Gurdian Blog Not Cutting It

I'm sorry to say but the columns I've seen lately in The Guardian Books Blog are making Slate look trenchant. I haven't been reading the Guardian's blog for all that long, so I'm not sure if this is a case of a decline in quality or quality that never was, but I do think the publishers of the excellent Guardian Review can do a bit better than this.

Here's some of the stuff I've noticed lately that's led me to this conclusion.

From the column Why Writers Can't Go It Alone, which makes the argument that, unlike indie filmmakers and rock bands, authors can't be independent:

The literary world only bestows acceptance, it seems, on those who are published through the traditional avenues. Independent and small presses get short shrift - national newspaper supplements seem loath to review indie books, the big high street sellers won't stock them, unless the books are about the tough lives of mill girls or histories of public house names, which can be shoved on a shelf marked "local interest".

Perhaps the problem is that independence in books is too closely associated with vanity publishing. Few diamonds are found in the welter of self-published books, and booksellers or reviewers probably don't have the time to distinguish between the output of a small but genuine publisher and something knocked up on a frustrated author's PC in an afternoon.

Let's forget the irrationality of saying authors can't be any more indie than rockers or filmmakers and just focus on these strange slurs against the small press. I imagine the close association of small presses with vanity presses would surprise the publishers of Grove, Cannongate (which has racked up enough Bookers to be the envy of any press), Soft Skull, Dalkey, and Archipelago, all of which, small or independent as they are, get plenty of national newspaper attention and would not ever be mistaken for a vanity press.

Then there's this, from Why Publishing Has Gone to the Dogs:

At a time when the industry is crying out for readable literary fiction a novel like Davies' is a gift. Admittedly he's with a small publisher - Serpent's Tail - but they were originally responsible for Houellebecq and David Peace, so it's not exactly vanity publishing.

Is there some British bias against small presses that I'm not aware of? In any event, once the article gets around to its point, it's a pretty tired one:

In short, [publishing is] now dealing with the problems that my own industry - magazines - faced seven years ago. Sadly, the book industry seems to be responding in the same way - by retreating into safe, middle of the road ideas and a particularly stubborn intransigence.

It didn't work for magazines - dumbing down content and aiming for the lowest common denominator didn't boost any existing title's ABC - and it won't work for books either. The good titles that do get published are too often lost in an attempt to make them look unthreateningly "mainstream".

Perhaps true, but also dull.

Likewise with The Literary Periodical Goes Online, which manages not to be offensive to small publishers but remains utterly mundane. Yes, most of us know literary periodicals are popping up in online-only spaces. This isn't news; if you're going to write about it, say more.

Or there's When Good Authors Write Bad Books, which ponders such teen-angst questions as whether you're honor-bound to read every book your favorite author has ever written and dispenses the advice that if you don't like a book, you should stop reading it.

I know there's only so much you can say in 600 words or so, but The Guardian manages to put out such a fine review section every Sunday that I expect a little more than a catchy headline from their culture blog.

Comments

[Daniel]

Scott, I think you'll find a general disdain among the British for any undertaking that is not designed to win, succeed, or dominate. Small Presses, by virtue of focusing on quality and not market share, profit (to the degree of say, Penguin), etc, baffle them. Odd that so many really great small publishers are in the UK; sort of the protestational streak maybe? Perhaps I'm reading too much into my own experiences.

[Pete]

Paging Dr. Champion!

[ed]

Okay, Pete, since you paged (again, I assure all that I have no doctorate), as a sometime contributor to the Guardian blog, there has, since the turn of the year, been a shift in editorship. (The original editor I hooked up with -- a sharp and fantastic person -- went on paternal leave.) The two editors now shepherding the site are okay in my book, but they do have a tendency to whittle posts down to a specific word count, which often results in a lengthy 1,200 word post being crammed into this 600 word bitesized capacity.

I can understand where these editors are coming from, approaching the blog as if it's a print medium. But I think this tendency, which often occurs without the writer's input, has turned a few of their freelancers off. I know this from a few emails I've exchanged with said freelancers, who have expressed similar frustrations.

A blog doesn't have to be confined by medium. And what the hell, if you're getting a 1,200 word post for the same money that you're getting a 600 word post, I figure you're getting a pretty good deal.

(And I make it a policy with any job I take to offer to rewrite a piece down to a specified word count, even if this means multiple rewrites and time on my end, largely because it saves the editor some time and it allows me to likewise reshape my argument to a publication's needs. Just one of the many wonderful bonuses you get in hiring me.)

But the Guardian editors see the situation this way. And while I maintain professional respect for them and I don't necessarily dislike the blog component of the Guardian, I do wish that they'd allow some additional latitude.

[Pete]

What, no doctorate? Well, then - paging Dr. Howard!

[Mark Thwaite]

My beef with the Guardian blog is that, quite simply, it should be LOADS better than it is!

The Guardian is respected worldwide for its arts pages. Its blog could therefore be filled everyday with interesting op-ed pieces from the countless numbers of writers with whom the editors have contacts.

Instead, most of the posts seem written merely to provoke numerous idiot comments: much heat, no light. It disappoints on a daily basis.

[T. Slothrop]

There's a typo in the header.