Nobody Made You Read This: Why Books Are Getting Worse

Author incomes are in freefall and the publishing industry can't stop arguing about whose fault it is. Books are getting shorter, simpler, and more formulaic, and yet the readers who would actually sustain author careers keep walking away. The conversation about why has been stuck in a loop for years, and a recent video helped clarify the answer.

CriminOlly, a UK-based BookTuber who covers crime fiction and publishing with actual rigor, recently posted a video titled "Author Incomes Are Dropping and Apparently It's Our Fault." The "our" refers to readers, btw.

The title is intentionally confrontational, of course. That's how you get clicks for your video. But his points are solid. Readers say the shelves are full of identical books they didn't ask for, and don't want, which is why they're not buying new releases. They're still reading, but sourcing their material outside of the big retailers.

Publishers counter that they are releasing what people want, as demonstrated by buying patterns, rather than what people whine about on the internet. I know better than most the difference between what people say they want and what they'll actually spend money on, so it's hard to call malarky on their point.

HOWEVER, those same publishers have made it clear they consider it their job to publish only the "right" voices, rather than making mercenary calculations about what will sell best.

Yes, they have data showing that, of the new releases, the stupid, smutty books with cartoon covers and vapid female protagonists sell best. But it's a stacked deck. They have already excluded the authors and works that don't fit in their worldview. So the sample they're drawing sales figures from are heavily skewed in favor of their own worldview... which they think the unwashed public will read if they have no alternative.

As it turns out, we won't.

My acerbic besties in the Redpill space would happily tell you, "You can't negotiate desire." It's as true of commerce as it is in romance.

You're not gonna scold your way into a sale.

The blame loop is satisfying in the way that all circular arguments are satisfying. You get to feel right without having to change anything. Publishers can point at sales figures. Readers can point at the product. Authors, stuck in the middle, get to feel screwed by both parties, which is at least emotionally accurate even if it solves nothing.

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The Wrong Question, Served to 2 Different Populations

My most recent YouTube video (the one this essay accompanies) covers the gamification of reading, the rise of performative literacy through BookTok, and the slow erosion of deep reading as a practiced skill. In it, I separate the supposed reading public into two groups that the publishing industry stubbornly refuses to distinguish between.