Each month at Books And... we will feature guest posts on various nuanced topics on the writing life. Each week's Wednesday post will showcase a different author. This week's author is Virginia DeBerry & Donna Grant and our current topic is loyalty. It was born of a discussion on the observation of some black authors shifting gears in their writing genre or style to keep pace with other highly accessible and fast produced works. We asked our author to explore the writer-reader loyalty dynamic.

Once upon a time, when we were imaginary writers, fantasizing about our lives as wordsmiths, there were no limits on the stories we could tell. Not just in the numbers of books we could create--at that point we presumed our powers of imagination were limitless, and some days we still do. But we had no doubt that the whole world and any experience in it was open for our literary exploration.

Even after we started writing for real and being published, we labored under the assumption that as long as we created characters that readers related to and put them in situations that were in some way compelling that we would be left alone to be the architects of our novelistic universes. It did work that way for a while. And then the age of publishing by numbers and categories arrived and whether your work was skillfully executed, original, or clumsy and amateurish became irrelevant.  What mattered most was how many of them were sold--same as with toasters, or tires or socks. And once a particular type of book was seen to sell, writers began receiving rather direct hints about what type of books they should be writing—if they wanted to continue to be published. Creative freedom was out--conformity became the norm, as though publishers had been granted ESP and could predict what readers would want to buy.

Really what they control feels more like self-fulfilling prophecy. As independent bookstores in general, and African-American bookstores in particular teeter on the brink of extinction, there are fewer and fewer outlets where books are sold, and fewer and fewer people making decisions about what they will buy to stock the store shelves. It gives those folks the power to shape what we read. It has become easier (read profitable) for them to stock "brand names," than to gamble on the untested or the author who writes for a smaller but loyal niche.

At this point, we're not sure our most successful book, Tryin' to Sleep in the Bed You Made, would even be published now. It doesn't fit the current "profile" for African American best sellers. Does that mean it would not be worth publishing? Define worth--is it just about the dollars, which incidentally, it made. Tryin' was the largest selling work of fiction by an African American author published in hardcover in 1997, but we think worth means more than that. We think it was about the way readers identified with our characters and their journey to adulthood and figuring out what's important in life. Our editor thought it was a story well told, but they had no more idea that it would touch so many people than we did. The only way to find that out was to put it out there. So, how many books that would entertain people won’t ever be published? How many readers would laugh, or be entertained by stories that won’t be told? How many people realized something about themselves or the world they live in, by reading these books that won’t reach the shelves? We don't know. At the moment, we don't even know what our own publishing future holds.

The current reality is that in the industry black writers, except for those considered, “literary,” have been put into one invented genre, “African American Lit.” It seems the fastest growing areas in that category are urban fiction and erotica. Where are the readers who, “used to buy books?” It isn’t just a matter of the author having reader loyalty. Readers also need to have author loyalty. Writers need support and they need it as soon after the publication dates of their work. Just like the opening weekend for movies, pre-sales and the first month the book hits the shelves are critical to long term success.  We recently did an event with a book club we’ve been visiting for years—the meeting was actually about our previous book, What Doesn’t Kill You—which came out in paperback in February. The members of the club are on our email list and had received several pre-publication updates about our latest novel, Uptown. But only one of the thirty-five or so women who were present had actually purchased Uptown, despite all of the information we had sent about the importance of early sales. That’s just one “loyal” reader. If this is an example of the kind of support writers are getting from longtime readers and fans—“I’ll  get the new book later” –what are we to do? It becomes impossible for authors to write the kind of books they became known for, to write what they want and to sustain their original audience, when the publishers make decisions based on those early sales numbers and readers are delaying their purchase of the book. Already more and more of our books are being published as paperback originals—no more hardcovers—because so many readers wait for the paperback before they shop.

We understand the economic challenges folks are experiencing, but when readers think their $12 or $15 won’t matter, they don’t understand that the author is usually only making a small percentage of that and that it takes a lot of those percentages to keep the books you want to read on the shelves.

What's the answer? We don't know that either, except that just like the music business, the fundamentals of publishing are changing. Self-publishing in book form became more efficient years ago. Now the ability to self-publish in the e-book format, even directly with major booksellers has become as easy as opening a Facebook account--once you've written the book of course, which is no small feat. There are hundreds of book blogs and book lover's sites where authors and readers are in direct contact and readers offer reviews, post interviews, even host blogtalk radio shows where they interview their favorite authors. Are we headed toward some kind of divided book reality where main-stream publishers sell the work of the few and the approved, while other writers duke it out in the blogasphere for their little slice of pub pie? Maybe. Is it separate, but equal? It never is.

 

With seven novels to their credit, Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant, best friends for 25 years, have turned a friendship into one of the most successful and enduring writing collaborations in contemporary fiction.

Before becoming novelists, Donna was dared by co-workers at the New York Daily News to attend a model agency open call, which led to more than a decade as a plus size model, represented by the 12 + division of Ford Models. During that career, Donna was featured in catalogs and national ads, on the pages of such magazines as Essence, McCalls, Family Circle and Woman's Day, and made appearances on "Today," "Good Morning America," and "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee."

Virginia, a former high school English teacher from Buffalo, NY moved to New York City, after almost 10 years in the classroom, at the urging of a friend in the fashion business and started a successful career as a plus size model. She was frequently featured in catalogs, advertising, magazines and appeared on several television programs including "The Today Show." She retired from modeling after two years and became Vice President of BB/LW, an agency for plus size and petite models, as well as a spokeswoman for Hanes hosiery.

The duo’s modeling careers led to the opportunity to launch Maxima, a fashion and lifestyle magazine for plus size women, where Virginia was editor-in-chief and Donna the managing editor. When publication of Maxima ceased, Virginia and Donna decided to try writing a book together. Their efforts led to Tryin' to Sleep in the Bed You Made(St. Martin’s Press/MacMillan 1997), which was a critical success, an Essence magazine bestseller, and won the Merit Award for Fiction from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, as well as the 1998 Book of the Year Award from the Blackboard Bestseller List/African American Booksellers Conference-Book Expo America. More than that, Tryin’ hit an emotional nerve with readers from all over the world  who continue to write to Donna and Virginia more than a dozen years later. Far From the Tree (St. Martin’s Press/MacMillan 2000) became a New York Times bestseller, and Better Than I Know Myself (St. Martin’s Press/MacMillan 2004) received two Open Book Awards, and was included on the Best African American Fiction of 2004 lists of both Borders and WaldenBooks. Gotta Keep on Tryin’ (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster January 2008) was the long awaited sequel to their first novel Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made. In January 2009, DeBerry and Grant’s What Doesn’t Kill You  (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster January 2009)was released to glowing reviews and their lastest novel is Uptown  (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster March 2010).

Donna attended Barnard College and is a graduate of New York University. A Brooklyn native, she currently lives in the borough with her husband.

Virginia attended Fisk University and is a graduate of SUNY at Buffalo. Virginia now lives in New Jersey.

Please visit Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant at

http://www.deberryandgrant.com
http://twitter.com/deberryandgrant
http://myspace.com/twomindsfull
http://twomindsfull.blogspot.com
http://facebook.com/deberryandgrant