Mainstream dream

This week I've spoken to at least two authors bemoaning the small press and how there is no market or money for the hard work put into writing. Better, they think, to focus on the mainstream press, as that's where the money and readership is. After all, they argue, why should [redacted] get to be famous and wealthy when his writing is poor at best, while other writers who are clearly better remain toiling away in the small press, selling at best a small handful of books? Why settle for selling 95 copies when one could be selling 9,500 or perhaps millions?

It's a tempting dream, I'll give them that much, but ultimately I think it's an unrealistic dream. The sad truth is horror, as a genre, is dead to the mainstream. Those authors that do make it there are not writing "horror" like our grandfathers did, but rather mixed genre pieces like horror/thriller and horror/sci-fi. The kind of horror we like, that "classic" horror, has no place in the wide world of mainstream publishing. It's been said of films that the size of the budget is inversely proportional to the ideas in the film. The same, I think, is true of writing today. In order to get that mainstream success, one must sell out their work (so to speak) by making it appeal to the largest mass of readers.

The small press has the luxury of being run, when things are working well, by people who understand the genre and what can be done with it. There is no compromising to sell more books, but on the other side of the coin there aren't the same number of books sold. It's something one must come to terms with.

Ultimately, I don't know what the proper way to "make it" in this business is. i don't think there is a way — at least, not writing horror. The odds are stacked against you, and even [redacted] doesn't make that much money from "horror writing"; most of it comes from non-fiction. It's a crap-shoot, plain and simple.

Instead, I prefer to focus just on the writing and not worry about the business. There are so many others consumed with marketing themselves and who sells more than whom and what sells best that it just gets overwhelming. There are places on the internet full of sub-par writers selling sub-par books in the small press that one can lose faith in it. But, really, it's our best tool for spreading our words right now in their purest form. So, my personal philosophy on writing, at least for this moment (I reserve the right to change my mind whenever I like) is to just focus on writing the best you can and see where it takes you. If it's the cream, it will eventually rise to the top and it will get noticed. It's always better to have the mainstream come looking for you than you go looking for the mainstream. Don't give them all the cards.

Feel free to agree or disagree below. Or, if you just want to make a comment about eating a french fry off the floor, you may do that as well.