Avid readers might have noticed a shift in the new books being put on shelves, or at least the ones going on bestseller lists; whether through ‘academic’ forums or simply social media, critics and teens have been criticizing the inexplicable turn the publishing industry has taken in the past decade. Between the masses heralding popular romance author Colleen Hoover’s work as garbage or the many young people abandoning modern day fiction for the supposedly superior “classics” there is a clear divide within the reading community. But what exactly has caused the sudden rift? Was it the popularization of Young Adult and Romance novels on TikTok? Perhaps the ever increasing consumerist mindset that has befallen Western citizens? Or maybe the publishing industry has just always had attention grabbing, academically shallow literature at its forefront?
Named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by The Times in 2023, author Colleen Hoover has written 27 books in the past decade. These romance novels and their author have been critiqued within BookTok (a slang term coined to encompass TikToks flourishing community of readers) for everything from marketing books with sexual content to tweens to romanticizing toxic relationships to possessing generally average writing to plans for a publishing a sister coloring book glamorizing domestic abuse. Yet for all of the critiques Hoover has faced regarding her writing and its implications, her bestselling, award-winning novels have generated her net worth of several million dollars. Is Hoover just lucky enough to be afforded her success, or is she one of the geniuses who has managed to crack the code of dominating the publishing industry? As publishers face an ever-increasing demand by readers for newer and “better” content at a higher rate than most authors can deliver, a niche is carved for one possibly average author to consistently churn out formulaic, mass-produced genre novels they know will be a success.
Pulp Fiction: the 1994 Quentin Tarantino crime comedy which birthed a new generation of pretentious, young, frequently male film enthusiasts. But what exactly is the publishing term for which the film was named? Pulp Fiction provides two definitions for its title upon the opening credits. The first describes the term as meaning “a soft, moist, shapeless mass of matter,” while the second characterizes the phrase as “a magazine or book containing lurid subject matter and being characteristically printed on rough, unfinished paper.” Pulp fiction, which came about in the late 1920s, is frequently characterized by the cheap mass-produced paper upon which its genre novels were inscribed. The printing strategy came about as a response to publishers looking for quick cash-grabbing books they could sell in massive quantities. Pulp fiction additionally enabled less academic ‘genre’ novels to finally reach the readers secretly craving stories classed as “trashy.” Sold at drugstores and airport stands, pulp novels were small enough to fit in a coat pocket or a handbag. Pulp fiction can be historically remembered as the slapstick crime thrillers which inspired Tarantino’s film; however, it has taken many alternate forms over the years. J.K. Rowling’s famous story of being continuously rejected by publishers despite Harry Potter’s eventual success can in fact be attributed to pulp fiction. At the time, publishing houses were rejecting the majority of long manuscripts when it came to the Young Adult and Middle Grade market, instead choosing to produce seemingly never-ending pulp series such as Goosebumps, Rainbow Magic, The Baby Sitters Club, and Animorphs. Another culturally significant turning point of pulp fiction was its pioneering representation of queer women in American media. Lesbian pulp reached its height in the 50s and 60s, as titles along the lines of I Prefer Girls and Odd One Out bearing raunchy covers depicting scantily clad women posing suggestively together depicted graphic content majorly catered towards straight men’s fantasies. But was pulp fiction inherently more harmful or trashy compared to mainstream literature? Middle Grade pulp fiction such as Goosebumps inspired reading in a generation, and lesbian pulp which was usually written by female authors gave a queer women a sudden representation they’d previously lacked. So did pulp truly ruin the publishing industry? Or is it simply the only truly successful sector?
Because whilst pulp owns its campy content and mass production current books of similar writing quality are being popularized and even heralded as modern classics. This concept leads to an issue in itself: modern day authors being treated like movie stars. Film and television has always been largely targeted towards the masses, whilst books are marketed to the more ‘introverted’ members of society. The obsession with TV stars has effectively garnered studios free press for their films, and the publishing houses seem to have caught on. Recent years have seen a boom in marketing strategies for books, from author discussion panels to overpriced ‘special’ editions of favorites, publishing houses are beginning to integrate marketing strategies from the film, fashion, TV, and similarly more publicized industries to increase book sales and their own success. Books have a famously small profit margin with bookstores with agents and authors only seeing a small percentage of the payment of the books due to the inflated manufacturing cost (another reason cheaply produced pulp fiction proved so successful). These financial weak points within the industry have given companies such as Amazon the idea to sell books at a loss to stifle out bookstores in order to garner a monopoly on the industry. Because of all these schemes it is no surprise that everyone within the publishing industry is struggling.
Enter page to screen adaptations.
In 2012, actress Reese Witherspoon founded a company called Hello Sunshine, a book club which promotes specific books free of charge save for one cost: the company will be the first in line for rights to adaptation contracts. It’s a genius concept, taking stories previously only reserved for readers and thrusting them into the mainstream, something that was proven fruitful in 2021 when Witherspoon sold the company for a staggering 900 million USD. Films are what’s proven to make money, and have played an integral role in the publishing industry’s sudden shift. Now bestsellers don’t just happen by chance, but are planned down to every detail. Because publishers won’t take a chance on a Harry Potter anymore, they go for the books that will get the most buyers the quickest. New authors including Alex Aster are given franchise deals before their debut novels even hit the shelves. Publishers have realized exactly what garners attention (and therefore money) and have used this knowledge to pick out sure successes warranting all of their investments.
“Publishing picks a winner—someone attractive enough, someone cool and young and, oh, we’re all thinking it, let’s just say it, “diverse” enough—and lavishes all its money and resources on them.
– R.F. Kuang, “Yellowface”
This year’s Goodreads Choice award winner in fiction, R.F. Kuang, won with quite a controversial novel. Yellowface depicts a lower class white woman named June who steals the unpublished manuscript of her generationally wealthy Asian American associate Athena, publishes the work as her own under a racially ambiguous name. The premise might sound like the book critiques a white author’s appropriation of marginalized voices and stories (which the novel admittedly includes); however, at its core Yellowface is a carefully curated smug hate letter to the publishing industry. R.F. Kuang herself received heavy backlash for her fantasy series The Poppy War and the negative implications of a made-up region supposedly inspired by Taiwan. In Yellowface a dark satire, through the lens of the morally gray, often racist narrator, R.F. Kuang gracefully transmits a critique of the author’s mistreatment in the publishing industry. The novel explores cancel culture’s effect on new authors, the altering of Own Voices writing to suit Western readers, and the fundamentally racist, classist, and generally problematic core of the publishing industry.
Ultimately, just as past teens were all too eager to trade in their pulp fiction for Harry Potter novels, today’s teens see the flaws in the publishing industry and are one step ahead. Many have taken to social media to critique the consumerist oriented nature of modern day mainstream books. Among such unrest an enigma has emerged: fanfiction. Dancing upon copyright no-man’s land fanfiction authors have created a response to the ever decreasing quality of the mainstream novels supposedly being written for them.
Just as the Harry Potter series was the effect of a turning point in the publishing industry it is the cause of a different one, and not because of Rowling’s writing. Harry Potter was the first and biggest fandom to evolve during the development of the internet. Usually one would express support for a fandom through attending conventions or signings but the birth of the internet changed fandom culture forever. Whilst previously fans experienced more trouble engaging with the novels they knew and loved, the internet provided fans, particularly teens, with the resources needed to expand their love for series through forums dedicated to them. Warner Bros., who had already acquired rights to adapting the novels, cracked down on these users, particularly those writing fanfiction (fan-written stories inspired by movies, books or TV shows), ; whilst publishing stories based on copyrighted material was technically illegal, no one quite knew how to handle digital publications, leading the studios in some cases to file lawsuits against teenage fans.
Now however, fanfiction is free game and has drastically changed the publishing industry. Authors who have seen success in their fanfiction are now publishing the same work as their own with a few alterations of names. Red, White and Royal Blue, previously a gay royal fanfiction about the protagonists of the Social Network, The Love Hypothesis a fanfiction about the protagonists of the Star Wars sequels as STEM majors, and Fifty Shades of Grey, a Twilight fanfiction, have all garnered huge success with the authors even going on to win prestigious writing awards. But fanfiction isn’t just a way for publishers to see whether or not manuscripts will find success in larger audiences. It is also one of the only forces currently working against the modern day consumerist publishing industry. Because whilst publishing houses only care about the money, fanfiction authors boast about how their unpaid work (any form of financial transaction regarding fanfiction would be illegal) not only expands upon the novels by which they were inspired, but vastly improves the original author’s previous mistakes. All The Young Dudes, one such example of a nuanced fanfiction with more than 500,000 words and around 12.5 million views on its publication site, reimagines the lives of two gay teens growing up in the 70s whom J.K. Rowling originally wrote as middle-aged straight men. Fanfiction is so revolutionary to the publishing industry because it offers readers an alternative when publishers who work based on statistics and revenue fail to represent, speak to, or enrapture younger audiences.
Is Colleen Hoover and TikTok’s ever growing demand for new stories really what’s ruining modern day literature? Or is that just the tip of an iceberg that goes back decades? When it comes down to it publishing has always been profit oriented. Maybe now is more subtle than the times of pulp fiction but ultimately the books that are popularized, adapted, and produced will be the ones sure to garner the most attention and money. The only change to this age-old situation is that now publishing houses are becoming more and more efficient at cutting out any risks and to that extent chances of success from a new formula or angle in writing. Maybe the teens of the digital age will carry on truly creative storytelling through fanfiction forums and online libraries, but for now mainstream publishing will stay as it always has been: a profit-oriented sector no matter what the literary cost.
Bibliography:
Anonymous. “TikTok Is Turning the Publishing World into Fast Fashion.” Bloomberg.com, 8 Nov. 2023, www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-11-08/fourth-wing-and-iron-flame-author-rebecca-yarros-needs-a-reality-check.
Blakemore, Erin. “Pulp Fiction Helped Define American Lesbianism.” JSTOR Daily, 1 Aug. 2019, daily.jstor.org/pulp-fiction-helped-define-american-lesbianism/.
Feldman, Lucy. “TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2021: Hello Sunshine.” Time, 26 Apr. 2021, time.com/collection/time100-companies/5953581/hello-sunshine/.
Li, Helen . “How R. F. Kuang Turned Every Recent Book Scandal into the Satirical Thriller “Yellowface.”” Los Angeles Times, 15 May 2023, www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2023-05-15/how-r-f-kuang-turned-every-recent-book-scandal-into-the-satirical-thriller-yellowface. Accessed 15 Dec. 2023.
Ritchie, Verity . “Taking Back Harry Potter.” Www.youtube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO43wDZf08k&t=305s. Accessed 15 Dec. 2023.
Tyler, Adrienne. “Pulp Fiction’s Title Explained: What It Really Means.” ScreenRant, 6 Sept. 2022, screenrant.com/pulp-fiction-movie-title-meaning-explained/.