Joseph Heller, �Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here�
Holy crap! Check this out!
I�m a shill for Jello Biafra! Carrico! �ber Alles! Carrico �ber Alles! The next time he says fuck you to me, I can say, �hey man! My labor pays your rent!�
Anyhoo, with this book I can�t help but wonder what�s going to happen to the memoir in the age of blogging. Sure, this book was finished (as was Heller) before blogs were so mainstream, but now they�re ubiquitous.
Top authors like Neil Gaiman and Warren Ellis both regularly post blogs, along with others like Howard Dean and Eric Idle. I�m sure part of this fad is due to pressure from the publishing industry, as so the hoi polloi can feel in touch with these authors.
But if they post stuff like this book, which is basically a set of reminisces from Heller�s childhood on Coney Island and is basically what I�ve seen on numerous other sites, albeit with better grammar and punctuation, will they be able to collect these stories in a book to sell later on?
Not if they�re like this collection, which despite moments of charm, reads like a �How I spent my summer vacation � 60 years ago� essay. Still, I bought it, and since I bought it used, that meant somebody else bought it in the first place, so there must be a market for this kind of stuff. Then again, as I said, this was published before the blog phenomenon.
So I�m wondering what the dividing line is for future and current authors. Are they now expected to write constantly for free, in order to garner interests for the things they may be selling? And if so, is there an area to stick to, so as to not knock yourself out of a future paycheck from your work? After all, some blogs (not mine, and not many others that I�ve seen) are so well-written and so frequently updated, that the reader may be saturated with input from the author, and not feel the need to spend actual money on other writings available.
Of course, that�s for people who already have a fanbase. I wouldn�t say I had a fanbase, but I did get some angry letters from people who don�t check regularly, who instead were expecting a link with an update on material. If they actually miss getting updates from me, you would think they would want to buy the book. This site should be the perfect opportunity for me to hawk my cheesy wares.
But for the most part, these people who receive the update haven�t bought my book either. That�s because you�re all bastards. I need to rethink this, as I�m broke as fuck.
That�ll be $3.50.
