Today– 24 hours after a complicated but decidedly reassuring conversation with Paul Miller, the passionate and clear-eyed founder/director of Earthling Publications, and more on that as developments warrant — I find my thoughts revolving, endlessly, around Jill Sobule, a pleasant-enough songwriter. And Kristin Hersh, still sometimes a dazzling songwriter. And Paul Williams, founder of Crawdaddy, who loves Bob Dylan more than you, or me (and I love him, too), and certainly more than Bob.
In April, Jill Sobule is going to release an album she financed entirely through fan Paypal contributions on her website. Perks– aside from the existence of the album itself– included guest-singing slots on the record for large contributions, and living-room concerts for almost-as-large contributions.
Last year, Kristin Hersh’s zealous and long-lasting fanbase bought her the custom guitar she’d always wanted after a brief campaign. Hersh has spent the last several years experimenting with a direct and two-way artist-audience relationship, posting not just songs but stems that invite listeners to remix her music, cutting out labels entirely, and allowing contributing listeners to track the development of each new piece through posted demos and alternate drafts.
Before re-starting his legendary, seminal rock music criticism mag, Crawdaddy!, as a web-only journal, Paul Williams successfully lobbied his fans for financial support as he hammered away at his life’s work, an exhaustive and original and sometimes brilliant assessment of every musical move every single one of the Bob Dylans has made.
These people and these developments fill me with admiration. And they make me uneasy. They inspire me, and they scare me to death.
The admiration/inspiration part is easy, and obvious. There is a part of me that desperately wants simply to hang out my shop shingle right here on this site– all the Bunk you can eat, wrapped in your choice of covers and also available for download– and see what happens. I am seriously considering a preliminary step such as a pledgeless, moneyless pledge drive, just to gauge interest and offer an extended glimpse at the opening of the novel. Details on that when and if I decide to do it.
The fear is easy and obvious, too. Throw a party, no one comes, that’s bad. Throw a free web-party and offer samples for nothing and no one drops out of the ether and asks for one… that starts to sound like qualification material for the Ed Wood Really-You-Thought-You-Could-Do-This? Society. Sobule, Hersh, and Williams all have had long careers sustained at least in part by small(ish) but rabidly loyal fanbases. Sometimes I think I have one of those, too. It’s too bad so many of its members apparently speak Russian.
Harder to create that artist-audience direct connect.
But I have misgivings, too. And I can’t tell if they stem from cowardice, or something else. Maybe I’m just afraid.
Maybe I’m not quite ready yet to let go of the notion– drummed into us by critics, editors, agents, parents, colleagues, universities with tenure to offer, the whole publishing machine as we know it– that only selling the book to someone else (and preferably a New York someone else) constitutes an honest and legitimate sale.
Maybe I fear the fragmentation of the literary world. Look at the music industry. There is probably more good and varied recorded music proliferating out there than at any time in history. And less discussion of most of it. Even– I greatly fear– less interest in it. Because there’s no central marketplace of ideas (to paraphrase Al Gore from his excellent book of a couple years ago). Remember that Lester Bangs essay about the death of Elvis? “Along with our nurtured indifference to each other will be an even more contemptuous indifference to each others’ objects of reverence… [W]e will never again agree on anything as we agreed on Elvis. So I won’t bother saying good-bye to his corpse. I will say good-bye to you.”
Maybe I’m too ornery an artist to offer the opportunity to name a character in exchange for a $200 pledge, and am uncertain of likely takers for living-room readings. Even if I bring my Rolling Dark pal Pete and our traveling lights.
Or maybe there’s a part of me that, rightly or wrongly, has learned to place a peculiar sort of trust in the unwieldy, maddening, soul-crushing, money-draining process of selling my writing. With all three of my existing (see, there I go again– I mean published) books, some small or not-so-small thing has happened along the way– a suggestion from my agent, a compromise with an editor that turns out to be a wise one, one last two a.m. revelation– that has not only made the work better, but has allowed the work to finish the process of separating itself from me. Of becoming itself, getting up on its own legs, and walking out into the world to meet whatever awaits it.
And maybe what I’m referring to above is the last vestiges of a process that no longer exists, and can no longer be trusted.
End note: I know logging in to this blog to leave comments is a pain. But weeding through thousands-deep spambot comments again to find the two legitimate ones is more than I can bear. So if you have thoughts, I’d love to hear them. This particular marketplace of ideas is officially open for business. And it’s staying open. Even if I’m not entirely sure yet what or how we’re going to be selling.