundreds of books published a year and a truly immense back catalog but thats part of reading.
Remember to visit your local library and use your library card
I think that perhaps the most annoying thing about the comparison of “TikTok books” to fast fashion is that books are (obviously) made of paper and are thus much easier to recycle whereas fast fashion is terrible for the environment. So regardless of the quality of the books, I would much rather people be buying books and reading then buying ridiculous amount of clothes from places like shein.
Had to laugh long and hard on that "Oxford Comma" bit ! 🤣
They'll pry the Oxford Comma from my cold, dead hands ! 💀 ☠️ 🦴 💀 ☠️
Speaking as a fiction author who has been affected (both positively and negatively) by today’s fast publishing, I think the "fast fashion" metaphor is apt - and also an example of pearl-clutching.
On the positive side, fast publishing and specifically indie publishing have removed a lot of the power of gatekeepers in the publishing industry. No publisher wants to publish your works - not unlikely when there are only about five main publishing houses in the US and they're all in NYC - or they want to pay you a smaller percentage than you (believe you) deserve? Or they'll publish your work in journals but aren't interested in short story anthologies? No problem! You can self-publish now. Take control into your own hands and keep more of the royalties than they would have given you.
On the negative side, the gatekeepers aren't defending the gates so much anymore. You barely passed sixth-grade English and haven’t got a clue about story arcs or character development? No problem! If the Big Five publishers don't like your work, you can just self-publish. And if all you care about is getting as much money in royalties as possible and don't even want your own name or pen name on it, you can use ChatGPT or another AI program to create "books" that make our beloved Hallmark Christmas movies look as complex and well-developed as LOTR and publish them under someone else's pen name just to get whatever royalties you can and who cares that the real authors whose names you're abusing cringe at the fact that you’ve clearly never even MET an actual editor. I'm currently dealing with the mess caused by one of these "writers" dropping six of these bombs onto my author page in as many months, so I'm personally aware of this problem. And yes, if this particular person/people didn’t use ChatGPT to create those bombs, they really need to go back to their middle school reading and spelling classes.
But we'll survive. We're already learning that it's necessary to trademark your pen name, not just copyright your actual work. Maybe we'll get laws passed to make that trademark actually mean something, maybe we'll find other ways to differentiate quality work from that of middle-school dropouts even when they try to pass their work off as ours, and maybe we'll do both. There might be more chaff on the market, but there will also be more wheat available. And, just like when the penny novels first made the written word accessible to the working class and created a market that hadn't existed before, the wheat that is able to come to this new market will remain when the cringeworthy chaff has mostly all blown away.
If the publisher or whoever is selling books from other authors under your name and not paying you royalties, that sounds like something a lawsuit should take care of rather quickly.
@@MichaelRainey I like that idea! Make them pay in EVERY way possible for the chaff they publish under my name!
I have SO many 'dime novels' at home. Small size (smaller than a notebook), same paper quality, even same colour in some cases! It's popular novels of the era, as well as classics, some non-fiction stuff, education, political, just all sorts of things. I have PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in one of those editions!
The comparison of fast fashion and booktok I've seen till now was mostly focused on promotion of overconsumption - book hauls (similar to clothing hauls), book trends (less space for creativity and talking only about new, trendy books instead of slightly older ones - and I by "older" I mean few years old modern fiction, not "classics"), focus on reading as much as possible because it is "productive" and sounds "smart" to say you read so much (like speeding up audiobooks or choosing shorter books to have more books read in total etc.; focus on "more" and "faster" instead of quality and fun), focus on book ownership instead of book reading resulting in huge home libraries full of unread books or books someone read just one (historically a status symbol) etc.
Book industry may be more environmentally friendly than fast fashion but if we keep producing more than we need (like plenty of books that will just sit on the shelfs for years, being read once, twice or never) is still very wasteful - paper may be recycled but what about everything else (energy, transport, factory buildings and machines, other materials etc.)?
Also, just because "something is an industry standard" or "has been there since forever" doesn't mean it's good - cheap materials and underpaid workers are industry standard and has always been like that but no one says it excuses fast fashion.
Also, the excuse "book sales are good for authors" is only preventing us from trying to find solutions that do not require overconsumtion to provide income to author and publisher; it's accepting status quo
Yes, this is such an important addition to the conversation! The fast fashion angle is NOT just about the stories being told, even if the primary article in question didn't hit all the points it could've. It's about the consumption, the quality of the physical items being purchased, and the lack of investment in the things we're buying. Not to mention that, just like with clothes, people think they can just donate their old books and they'll magically go away - even though a huge number of donated books are impossible to resell and just end up in the trash anyway.
something didn't add up with this idea and you nailed it
When I think that most of our famous French 19th-century authors would write in newspapers before publishing, and how we are snobbish about it. It makes me laugh.
Sometimes books can just be fun!
I actually already watched a booktube video about that article, disagreeing and pointing out the two industries are not comparable. Glad to see the history of dime novels and further commentary to back it from this video. Plus, the Fourth Wing book was originally published as a fancy sprayed edge edition, which doesn't exactly match the "cheap" part of fast fashion's description. Actually, books in general are still expensive lol.
As a huge fan of Sarah J Maas and Fourth Wing (I LOVED Iron Flame), I appreciate your respect when explaining trends and book popularity without dragging fans under the mud. I also think that current historical romance novels (such as Bridgeton) or "trashy" smut novels (which I totally read when I'm on my period) are completely representative of formulaic writing and massive fast production. Furthermore, as an avid reader since I was a child, I'm glad that booktok revived the industry and gave more authors the ability to present their work to a wider audience. Although I was a bit wary because of the title, I loved this video essay and the historical lesson.
(English is not my native language so please excuse any errors)
Omg, that was the funniest subtitle mistake I'v ever seen. At 5:46 Abby says "book" but somehow the subtitles think she said "fuck".
Love the shoutout to ruby dixons books those books were so good and fun they convinced me i dont need to write something super serious i can just make a pen name and write some trashy fun scifi shit and who cares if its the next great literature (though hard agree she belongs there lol) so long as its fun
From Fredric Wertham accusing comic books of causing juvenile delinquency to accusing video games of causing violent tendencies, it’s amazing how the criticism of popular media hasn’t changed at all.
Thanks for the library shout-out! We're looking forward to seeing everyone! Sincerely, a public library librarian.
An author I know, who has gone full time, publishes 4 full length novels a year, and she's three books ahead in her series. *THREE BOOKS!* When she was finally able to quit her day job because she made enough to do so, we all breathed a sigh of relief that maybe, now, she'd be able to rest a bit.
It is so hard to get published traditionally, and they're bullshit. Self publishing has it's own problems. I'm an alpha reader for a couple of authors, and we do not have much time with them before they have to be to the editor.
Self-publishing is great.
I've read some nice fantasy books by a guy who wrote the whole trilogy, then self-published them about 9 months apart. The author's note says he does it that way because 1. He doesn't want to leave the reader waiting on the sequel, and 2. It lets him revise book 1 if the plot of book 3 is going somewhere that needs a bit more foreshadowing. He doesn't want to ever have the "there's things I'd have changed about book 1 by the time the series developed, but .." moment
@@birdyfeederz7940 That makes sense. This particular author (Seanan McGuire, you should read her if you like Urban Fantasy) has been plotting her story for a very long time, and knows where all the beats are. We get one of that particular series a year, and it's truly amazing just how much of book 18 she foreshadowed in book 1.
@@Evaleastaristev Seanan is amazing, even if I'm mad at her for the last Incryptid book. I am at least excited to see how the Third Act of Toby ends! Do you know of Ilona Andrews? They have 2 series I'm aware of, one called Kate Daniels and the other Innkeeper Chronicles. They self publish, so their books are hard to find, but the writing and world building is so good.
You’re using that long bendy drinks spoon to hold that mic and honestly, WERK 🔥
There are also absolutely predatory publishers in the fiction world as well, mostly those that prey on desperate authors and charge them for services to get the book published, while knowing that the book will not sell enough to ever make up those costs.
These big best sellers are what allow publishers to take “risk” on newer authors and “riskier” books. it’s similar to celeb memoirs that always get published near Xmas, the money from those sales from people that don’t typically buy books funds a lot of the debuts for the time following their release…
This is such a hard, nuanced topic for me. I've been in the bookselling business for eight years, I've taken bookselling courses that touch on the publishing side of things, I've been to conferences, met authors, met reps, and obviously deal with publishers in the everyday workings of the bookstore. There is SO MUCH I want to complain about in regard to predatory publishing, the industry in general, amazon's grip on publishers AND readers, publishers declaring record profits while independent bookstores (even some of the most well-known and successful!) declare bankruptcy and close their doors, or set up gofundmes to keep the lights on.
But absolutely, "fast fiction" is not comparable to fast fashion. Full stop. There are definitely problems in the industries of publishing and bookselling, but successfully advertising a product is not one of them.
I live for your ranty videos. Thank you. And I might add, good old classics were published as serials, ask Alexandre Dumas
Dime novels getting ragged on reminds me of Wattpad and similar apps getting ragged on but it is a completely viable and old school method to self-publish first through serialisation and subscription via platforms like Ream.
Your top/dress is absolutely gorgeous, I adore that kind of green velvet fabrics in clothing, and the sleeves are so cute ;0
Victorians just loved comparing everything they don’t like to alcohol don’t they
BRO 😂 the clip of you asking girls at a renfaire if they'd ever read IPB and their...sheepish expressions 💖 I love it so much
A very well thought out commentary. Well done. I had to laugh when you noted the apparent formula that enables writer Ruby Dixon to be so prolific because it immediately brought to my mind James Patterson who seems to work the same way. Isn’t escapism the whole point of reading fiction regardless of the genre? Nothing wrong it’s escapism, especially in this day and age.😊
James Patterson also quite openly licenses his name, so many books that are written under his name are in fact written by other people.
I don't know why, but it reminds me of what was reportedly the response from Michael Bay over criticism that his movies are plotless excuses for explosions and cleavage. Some variant of "I make movies for teenage boys. Sue me!". Sometimes you're just in the mood to watch things blow up or read something with a formulaic happy ending
People are really quick to jump to slandering people these days. As you said at the end there’s a difference between disliking something and going to claim that they got AI to do their work for them.
God, imagine if everything 19th century middle class writers fearmongered about was actually bad for you!
People really need to support indie/self-published authors. That's where the marginalized tend to publish because the main industry is so white, etc. I love reading books that no one has heard of and hyping them.
As someone who has studied Victorian serial novels I know the history of the publishing industry. I encourage people to read whatever makes them happy. I do still find booktok to be leading towards alarming trends of people willing to spend $20 or more on writing that is the same quality as what they can get for free online. If I’m going to spend the money on something professionally published, I expect something of a higher quality than what I can find on ao3. Increasingly that is just not the case and it’s harder and harder to find books that seem worth the money you spend because booktok has made cheaper quality books so profitable for the publishing industry.
totally love your 80's look Abby !
Worked for Waldenbooks in the early 2000's. Anyone who thinks this is a new problem should check out Nora Roberts (who also writes as J.D. Robb) and James Patterson, who have a slew of ghost writers to keep up with their insane release schedules.
I worked at Barnes and Noble for years. I have had so many customers ask me, "So is Barnes and Noble going out of bussiness?" Then there was my favorite, people who didn't like the price or that we didn't have EVERYBOOK EVER WRITTEN in stock at this one store, and would have to order the book they wanted, "I guess that's why Barnes and Noble is going under." Now there were a lot of problems there, but not having all the books wasn't one of them.
I think that's just retail in general. Also, people want a simple cause and effect. They want to see one thing they think is wrong and they want it to have a single cause and a single solution. They don't want to examine decades of geopolitics, epidemiology, supply chains and logistics, infrastructure management, and how their own personal decisions over the last fifty years have led them to this point. No, I'm obviously only talking about books.
You know, we still have "dime novels", they just cost more. Harlequin and Silhouette (and, once upon a time, Loveswept) release a set of 6 books a month in various subcategories (about 180 pages each) and then they're gone. Jayne Anne Krenz and Janet Evanovich got their start doing that.
The love nuns took me out 💀💀 Morgan’s video about it was so chaotic
An amazing video, as always! I'm so glad you brought this to light as I highly questioned the comparison of fast-publishing to fast-fashion, but couldn't put my finger on why I thought the pieces didn't belong in the same puzzle, so to speak. I also appreciated the note you made at the end saying it's ok to not like the books you don't like, but people being shamed and judged by what they do like to read needs to stop.
I remember my Victorian great-grandmother ironically smacking me with a newspaper when she found me reading on of her own daughter’s smut novels and said, “No dime novels in my house!” I had no idea what she was talking about, but she was a librarian, so I figured it meant junky stuff like Disney.
I don’t fully agree that the majority of the conversation should be focused on non-fiction BUT I loved the history on publishing. It was really interesting! Also excellent points about comparing *true* fast fashion to issues in publishing.
As a historian i am horrified that face reading is trending. Thank you for putting out this content. I hope that it helps end the tread. I enjoy watching your videos on fashion. Im glad to see you using your platform to inform people on the dangers of "face maping"
I'm so glad you used the Lady's Home Journals I sent you! This is Jenna, the Librarian! See libraries are awesome lol! This is also a great topic, so of course, I'm super interested!
As someone who used to work in publishing, the self-publishing arena makes me cringe. So many self-publishing presses take advantage of first-time authors who don't know how publishing works (editing, copyediting, marketing, etc) and use contract loopholes to sell the book behind the author's back. I had to walkthrough a picture book author why she can't do anything about her press selling her book through Amazon when she wanted to sell only through her website.
Very well done. I spent my working life in trade publishing as a production editor and copy editor. Delighted to see you understand the industry and its 19th-century origins.
37:02 "I only read smut" is just iconic
As someone who has been a book reviewer for over 15 years, thank you for this. ❤
Thank you so much for this video. Over the past few months my #4 son and i have talked about turning his "worlds" into books. He is a 15 year old high functioning autistic child with ADHD and mild cerebral palsy. While he scores very high on iq test...because of his other peculiarities more mainstream jobs are not going to work for him. BUT he has AMAZING world building and storytelling abilities. We homeschool so i have been looking into programs that teach writing and if you research publishing...well you will be 2 times more confused. We were talking about really getting down to business after the first of the year chaos ends.. and here you are...
Thank you again.
He should practice writing, whatever regulary to start with. to get a routine. If thats in a way done however. Praxis might be good? And not be perfectionist, which might be hard , i guess..
Ann Radcliffe's books, no matter how silly they are from any point of view, caused an insane fascination with gothic art within the regency society of England. It gave work to a lot of painters, landscapers and other authors. So yeah, silly entertaining books can cause more things than take our minds off things. And I'm sure they had typos too. 😅
Finally someone said it! Like Harlequin published 60 romance books a month in the 1990
Im just happy that books are still popular.
Fast Fashion of the Publishing World? BRB writing my thesis.
I’ve been sitting here wondering where you were 🤣 I always enjoy your early to view play by play commentary. 🫶🏻
@@AbbyCox Haha that’s so sweet but I got distracted by something else so couldn’t be very early
Barbara Cartland, the Queen of Romances, could dictate one book a day. Also very formulaic. Some were good, most were meh. My bff in high school loved them. I preferred the more modern romances and regency ones. Georgette Heyer is an amazing romance author who still gets reprinted every couple of years or so.
I recall reading that she wrote a book a week on average, but I've never heard of a book in a day. Can you share your source for this?
Barbara would shamelessly rip off Georgette Heyer with a wimpier female lead - I used to be outraged as a teenager (who went on to study Mech Eng and still reads Romance 20 years later)
I love her sm! They sure are formulaic but fun to read.
If you love Georgette Heyer try Patrician Veryan- she was named “a worthy successor to Georgette Heyer” in the mid 1980s. Although I think she’s a mixture of Heyer and Baroness Orczy.
I believe it was in one of her bio blurbs in the back of the book. She dictated them to a secretary. @@gray_mara
This couldn't have come at a better time, for me! I am a published author, but not in the mainstream. I am preparing my first, made for the mains, book based on my fathers life! Also, I am now going to cover my damn camera! You scare me! LOL
Hi Abby, I just wanted to say this was really well put-together and informative (which, honestly, your content always is) and I appreciated the insights from your own publishing experiences. Much love!