The publishing world is all abuzz about the news that genre heavyweight Dorchester Publishing is radically changing its distribution. There will still be Dorchester books. Dorchester e-books and Dorchester print-on-demand books. But you can kiss Dorchester novels in the book rack of your grocery store or pharmacy goodbye.
Fans of dark fiction know Dorchester in its horror incarnation, Leisure Books. Over the years, they have published some of that genre’s greats. Gary Braunbeck, Edward Lee, Tom Piccirilli, Tim Lebbon,Brian Keene and a host of others have found a broad audience with Leisure, and I’ve heard some readers talk about how Leisure was a sort of “gateway drug” into the small press.
Now, in the course of this discussion, there will be some spin intended to persuade us that the situation is, perhaps, not so bad. After all, there is mounting evidence that ebooks will continue to increase in popularity as e-readers themselves grow in popularity. But as Publishers Weekly points out, Dorchester is doing this in response to retail sales dipping a whopping 25% in 2009 and dipping even further in 2010.
So what is responsible for Dorchester’s death-in-aisle-10?
I have a few ideas. I live in the midwest, where — in years past, it was not at all unusual to see a handful of Leisure paperbacks on the metal racks of my grocery store’s book section. But in the past two years I’ve noticed a sad trend. Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Books (and their obvious imitators) have conquered the grocery store book section, and Leisure titles have gotten harder and harder to find there.
I’ve not read any of Meyer’s books (and, based on what I’ve heard about them, don’t plan to). After all, the word on the street is that Meyer’s books fail as literature. But they succeed (phenomenally) as products. Twilight is the Big Mac of fiction. Over 100 Million served. In Twilight, we have a blending of horror, fantasy, and romance; as well as a product intended for the profitable young adult market, but with cross-over appeal to adults. And, if the reports are true, it’s also a book adapted to decreasing literacy levels in the U.S.. It’s a book that’s perfect for our dumbed-down times.
So, gradually, I saw less and less of Leisure books in aisle 10; and more and more Twilight, Twilight-related nonfiction, and pseudo-Twilight material. The Twilight-related non fic is stuff with names like The Twilight Companion or The TigerBeat Biography of the Guy Who Plays Edward. The pseudo-Twilight stuff is perhaps the most maddening. Books with similar covers, about young girls and their vampire crushes. The implicit message “if you like crap, we’ll give you crap!”
I’m no publishing insider. There could be lots of reasons for Dorchester’s Dunkirk-like evacuation from grocery stores that I’m just not aware of. But, as a small town book lover, I am a keen observer of grocery store book racks. Obviously, Dorchester has its hands in more than just horror and romance (they also publish westerns, crime, thriller, action/adventure). But I can’t help but suspect that the horror/romance powerhouse called Twilight shoved Dorchester from grocery store book shelves.
And, perhaps in that way only, Edward Cullen is a badass.
