After reading Robert McCrum’s piece in the Observer a few weeks ago, Stop The Bean-Counters Ruling The Fiction Roost, you might be forgiven for thinking that we had now witnessed the final nail in the coffin for books as we know them. It’s long been known that sales departments dictate what gets published, but for a publisher to renege on a deal because of sudden sales wimpishness is another order of ugh.

My grasp of economics, I admit, is not always great, but whenever I try to explain the books industry to people who work in media, finance, or the law, or any other industry for that matter, they don’t get it either, so I feel slightly more justified. ‘But that doesn’t make sense at all,‘ they say, and I can only throw up my hands and shrug. I am clearly not alone in trying to make sense of the Morlocks vs Eloii circus that the vexed publisher/author relationship so often, sadly, appears to be.

Here’s a good piece about the money side of things: Why Life’s A Tough Gig For Writers. I also well know that authors, now more than ever, have to get real, and I’ll be getting on to that in another post.

Anyway, this is my fantasy land:

Publishing houses would get rid of both their sales and their publicity departments, outsourcing the work to companies that actually need the business and therefore have to work for it. Imagine the scene: ‘Right, here are the 10 books we’re doing next season, and we’ll pay you lot X to sell them, and we’ll pay you lot X to make sure they get out there.’ Boot firmly returned to other foot, and suddenly, there would be a new mobility of vision – wouldn’t there?

Like I said, just a fantasy. Experts, please explain why this wouldn’t work.

The conversation, which has been occurring for years now, goes something like this:

I start chatting with someone who runs a graphic design/web design/advertising/digital marketing company. I tell them, or they are already aware, that I have written two novels and – more recently – a memoir. We talk about work for a while, and when it becomes clear that their output includes copywriting, I say, casually:

‘Do you ever use freelance writers?’

And they look at me, utterly baffled, and they say ‘You mean creative writing?’

And I open my mouth to reply, and they say ‘Oh no, we don’t do anything like that. What we do is commercial, technical.’

And I realise that because I once had some fiction published, they have automatically labelled me as someone who only knows how to write about ice creams melting and shadows dancing on walls and memories lost and found, and I couldn’t possibly turn my hand to anything else.

No matter that I’ve also written features, columns, news, reviews, websites, press releases, and newsletters. Sure, I’ve also written short stories, monologues, and performance pieces. But that’s because I’m, like duh, a writer. I write stuff.

I’m not sure how much clearer I can be about this without the strategic use of a baseball bat.