The Only Game in Town: an Introduction

When the famous gambler Canada Bill visited Baton Rouge in the late 1880s, he searched all over town for action until eventually coming across a Faro game in the back of a barber shop. When his friend George Devol found him there some time later, Bill was up to his neck in losses. Devol pulled him aside and said, “Bill can’t you see that this game is crooked?" Canada Bill responded, "Sure I know it, but it's the only game in town."  

When John Updike wrote an article in the New York Times declaring that Google’s Book Search initiative marked the “end of authorship” (June 2006), he was correct in stating that the old definitions of “writer” might no longer apply in these new times. But where his argument faltered was in his inability to see the benefits of the changes in an industry that has long been plagued by archaic thinking and a potentially outdated business model. 

Mr. Updike and many of his contemporaries would have you believe that there is no merit to consuming literature via new media, like the web or eBooks. They might have you further believe that the only “real” writer is the one who devotes his/her entire life to writing – that classic Updike-type writer who churns out 75-or-so books in a lifetime, has a trophy shelf warping under the weight of all their accolades, and whose name when spoken aloud makes one sigh in remembrance of the good old days. 

As an aspiring author myself, I would actually argue that the best is yet to come. Emerging technologies and platforms are making the distribution and consumption of literature easier than ever – and though many of these new-media publishers initially struggled with legitimacy, they are now gaining momentum among both casual and serious readers alike. More than 50,000,000 Americans are reading blogs – and among those are some damned-good literary writers that are as informative and funny and genuine as any other industry or culture blog, or literary magazine. And the Sony Reader, though announced to very little fanfare in 2006, is at least getting the industry to think about consuming literature in new ways. 

Writers will no doubt come across a few bumps in the road to the Promised Land – consolidating publishing companies and distributors are scaring indie presses to death. The Big Five control more than 80% of America’s book sales, and there is an increased attention paid by the dealers in The Game to the salability (not the literary quality) of a title. It is, after all, a $25 billion industry, and global media conglomerates like NewsCorp, Bertelsmann, and Disney have a serious stake in it. These are companies that like to do business and love to make money – so just because the memoir you wrote about your cat was really well received at the local library doesn’t mean Rupert Murdoch will want it on HarperCollins’ spring slate. 

As such, Mr. Updike was correct that the age of the career author may be coming to a close. There will be more celebrities posing as authors than authors enjoying celebrity status, and more money given to those who already have more than they need. Neither you nor I may ever get that Jonathan Safran Foer-like $1.5 million advance, or enjoy the oft-dreamed-of lifestyle of the full-time writer, sitting in our Cape Cod homes while our fingers flutter over the keys, another Pulitzer nominee unfolding before our very eyes.

We may be confined to a life in the office, or the field, or a cubicle, or the classroom, or wherever it is your nine-to-five puts you. But as the great poet Wallace Stevens once said, "It gives a man character as a poet to have this daily contact with a job." (And he would know: Stevens was vice president of an insurance company for two decades.) 

So the bad news is, if you want to be published, you have to turn to the publishing industry. You have to work within the confines of a confusing and sometimes backwards-seeming system. But the good news is that it is a system that churns out a few hundred thousand books a year in this country alone. The great news is that you and I, if we keep playing The Game, may some day be one of them. 

And the very best news of all is that there is even a system of which to speak. It may sometimes seem like a crooked game, but as Canada Bill would argue, any game is a good game, so long as you have fun playing it – win or lose.

Chris is the editor of VoidMagazine.com, an online literary publication. He is very happy to be here.