Comments on: The ‘genre ghetto’ is economic, not stylistic

By: The Infinite Linkness « Torque Control

The Infinite Linkness « Torque Control — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 09:45:06 +0000

[...] On fantasy: one, two. See also. [...]

By: Ariel

Ariel — Thu, 24 May 2007 14:48:22 +0000

Of course, music has a distinct advantage over fiction, in the sense that it’s less time-consuming. It’s far easier to sample a couple of songs by twenty different artists and get a pretty good impression of which ones are worth pursuing further. But it would obviously take a lot longer to sample twenty different authors, even if you only tried a couple at a time.

So I reckon any musical is probably a string of interlinked sub-genre conurbations with a reasonable efficient public transport system already in place. It’s just that the big music labels’ private taxi-cab fleet keeps erecting road-blocks and blowing up the tracks to try to force you to go private hire…

By: Yatterings » Watching the Stars from the Gutter

Yatterings » Watching the Stars from the Gutter — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:08:04 +0000

[...] Ariel at Genre Files�and the estimable Paul Raven over at Velcro City Tourist Board�have airing the genre as ghetto and to some extent questioning how non-fan readers get to know of [...]

By: gabe

gabe — Thu, 24 May 2007 03:38:41 +0000

So yes, rock music is still a ghetto, as are most of the explicitly non-commercial genres.

I don’t know. I think it’s more of a suburb than a ghetto… and that analogy extends to publishing as well, and is telling in and of itself.

By: Del

Del — Wed, 23 May 2007 15:10:13 +0000

I best not get started on this one, else I will have to turn on the tags.

I completely agree with all of you, this is a major issue within genre and with a new wave of younger fans, readers and writers it is primed for a revolution.

I don’t think people are willing to sit round and watch the publishing industry swallow itself whole like the music industry is currently doing. But someone or group needs to act and make people sit up and listen.

Is there a solution, can the genre be saved by a few? Can genre divorce its un-wielding over bearing parent?

My analogy is mainstream = pc, genre = mac. You cannot be everything to everyone, but you can be a strong, dynamic niche (a rather large niche at last count).

I am currently doing some work for an independent genre publisher; I am very interested to hear what can and should be done to make a start.