I read mostly YA, SF/Fantasy, and Romance so I’m used to people ragging on my genres even though they do well. I’m not used to people asserting that due to my age I prefer the facile. Pfft.

There are ways in which that’s actually been happening for years already. I’ve noticed especially that genre publishers have become vastly more conservative. I don’t think Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren would be published in the curent climate.

On the other hand, there’s been an expansion of small independent publishers who can afford to take those kind of risks because a successful book for them does not have to sell hundreds of thousands of copies. Also as electronic publishing continues to expand I think it will create more venues for books that can’t find homes with the big publishers.

But thanks for explaining – your explanation makes sense to me, or at least gives me things to think about and research further. I have a (USian) online friend who is a litfic writer, and she is indeed seriously spooked by all this, so I’m trying to understand what is going on.

It’s interesting. In a scary way, like all this crisis mayhem.

Malcolm: I agree; you should write a YA fantasy romance manga airplane manual.

That’s astonishing! How did you know what I’m working on right now?

And when did we stop spelling it “aeroplane”?

Don’t look at me, I can’t spell.

Brent: Yay that Confusion led to so many good things. I do think a lot of fans of adult sf/fantasy are missing out. Yay, that you’re not!

Though I’m a bit miffed on your world building comments. (I note that you mean on average and I have read YAs whose world building disappointed me.) I work really hard on my world building. Honest!

Have you read M. T. Anderson’s Octavian Nothing books? Now that’s some world building!

Marrije: While book sales are up that’s mostly in paperbacks. Hardcovers, which have the biggest profit margin, are down in sales.

There are lots of theories floating around about what’s happening and many I’m sure that I haven’t heard. Most of them revolve around the big conglomerates who’ve bought up publishing houses over the last ten-twenty years and expect them to sell books the way you sell cereal. Even though it doesn’t work that way. Huge advances that don’t earn out are being blamed. Also rises in the cost of paper. The moon being in the seventh house. Or not being in the seventh house. Gazillions of different things.

It’s also important to remember that some houses are doing better than others. Just as some divisions are. (Like YA and children’s book as well as Christian publishing.)

Personally, I don’t think it’s any one thing. But I honestly don’t have enough information to really understand it. Take what I say with a grain of salt. As an author I’m on the peripheraries of the industry.

I do think publishing has lots of problems. From top to bottom and across the board. There are all sorts of crazy wasteful practices—like the returns system. Crazy money is spent on crap celebrity books. Problem is sometimes that works out. Like the returns system allowing bookshops to take a gamble on an unknown author. If the books don’t selll they can just send them back to the publisher.

But some of the problems are external to publishing to do with the management of those big corporations and how leveraged they are. The real economy is doing very badly in the US and everyone’s suffering.

Compared to many other industries publishing’s not doing that badly.

YA books, so far, have been more vibrant for me. They don’t have as much depth in world creation/detail as my adult titles, but that’s an average, not an absolute. The characters aren’t always as detailed, except for the protags. The YA characters DO more however. There is much more action and plot/story movement.

My adult titles (in my library) have things happening in exquisitely detailed worlds. My YA titles have MORE happening, with details as required to enhance the story. I still enjoy SF/Fantasy as a genre, but have discovered that YA books SF/Fantasy books have their own benefits.

People may turn to books more for entertainment as the economy gets worse. US$8 for a paperback seems a better investment than the same for a 90m movie. Escapism always does well in poor economic times. Look at the pulps during the 30s for an example.

Wait… did I miss the point? And when did we stop spelling it “aeroplane”?