How does the wave of bookstore closures affect writers?Utsudo has observed that readers mostly buy only works that suit their taste or that they’ve read and want to collect. Lesser-known books rarely even get leafed through, so the big keep getting bigger. As royalties keep dropping, besides writing better, novelists also need to find new breakthroughs so their work gets “seen.”

Translated from Utsudo’s original Chinese column.

Bookstore closures: another long-established shop shuts

       The day before yesterday, I heard from a writer friend that another long-established bookstore in Tainan has closed.

　　I’m sure this has become commonplace. The era of books that kept us company is gradually fading, being replaced by electronics. Of course every creative form has its own character, but today the stimulation of interactive video is more appealing and intuitive than sitting down to read carefully, and it has quietly changed people’s habits and tastes.

Book-buying behavior from a reader’s perspective

　　And that’s not all. I visited the bookstore myself, and switching from creator to reader, I noticed that when I spend money on a work, my reasons are usuallywhether the work’s overall tone suits my taste, or that I’ve read the work before andwant to buy it for my collection。

　　Works with big ads or great fame, I’ll pick up out of curiosity, but what I actually want to buy still comes down to those two conditions — let alone ordinary, less famous works, which rarely even get picked up.

　　If they can barely even be leafed through, they have even less chance of capturing hearts. Yet businesses still prioritize revenue, leading to a situation where the big stay big and the weak stay weak… Shrinking profits also squeeze creators’ room to survive, and newcomers’ chances will get even slimmer. Publishing is worse every year, and royalties keep getting lower.Authors who only do e-books will starve, as an editor put it.

　　But actually, I’d say authors who only do print will starve too XDD

　　Having to keep producing and persevering in such a harsh environment is really so hard…

　　I also noticed the checkout line was short. Most people just came in to browse (there were closing discounts); few bought, or only a little. I bought five books that day — all BL manga, hahahaha!!

　　I absolutely adore 10 Count >////< — the first BL work I’ve reread more than three times. I bought it to collect; Rihito Takarai’s style is just amazing~~

　　Ahem, hmph, BL? I have no idea what that is.

　　Anyway, only when I switched perspectives did I notice things I’d never paid attention to, and get closer to the reality of how the environment has changed. Frankly, it was a lesson — a brutal lesson in how society works.

Is the written word becoming less and less noticed?

　　Text-based media are becoming less and less noticed.

　　Calling it a decline is a bit much — after all, many creative works still need text to support them. Settings, concepts, scripts and so on all still need words. But illustrations, which you understand at a glance, are more high-end~~

　　Stories will always be needed, from grand myths to small village tales — since ancient times and into the future. In this era starved of spiritual nourishment,the psychological dimensionwill need even more attention.

　　But the form is changing. Amid the rapid changes in human civilization, how to adapt will be novelists’ challenge. Today’s readers are hard to satisfy with text alone, but adding more media drives costs up and up. It used to be that you could still be seen just by writing hard, but it’s really different now.

　　And it’s becoming more and more obvious that having a gimmick may lead to success more easily than having skill. Of course, whether the buzz lasts is debatable, but being able to“be seen”is extremely important. Otherwise, forever amusing yourself in a small circle doesn’t mean much in real terms.

New paths for novelists

　　Beyond showing your own character and persevering, you also have to find new breakthroughs. Beyond writing and constantly publishing, you have to aim higher —how to write better, more movingly, even to create a classic — that may be the way forward.

　　It’s getting harder and harder, but that seems to make it all the more worth the challenge.

　　Of course, breaking old concepts and finding new methods is also very important — but how? I’m still figuring it out, which is why I’ve made lots of odd stuff. At least I feel I’ve learned a lot along the way, and it’s been pretty fun XD (like making videos, voice acting, storytelling and so on)

　　Speaking of which, even Thunderbolt Fantasy has songs in English now. It gives me a bit of secondhand embarrassment, but at least the songs sound great — and I think that’s a really successful fusion of old and new. The movie’s plot this time was really good XDDD

　　Next, will Taiwanese opera turn straight into rap? Performers could even come down mid-song to shake hands with the audience.

　　Sounds kind of cool — totally doable!

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Further reading (in Chinese)

• Previous: #36 (in Chinese)
• Next: #38 (in Chinese)
• Start from the beginning: #01 — Utsudo’s debut
• Column introduction
• Utsudo’s books

About the author

Utsudo is a Taiwanese light novelist and novelist VTuber with more than ten years in the industry and 40 commercially published print books. Her novel 《遺失的情書》 received a 2022 Ministry of Culture youth creative award. The 《嘿！聽說妳在鬼島當作家》 series records her experiences as a novelist in Taiwan.

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