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Interviewing the AH Community: Dawn Vogel

Her comment about the money involved always brings me back to my firsthand advice for commercial writers: Treat it as a sure financial liability instead of a possible asset.
Worth considering the wide variations among genres. The potential readership in (say) romance or mystery is huge, though of course the competition for readers is also significant given the number of writers working in those genres. On the other hand, the potential readership for alternate history as a genre is probably a couple of orders of magnitude lower.

To give an example, it's a widely-touted maxim in Australian author circles that "less than two dozen writers in Australia make a full-time living from writing." Yet on the other hand, a romance author I've seen comment online said, "that's always seemed weird to me, since I have dinner with 25 of them in Melbourne every month." (Pre-COVID, of course). The people who repeat the former maxim apparently don't consider romance writers as real authors.
 
For me, a big part of steampunk goes back to the "punk" roots wherein oppressed peoples rise up against the status quo, so outsiders are quite often a part of the genre. And if you look at the Victorian era on the whole, there were plenty of people who were oppressed, who suffered under horrid conditions, and who had reason to want things to change.
Good to see someone who understands that "punk" doesn't mean "cranked up to eleven" as many people assume, but involves struggle against the established order. I'd be more fond of steampunk is it had more stories of marginalized individuals fighting back, instead of just Victoriana with weird tech.
 
"NO, DAWN!" screamed my wallet. "DON'T RECOMMEND HIM MORE BOOKS!!! I WEEP BLOOD"

Worth considering the wide variations among genres. The potential readership in (say) romance or mystery is huge, though of course the competition for readers is also significant given the number of writers working in those genres. On the other hand, the potential readership for alternate history as a genre is probably a couple of orders of magnitude lower.

Yeah, we're writing in a small pond compared to romance. (Literary fiction also apparently sells fine, which is not the way genre fandom think it goes) I saw a blog recently where an author was happy his Doctor Who spjnoff book (from a smaller publisher admittedly but you instinctively think that has a moderate audience) had sold 300 copies, while a crime book I have was said to have a small run of 800, which sold out.
 
(Literary fiction also apparently sells fine, which is not the way genre fandom think it goes)

Doesn't surprise me. This is all speculation, but I think literary fiction works a "luxury product" that can't be as easily replaced by visual media as genre fiction can. Less sympathetically, it's a lot easier to hype, and therefore sell to people with deeper pockets.
 
Doesn't surprise me. This is all speculation, but I think literary fiction works a "luxury product" that can't be as easily replaced by visual media as genre fiction can. Less sympathetically, it's a lot easier to hype, and therefore sell to people with deeper pockets.
Long form literary fiction sells fine to the right market. Short form probably does for big name authors as well (not sure). Though literary journals for short fiction have an annoying habit of expecting people to pay to submit stories, which ensures that I don't submit any of my short fiction to literary journals except for the rarer ones who don't charge.
 
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Doesn't surprise me. This is all speculation, but I think literary fiction works a "luxury product" that can't be as easily replaced by visual media as genre fiction can. Less sympathetically, it's a lot easier to hype, and therefore sell to people with deeper pockets.
For a certain subset of the educated elite, literary fiction is a form of conspicuous consumption, sometimes to the point they don't actually read it.
 
Literary fiction books don't cost more than genre though and can get sold in the same stores, are the upper-middle-class really going to go "wow, you bought Milkman from Waterstones"?
 
Literary fiction books don't cost more than genre though and can get sold in the same stores, are the upper-middle-class really going to go "wow, you bought Milkman from Waterstones"?
It's not conspicuous consumption because of the price, but because of the perceived status is gives. All the smart people read literary fiction, and so by owning works of literary fiction you're demonstrating that you're smart and cultured.
 
It's not conspicuous consumption because of the price, but because of the perceived status is gives. All the smart people read literary fiction, and so by owning works of literary fiction you're demonstrating that you're smart and cultured.

This does feel a thing you could just as easily point at traditional science fiction fandoms (and some still think that way), who were clear sci-fi was for smart people and they read it therefore they were smart and are better than people who don't read it - that they're just buying, I dunno, The Culture because they want to keep up with the joneses rather than they actually enjoy it or are even reading it.
 
It's not conspicuous consumption because of the price, but because of the perceived status is gives. All the smart people read literary fiction, and so by owning works of literary fiction you're demonstrating that you're smart and cultured.
Sometimes books go on bookshelves just to Be Seen. Reading them is entirely optional.
 
Sometimes books go on bookshelves just to Be Seen. Reading them is entirely optional.
It's a fine art.

a-married-couple-reorganizes-their-bookshelf-that-william-haefeli.jpg
 
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