Don’t Hate—Appreciate (1540 words)

By

Pamela M. Johnson

Is the attack on urban fiction fair?

Recently I attended the National Book Club Conference in Atlanta, where hundreds of black people were gathered to talk about the nascent genre of African-American fiction. I was looking forward to talking with other authors and industry insiders about how urban voices, unpublished for so long, were finally getting out to an enthusiastic audience. I expected some praise for us sisters and brothers who had pioneered new paths to publishing through sweat, technology, and capitalism.

However, not everyone in publishing—even black publishing—seems to appreciate the self-published. Black industry publishers, editors, publicists and even a famous black author went on the attack, excoriating us self-published urban writers, talking about how our books were full of grammatical errors and typos. Never mind one of us riff-raff being denounced and laughed at had since early 2003 signed 27 authors to her press. No vendor complains to her about grammar, but rather about her press being unable to keep up with demand. Among the audience, I was taken aback at the resentment, bitterness and anger directed at black self-published authors and publishers by black industry professionals, editors, publicists and a celebrated black author concerning grammatical errors and mistakes in books written by self-published authors. These industry insiders spoke so condescendingly about us, in some cases throwing in outright cynical laughter about the errors allegedly found in self-published books.

Perhaps someone should have pointed out there was this old white playwright from way back in the day whose folios were riddled with technical errors, but how despite this shortcoming William Shakespeare appeared to have stood the test of time quite nicely. If someone somewhere unearthed an unpublished Shakespeare folio, typos and grammar certainly would be no bar to publishing it! I’ll grant that some small publishing houses and self-published writers have quality control issues. Of course, one can read mainstream bestsellers by the likes of Danielle Steele and Tom Clancy and find the occasional typo, extra carriage return, repeated or omitted line of text, and so on. As Thoreau said, to err is human, and there are layers of humans and machines between the author’s brain, the word-processor, the layout, the galley copy, the typesetter, and the final copy sitting on a bookseller’s shelf. Sometimes these errors can even add value to a copy; ask any book collector.But in the end, I submit that perfection in editing and printing aren’t necessary to a good story, and won’t save a bad one. This is not said to excuse writers, editors and publishers from knowing the fundamentals of their crafts—indeed they should—but to borrow from the aforementioned Bard, “the lady doth protest too much.”

Even celebrated author Terry McMillan joined the chorus against us unwashed self-published upstarts. She condemned the grammatical errors and misspelled words she says are found in self-published urban books. She also asserted that we are paid too much advance money when we take a book deal from a major publisher. Writing is indeed a business—a seller takes what a buyer is willing to offer. Shaq isn’t about to say, “Gee, $3 million is far too much to pay me to dribble a ball around a court for a season, I’ll just take $250,000.” Why should writers limit their takes?

McMillan’s condemnation of the new generation of urban writers is especially ironic. Nearly a decade ago, Terry herself was the unappreciated innovator, introducing a “new” genre, African-American “contemporary” fiction, which was every bit as cutting-edge then as urban fiction is now. Some readers were even referring to her as “The Black Danielle Steele.” Diane Patrick wrote in The Unauthorized Biography of Terry McMillan how McMillan met rejection early in her career from two of the most respected African-American female “literary” authors, Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. Now Terry and her generation apparently are doing a similar “rite of passage” put-down to the budding urban fiction generation. McMillan’s strident criticism of self-published authors was, in a way, the closing of a circle that began when she herself was initially rejected as “non-literary.”

When newcomers do what you did, only faster, other emotions come into play as well. During those speeches lambasting self-published authors at the National Book Club Conference in Atlanta, I sensed a definite undercurrent of jealousy. This is not a charge I level lightly, but yes, I vibed resentment among the Crowned Heads of Publishing at us upstarts…we who found a quicker and more lucrative path to market than what they offer.

The publishing establishment offered very little indeed to African-Americans. Consider that when I entered publishing in 2003, of the 50,000 books published annually in the United States, only 80 were written by black authors. (Considering blacks make up 12.9% of the U.S. population, the Black slice of the publishing “pie” should have been 6450 books, meaning the African-American market was dismally underserved by a factor of nearly 81.) The grittier urban—dare I say “blacker?”—subset of African-American fiction was all but ignored. As in the case of authors of any color, the royalty rate offered to African-American writers was and still remains around 7.5%. Today the numbers are higher, but there is still room for advancement where black authors are concerned in publishing. Today’s urban authors are at the vanguard of that advancement, reviving and retooling a literary genre that went dormant after the deaths of notable Black authors Ice Berg Slim and Donald Goines, the trailblazers of the genre.

Consider black authors Zane, Teri Woods, Vickie Stringer, and yes, me, Pamela M. Johnson (well…actually, I was offered a two book deal by a major New York publisher, but passed. I wanted to receive a higher percentage on book sales – as well a stronger contract, and I wanted to be my own boss as the founder of my own publishing company). We initially couldn’t even get that 7.5%…all we got initially were rejection slips. We knew demand existed for our writing, so “no” wasn’t an acceptable answer for us. We decided to self-publish. We connected directly with an urban market of folks ready to shell out money to read stories written by people like them, for people like them. And forget 7.5%—we proved enough demand existed for our works to carve out deals as high as 60%. All from not caring what the big white publishing houses thought, but in bringing our “goods” right to market. The Information Age is rendering middlemen increasingly optional. Once you have your market proven, who cares what a middleman says about the commercial viability of your product?

Not to say the middlemen aren’t learning. The same major New York publishers who once shunned the urban fiction literary art form are now creating imprints aimed at recruiting urban people to write for the genre, and chasing writers down to get deals. We also see these same publishing houses that sent these authors rejection letters today offer them deals to sign them directly and in some cases making offers to buy their publishing companies. Some have accepted the deals. Others have signed direct to the major houses. Some have also done this but have maintained to keep their small press and authors separate. A few like Woods and myself to date have refused all deals offered by the major houses.

What has happened here is capitalism in action. The traditional route to publication failed to bring to market the realistic, black, urban tales an increasing audience of urban people demanded…real urban fiction that explains how urban people arrive at their ideas, philosophies and opinions and how they are created, nurtured and sustained in society. Enter writers like myself, and new, cheaper and more efficient self-publishing and print-on-demand options. Using self-publishing, this writer and others have managed to not only get to market, but succeed and start a small but growing press.

“My way or the highway” was the message given to fledgling urban writers by the big publishers. Quite a few of us took the highway and did just fine. The literary establishment shouldn’t panic, or hate. This is America in action. Tell a determined person why they can’t do something, and they’re apt to knock on your door a couple years later to sell you a ticket to watch them doing it. Thanks to this ingenuity, the urban fiction supply is at last meeting the demand of not only African-Americans but urban people in the U.S. and abroad of all colors being that the urban culture transcends beyond African-Americans and encompasses other ethnic groups and cultures and subcultures including white suburban youth as evidenced when we look at MTV and observe the fashion trends of urban people who want to read stories written by people like them, for people like them. Urban books are bridging the gap between those who reside inside the “Urban realm,” also referred to as “The World Inside the Veil,” as W.E.B. Dubois so eloquently referred to it in his famed essay, The Souls of Black Folks. and those who reside external to it, but sincerely want to better understand urban people and how they arrive at their ideas, philosophies and opinions. We also learn how urban people are created, nurtured and sustained in society. To the publishing establishment, I’ll give a shout out, even if I don’t feel the love from them. They spurred us urban folk to innovate for ourselves as we have in so many other fields. Our culture and literature—not to mention our wallets—are all the richer for it.

THE END

Pamela M. Johnson is a self-published African-American author, the founder publisher of Macavelli Press and the founder and CEO of The Johnson Agency www.thejohnsonagency.net, a public relations and book marketing company. The self-publishing guru has published three novels: From a Hard Rock to a Gem: a Memoir of a Lost Soul, I’ll Cry Tomorrow, and The Problem Is I Fell In Love. Her fourth novel, Protégé will be published this spring – as well her fifth book, Can’t Get A Book Deal? Now What…10 Easy Steps to Successful Self-publishing – How to Get Your Book on the Bookshelf of Major Chain Bookstores, I Did It and So Can YOU! Her sixth novel, Bithwhistle will be published next fall. You may visit Macavelli on the web at www.macavellipress.com.

© 2005 by Pamela M. Johnson