I went to Miami two weeks ago, and stopped at the Books & Books store in the airport. It’s a pretty substantial bookstore for an airport. No Worries wasn’t there, but you know what was? Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Kiyosaki is one of the world’s great ding-dongs, and the book is still selling 30 years later, even though everyone knows it’s a ridiculous book and Kiyosaki himself almost went broke taking his own advice. But No Worries now has 371 reviews, nearly all of them five-star.
Everyone loves No Worries.
But everyone buys Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
I have written three critically-acclaimed books, and one that was not, but the one that was not just went over everyone’s head. It is my favorite book of the four. None of them have sold particularly well. No Worries still might, if the mainstream media stops covering it with a pillow until it stops moving. I hold out hope. I write very good books, but they are not particularly good-selling books.
Which begs the question: if you are an artist, would you rather be a critical success or a commercial success? If you are a writer, would you rather be James Patterson, who has sold more than 100 million books, or Barry Hannah, who never sold more than 7,000 copies of any book on its first print run? Can you have it both ways? Yes, you can be Jonathan Franzen. But the number of writers who enjoy both critical and commercial success is very small. Practically zero. The same is true of movies, too, unless, of course, you are Christopher Nolan. But everyone wants to be Christopher Nolan, and they can’t be. On one end of the spectrum is Moonlight and on the other end is Iron Man. There is not much in between.
I have spent the last few years trying to break into the world of literary fiction. I have written a bunch of short stories and submitted them to over 100 literary journals. I have had one publication and a handful of close calls. Now, there are other forces at play, here: I am the wrong demographic to be getting published these days, and there has been much written about that phenomenon. Plus, as a writer, I’m kind of a 90s throwback, with a real focus on characters and storytelling. I’ll admit: my literary chops are not the best. I have a strong first-person nonfiction voice, and that doesn’t translate will to fiction. But if this were 1995, I would be getting published like nobody’s business.
Anyway, the point here is that I think any artist, myself included, would want to be recognized by the people that count. And in the literary world, that’s what they do—they write for journals that nobody reads, they publish at presses that sell 300 copies, they all sit around smelling their own farts, and nobody makes any money off of it. They do it for praise and recognition, and nothing else. I happen to like money. I would like to write a book that sells 5 million copies. But then, it would be—gasp—mainstream. It would be selling out. You can’t have it both ways.
And then there is the idea that the taste of the masses is not exactly highbrow. I feel IQ points sublimating out of my ears whenever I read James Patterson. The Fast and Furious movies are not known for nuance and subtlety. Things that are popular tend to be pretty dumb—this is a fact. When was the last time you watched Law & Order? It’s absolutely a bad show, with terrible writing and terrible acting. It’s been on TV for decades. I’ll give you another example. Arrested Development was a smart show about dumb people. The Big Bang Theory was a dumb show about smart people. Which one got canceled, and which one stayed on the air? I just gorilla-dunked my point on you. I don’t read lowbrow books, I don’t listen to lowbrow music, and I don’t watch lowbrow TV. Shouldn’t be a surprise that I write highbrow books. Maybe I will be the Barry Hannah of the finance world. All I ask is that Bloomberg sends out a push notification when I roll a seven.
If you get some time, I recommend you check out what’s on the New York Times bestseller list. Not exactly Masterpiece Theatre. We made it this far in the essay and we haven’t even talked about music. I’m not going to get into the aesthetics of Taylor Swift, but it’s not exactly The The, which is what I was listening to circa 1989. Let’s just say that Wet Ass Pussy is a long way from Simon and Garfunkel. There is no highbrow music left, and if there is, you have to know where to find it. Even in the dance music world which I inhabit, there is highbrow and lowbrow, with Steve Aoki (fuck that guy) on one end, and someone like Tim Green on the other. As a DJ, I have spent the last 16 years trying to raise the taste of the masses, actually with some success. I’ll find some track from a 16-year-old in Belarus producing with a cracked version of Ableton on his laptop, play it out in a club, and everyone goes nuts. That’s basically why I do what I do—to expose people to great art. Steve Aoki isn’t art. He’s a hype guy throwing cakes. The The, the winners of the Flesch-Kincaid lyrics contest, did reasonably well, all things considering, but that was before the winner-take-all internet. A whole book could be written about how the internet has made all forms of art—visual art, music, literature—demonstrably worse.
There is something about the book business that is worth mentioning. In the old days, you’d go to a bookstore, and you’d browse. Maybe you’d stand in the aisle and read an entire book without paying for it. I remember the store clerks at Waldenbooks gave you the hairy eyeball if you tried doing that. But you could walk through the store, see thousands of different books, and flip through them. People generally only buy books on Amazon if they hear about them, and the only way they hear about them is through this thing called buzz. It gets mentioned on a podcast, or on a TV show, or on YouTube, or something like that. Or people post about it on Reddit. So today, if you’re an author, you essentially have to be a hype guy like Steve Aoki, whereas before, you’d get some reviews and it would sit in a bookstore and people would pick it up. Amazon does suggest other titles to you, but who knows how that fuckin’ algorithm works. Or you have to get struck by lightning. I am standing out in a rainstorm with an umbrella and nothing is happening.
Which brings me back to the subject of Barry Hannah, who is my all-time favorite writer. And if you asked 100 of the world’s greatest writers who they thought the greatest writer ever was, half of them would probably say Barry Hannah. And yet: never sold more than 7,000 copies of a book. Not coincidentally, he was a man of the right. Got up at an AWP conference and told everyone to find Jesus, which nearly caused a riot. I have actually thought of taking a month and living in Oxford, Mississippi as a sort of writing retreat, thinking that something in the air or soil would bring out the best in me. So, to answer the question, would you rather be Barry Hannah or James Patterson—and let’s just say for the sake of argument that you can’t be both—I would rather be Barry Hannah. I really would. Patterson is a Play-Doh fun factory, a monarch of monosyllables, writing books to help people take a shit. I would rather write good books that nobody reads, than bad books that everyone does. You might say that Patterson is laughing all the way to the bank. Well, good for him. Who knows—maybe I’ll get to be both.
I read your book and loved it !! Bought 2 more to gift to my nephews about to graduate from college. I’m rooting for you and hope the book makes it big because people need to hear your advice and I’d love to hear about your next shopping spree at John Vs : )
Ok I’ll bite… what’s the best introduction to Barry Hannah?