erin!balser

Matt and I were talking the other day about Generation Y (we do that a lot!) and literature. You see, Canadian literature has a distinctive identity on the international market: it’s very literary, it’s very multicultural and it’s very much tied into the Canadian landscape.

There hasn’t been a voice on the Canadian scene that represents me and my generation. Wait, let me rephrase that. There hasn’t been a voice on the Canadian scene people are paying attention to that represents me and my generation.

In the late nineties, something happened in American literature. Dave Eggers, Chuck Klosterman, and others–tech-savvy, slacker-types who remember Puck from MTV and when NKTOB were cool–started to get attention. Chick lit exploded and hip girls like Marisha Pessl and Lauren Weisenberger got six figure advances. Graphic novels are becoming mainstream. Youth, for once, was dictating the direction of publishing. These writers had impressive print-runs, vast fan-bases and a voice people listen(ed) to.

Canada doesn’t have that yet. The closest writer I can think of is Douglas Coupland, but he’s been around for over twenty years.

This is why it bothered me when I opened Quill & Quire’s latest issue–the one celebrating “the most influential, innovative and just plain powerful people in Canadian publishing”–and found that not only were there very few writers, the writers chosen were tried-and-true power players.

There were plenty of bright spots–Chris Olivero, Nicole Rycroft, and Brian Lam are just a few inspiring people–but the list felt overwhelming business-oriented and old.

Maybe the Canadian landscape isn’t encouraging and facilitating young, outspoken, original Canadian writers. While I seriously doubt this (Ellen Page, Sarah Polley and Jason Reitman are all examples of young innovation in Canadian creative industries), I cannot help but think that it’s not the lack of innovation Canadians, but the lack of innovation in an industry that celebrates the tried-and-true, the giants and the dinosaurs.

These people are important. They are shaping the industry. I respect them greatly. I’m not saying we shouldn’t celebrate the past. But in an industry struggling as much as publishing, we should be looking to the future with just as much enthusiasm.

I’m sure they are out there. Why aren’t they getting heard?

Image via Quill and Quire

In my Book Sales and Marketing class recently we had to analyze a publishing houses website for its success in terms of marketing. What really struck me was how passive these sites were. Sure, they give the necessary information–upcoming titles and events and information about the author. There wasn’t any sense of community or any sense of identity with these sites.

What if publishing houses attempted to build an online brand around themselves and built a web community on this? What if the publishing houses interacted directly with readers? Supplied RSS feeds for news and events? Gave the editors behind titles a face with their own blogs? Allowed readers to interact with them through comments on books, on authors, on events, on anything? What if readers followed these houses on Twitter? What if the houses themselves supplied readers with materials and ideas of interest and not just rely on their authors to do this? What is publishing houses–even the big ones!–had personality?

I recently had a teacher tell me that if the old methods work, we don’t need to go outside the box when it comes to book marketing. This type of thinking is just plain wrong. In a world where publishing industry is changing–and changing dynamically–where fewer people are reading books than ever before, publishers need to get better at reaching their readers, and connecting with them in ways the reader wants. Why is everyone so afraid of failure?

I’m sure the average reader doesn’t know who publishes their favorite author–and doesn’t care. I bet we could change this. I’ve seen some change. Coach House has an RSS feed for their news and events and almost every Canadian publisher has a Facebook group. But publishers need to be better engaged and capitalize on these new opportunities being presented to them.

Sure, their website is a great place to buy a book. But it might be a great place to talk about it too.

Does anyone have any great examples of this? I’d love to see one.

Image by inju. Lisenced via Creative Commons.