In an article in the Guardian, Mark Lawson writes about the difficulty these days of selling literary novels (vs. ones that are obviously commercial) and attributes it to a surprising cause:
“This has happened largely because of a shift in the priorities of libraries, which used to be a guaranteed haven for several thousand copies of hardbacks that take a bit of brain work, but which are now rapidly ceding shelf-space to Citizens Advice Bureau leaflets or DVDs. And pressure on leisure time has made both producers and consumers of entertainment reluctant to sample a product that does not have some advance buzz.”
Assuming he’s right (and I think he is), what’s the answer for a writer who has written a ‘serious’ novel? My strategy would be to get hold of a list of all the reading groups I could find and do a direct mailing to them, to see whether they could be convinced to be pioneers in discovering a new voice.
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