101 Reasons to Stop Writing

The news that five authors are suing the owner conservative book publisher Regnery Publishing for depriving them of royalties by giving away or seriously discounting books available through Eagle-owned book clubs and newsletters is amusing enough in itself. After all, this is the same crew that chirruped on how bulk orders from the Conservative Book Club made their books New York Times bestsellers just a few years back, and required the Times to list bestsellers based on bulk orders with a dagger after complaints from other authors and publishers. However, what’s funnier is that no matter the political affiliation, authors of political analyses are just as deluded as other writers on exactly how well their work really sells.

It doesn’t matter about the subject, the author’s place in the political spectrum, or even the book’s readability: used bookstores literally can’t give [it] away.

Reactionary or radical, we’re still talking about books with an incredibly short shelf life, most of which are already completely obsolete by the time they see print, written and published because of petty grudges and assumptions that “the public needs to know”, and generally about as relevant as a copy of TV Guide from 1980 by the next election cycle.

Last night, I walked in on a reading at my local Barnes & Noble by Carl Bernstein, the other half of the Washington Post Watergate investigation team, literally begging his audience to buy copies of his latest book on Hillary Clinton, and offering refunds to anyone who didn’t like it. This is a man who understands that the volume for which he slaved for the last year is going to be worth all its weight in used Kleenex by next Christmas, much less by next November 4.

It doesn’t matter about the subject, the author’s place in the political spectrum, or even the book’s readability: used bookstores literally can’t give away the flotsam from the last six years of books in support of or in opposition to the Bush Administration, and Elvis help anyone writing a book about any other aspect of politics less than fifty years old.

Another important aspect of publishing in general was illuminated by a comment from a lawyer representing Eagle and Regnery:

No publisher in America has a more acute marketing sense or successful track record at building promotional platforms for books than Regnery Publishing. These disgruntled authors object to marketing strategies used by all major book publishers that have proved successful time and again as witnessed by dozens of Regnery bestsellers.

Just consider that the next time you’re certain that you’ll be able to quit working and write full-time based on the royalties from your first novel.

Even so, I look forward to the results of this lawsuit, if only for the entertainment value. In fact, were I to find someone dumb enough to take the bet, I’d put down $10 on one self-evident fact: the authors discover that the number of copies given away or seriously discounted through various Eagle-owned book clubs and newsletters matches exactly the number of copies that would have had to be remaindered and chopped back into toilet paper due to a lack of interest. At that point, I wonder how well they’d take to comments referring to “half a loaf”, or if former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich plans to play the world’s smallest violin for them while regaling them about the success of his books 1945 and To Renew America.

– Paul Riddell buys all his books remaindered, while the smell of despair is still fresh.