Wednesday, January 12, 2005

'Does a rose by any other name....' Further considerations of the malodorous connotations of the term "Midlist"

As noted in a previous post, I've been thinking about the notion of "midlist," and recently sent out a bunch of queries to a bunch of editors and agents; and received a number of responses, which you'll find here in due course. Here's the core of my letter, followed by the first of many replies.

I’d love to know your thoughts on the term “midlist”—partly because I think it’s a term that has an unfairly pejorative connotation, which, in turn, perhaps fuels misconceptions about the realities (even today) of the vast majority of the titles that are published today.

If, for instance, we were to define midlist as books for which the (actual) first printing is less than 15,000--and in my opinion a considerable majority of first printings fall into that category--then mightn’t it be argued that midlist publishing still, in some way, constitutes something like the back-bone of publishing? Or is it, in fact, our equivalent of the Mendoza Line?

I’m thinking the term is in need of a public relations campaign… I would love to hear any thoughts you have, including, even, what you see as the category’s first-print parameters.

The very first response came from Daniel Menaker, longtime New Yorker editor and currently Executive Editor-in-Chief of the Random House Publishing Group.

DANIEL MENAKER: I’ll expose my ignorance and say that the only thing I know about the Mendoza Line is that it sounds like cocaine jargon. If midlist publishing refers to books that go out at 15 k or less, then the situation resembles what it was at Starbuck’s until recently, in which the smallest coffee you could get was a “tall.” Is there a term for lower-than-midlist books? What would it be? Hypolist? Lowlist? Teeny-tiny books?

Publishing seems to me at a point where it wants to be (and to some extent, for the time being, anyway, is managing to be) increasingly “hit-driven.” The trouble is that as with movies, there is no way to guarantee that the key to the ignition of the hit you’re trying to drive will actually turn and the engine will start. So I’m not sure about ["midlist as"] backbone—to rather violently switch metaphors in mid-paragraph—but I do think that books that go out at less than 15k do and will continue to function as stem cells that can and occasionally do develop into those fully formed organisms called bestsellers. And even when they don’t but receive wide critical acclaim or add in some significant way to our culture of letters, they add luster and pride to the house that publishes them and may help to attract new hitdrivers to that house.

We all have to continue to publish such books, it seems to me, and do so with pride and with as much imagination--which is not the worst substitute for a big marketing budget--as we can, in the hope that, unless what appears to be a recent change in reading and book-buying habits becomes permanent, eventually more readers will rediscover the joy of discovery. If you and your readers will visit the website of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a Random House writer and author of “Fooled by Randomness,” you will find a number of brilliant analyses of the phenomenon of outlier events, one of which is, for instance, the emergence of this or that movie star, and another of which is the surprise bestseller.

Yes, I think a useful first-print-run definition of midlist books is 15k or less.

10 comments:

Larry said...

When you say the term "midlist" needs a PR campaign, to whom should the campaign target? Publishers or readers? I'd say the majority of readers don't know or care what the term "midlist" means. They just want to read a book they can understand like "Da Vinci Code" or "Harry Potter", none of which I know are hardly midlist.

You're right, though, that many who hear the word "midlist" might conjure up the image of an artsy, abstract, pretentious book written by a starving, angry, obscenely literate author who gags when he/she is cornered by a Dan Brown/J K Rowlings illiterate fanatic at a writer's networking party.

And you're also correct that midlist authors are the backbone of the publishing world. But do we need to promote that image? Don't you think it would come off as a little too self important?

I would personally love to be a midlist author myself. To get published is a dream. But I don't think it's a title that I'd promote on C-Span Books.

Libertarian Girl said...

Larry,

My initial reaction is: neither consumers nor publishers, but rather agents and authors. Mostly everybody in those camps is disappointed if a book doesn't ship 25/35/45,000 copies, as though the ball's been dropped--when, in fact, those numbers exceed all but a very small fraction of books published.

Ship 12,000, net 8500? Those aren't horrible numbers, providing the advance is to some reasonable degree in line with them. They're not going to buy anybody a yacht; but they will serve as a respectable showing, both when that author's NEXT book is on submission, and when the sales rep goes in to sell that next book to his accounts.

We ALL want to hit the ball out of the park, of course we do, it's human nature. Statistically, though, there are a lot more singles than four-baggers, and the wish (here) is that we recognize that swinging for the fence can, and does, have serious negative consequences... More on that later...

Anonymous said...

"The Fish approach: Instead of buying ten books, buy a hundred--in no-advance, royalty-only deals..." pretty much describes independent publishing. Additional advantage in independent publishing: we're nimble enough to be able to start feeding the fish extra food when it shows signs of growing up fast.

Anonymous said...

"The Fish approach: Instead of buying ten books, buy a hundred--in no-advance, royalty-only deals..." pretty much describes independent publishing. Additional advantage in independent publishing: we're nimble enough to be able to start feeding the fish extra food when it shows signs of growing up fast.

Richard Nash

Anonymous said...

It would help everyone if we stopped calling it midlist and just went back to calling it literary fiction.
LA

Anonymous said...

To do your marketing for your business you can marketing tool with the ebook at marketing tool Go and check it out.

Anonymous said...

"Natural Herbalz Health care Products Reviews in Men's and Women's health, General and Sexual Health, Weight loss and Diet health, Skin care and Hair Care by www.naturalherbalz.com
"

Anonymous said...

Revitol products review, solutions and treatments on Revitol anti aging, Revitol acne treatments, Revitol cellulite problems, Revitol skin exfoliator, Revitol skin cleansing, Revitol anti wrinkles, Revitol stretch marks by www.revitolskincarez.com

Anonymous said...

- طيور الجنه
- كلمات بحث
- العاب
- مدونه
- يوتيوب
- صور كرتون
- صور مصارعين
- المترجم الفوري
- تحميل القران الكريم كاملا
- شات كتابي
- توم وجيري
- quran mp3
- القران mp3
- العاب تصويب ونيشان
- العاب بازل ومتاهات
- العاب ماريو والعاب سونيك
- العاب كارتون
- العاب فنانات
- العاب دراجات
- العاب سيارات
- العاب بلياردو
- العاب هانا مونتانا
- العاب اولاد
- العاب
- العاب باربى
- العاب طبخ
- العاب مكياج
- العاب تلبيس
- العاب بنات
- دليل مواقع
- قروب
- يوتيوب فيديو
- برامج عربيه
- قصص
- بلياردو
- البلياردو

Anonymous said...

Male EnhancementWe review products specially designed to help men's sexual health and also provide free information on various men's sexual topics like Male enhancement, penis enlargement erection etc

A VOCATION OF UNHAPPINESS [Courtesy Georges Simenon (1903-1985)]

"Writing is considered a profession, and I don't think it is a profession. I think that everyone who does not need to be a writer, who thinks he can do something else, ought to do something else. Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness. I don't think an artist can ever be happy."


PRACTICAL MARKETING [Courtesy Zornhau, 2005]

"They should put the 1st couple of pages up in subway adverts. Having read them several times, you'd feel compelled to try the book - if it was any good."


PLATE OF SHRIMP [Courtesy Alex Cox’s REPO MAN, circa 1984]

"A lot of people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidences and things. They don't realize that there's this like lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything. I'll give you an example, show you what I mean. Suppose you're thinking about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly somebody will say like "plate" or "shrimp" or "plate of shrimp" out of the blue, no explanation. No point in looking for one either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness."