Chapter Thirty-Six
Literary Lust Versus Commercial Cash
Earning Respect and an Income
I remember the moment I crossed over to the Dark Side.
It was after I’d published my second book at a big New York publisher that had a reputation for publishing classics or works that would one day become classics. As with most literary contracts, they had the right of first refusal on my next novel.
“Well,” they said after they read it, “we’ll publish it if no one else wants to.”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
My agent took the manuscript to a publishing house that, philosophically, was diametrically opposed to my current one. It was known for its domination of The New York Times bestseller list, with so many brand-name authors under its roof that I was convinced my agent’s exercise was futile.
The editors offered me a two-book deal. They wanted to pay me ten times what I’d made before. There was only one catch: Could I cut out some of that Native American stuff in the novel and beef up the Hollywood scenes?
I was too excited that a publishing company wanted the kind of stories I wrote to realize that, well, they actually didn’t. They wanted to groom me to join their highly profitable stable of writers, turning out bestsellers and beach reads. All I had to do was agree that, from that moment on, I was going to be a commercial writer.
The difference between a commercial writer and a literary writer is, at first sight, painfully clear. Literary writers get clout. They get reviews in The New York Times. They win National Book Awards. Their stories haunt you, change the way you think about the world, are destined to be part of college curricula. These authors teach at prestigious universities. When they do readings, it’s at a place like Carnegie Hall. Their print runs are in the tens of thousands, and they don’t make gobs of money, but that doesn’t matter, because a literary writer is “above” mundane things like that.
By contrast, a commercial writer’s books sell. They’re given marketing and advertising budgets. They don’t get reviewed in The New York Times but have big, splashy full-page ads inside, and they grace the peaks of its bestseller list. Commercial books are the ones you trip over when you walk into a bookstore, stacked in enormous displays. They’re the stories you can’t put down at night and can’t remember in detail after you’ve read them. Their print runs are in the hundreds of thousands; their advances are dissected in “Publishers Lunch” reports.
As a beginning writer, I’d labored under the misconception that I could surely be both literary and commercial at the same time. Why couldn’t I write books that changed the world … and still make enough money to pay my mortgage? Did those two criteria have to be mutually exclusive?
Yes, but not for the reasons you’d think. At some point in your career, you’ll be forced to choose either the commercial path or the literary one. You can start by straddling the two, but eventually, as they veer apart, you’re going to tumble onto one side or another. And—here’s the big stunner—what makes a writer literary or commercial has far less to do with her writing than it does with marketing. We live in a publishing world that’s made up of bottom lines, which means every book must have a target audience. Whereas literary fiction is made up of masters with oeuvres, commercial fiction is comprised of genres. It makes sense for a publisher to pitch a writer as the new James Patterson—it tells bookstore owners that mystery lovers will buy the book. The same goes for romance novels, family dramas, and horror. When you label a commercial writer by her genre, you’ve already sold her.
Interestingly, the distinctions are arbitrary. For years, half of my books were shelved in the mystery section; the other half were shelved in literature. There was no salient plot difference between the books in either category; they’d just been pitched to two different corporate buyers by my publisher. Although many people compare my writing to Anita Shreve’s, she’s considered literary by the chain stores, whereas I’m commercial, because, again, we’re pitched to two different buyers. My mentor from the creative writing program at Princeton University, Mary Morris, writes books that I can’t put down and is (along with Sue Miller, Anne Tyler, and Alice Hoffman) one of the finest detailers of human relationships, but because she’s a literary writer she isn’t as well known as they are.
Or, in other words, it’s not that you won’t find literary writers enjoyable. It’s just that you won’t find them, period. Part of the marketing strategy for commercial fiction involves co-op advertising at chains and box stores—namely, a contract between the store and the publisher to pay for the spot where a book is placed (much like at a supermarket when Cheerios pays for the end-of-aisle display for a week). Commercial fiction is far more likely to be in the front of a store than literary fiction, which will be tucked into the side shelves—and therefore is less likely to be an impulse purchase.
All writers wish for commercial success. But at what price? If you sell your soul to the devil of profitability, you have to be able to look in the mirror every day and say, without flinching, that you’re a commercial fiction writer. You have to be aware that your books may not have the lasting power of a literary novelist’s. Naturally, no one plans to be a hack when they set out to write the Great American Novel; yet digestible reads are the ones that sell best. If you ask me, the trick is to be a commercial writer—but don’t sell out. Write for a wide audience, but don’t compromise what you write.
I’m living proof that you can have your literary cake and eat it commercially, too. Although I get letters all the time from fans who say things like, “I read only mystery/romance/courtroom drama, and you’re my favorite mystery/romance/courtroom drama writer!” I really am none of those things—and all of them. My books are a combination of commercial genres, and I have no inclination or intention to narrow it down.
Frankly, I don’t care what genre a reader thinks my book is, as long as it gets him to pick it up. Does this make my books a harder sell for my poor beleaguered publisher? You bet. It may be the reason it took me twelve years to be an overnight commercial success. But it also has allowed me to defy the logic of the literary/commercial split: My genre has become the very lack of one.
Because readers have become accustomed to me not writing the same book twice, my publisher expects me to do something new every time, which gives me the freedom to try new things and to use fiction to explore moral and social conundrums—a trait more commonly associated with the literary writer. And, in one of the greatest ironies of my career, I’ve heard of new commercial novelists being pitched as the next Jodi Picoult.
I admit that when I dove headfirst into the sea of commercial fiction, I made mistakes. When that publisher asked me to “pump up the Hollywood,” I did. In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t. I was too naïve to stick up for my writing; to understand that a commercial novel could still be resonant and relevant; that I didn’t have to dumb it down to the masses. See, here’s what the publishers won’t tell you: You don’t have to write to the lowest common denominator if you’re a commercial author. You can up the ante; your readers will rise to the occasion.
When you reach that junction—and you have to pick the literary high road or the crowded commercial one—remember that you’re standing in front of a mirage. Let the business folks at the publishing company slap a label on you, but write what you want and need to write. The label can’t dictate what’s between the covers; that’s up to you.
And for those compatriots who choose to join me on the commercial side of fiction, take heart in our forbearers: William Shakespeare was a commercial hack who cranked out his plays on deadline. Charles Dickens was paid by the word and was wildly popular with the masses. By the same token, Ian McEwan and Joan Didion and Philip Roth have all enjoyed crossover success as huge literary bestsellers. Maybe that means what’s commercial today might be literary tomorrow, or vice versa. Or maybe—just maybe—it means that when you’re talking about good writing, there simply are no divisions.
Jodi Picoult is the New York Times best-selling author of twenty-four novels, including My Sister’s Keeper, Nineteen Minutes, Between the Lines, The Storyteller, and, most recently, Small Great Things.