Books Don’t Need Boycotts
How the Internet is Flat Out Wrong about James Frey’s Full Fathom Five
James Frey has never lacked for controversy. The Oprah-disgraced-turned-Oprah-redeemed novelist has walked a unique literary path. His newest venture, Full Fathom Five, is described as a ‘transmedia’ company, though it’s unclear that anyone knows what that means. Full Fathom Five (FFF) made a splash with The Lorien Legacies, a young adult series published by Harper Collins. The first book, I Am Number Four, was made into a film. Since, FFF has packaged mostly young adult titles, and Frey has hit pay dirt once more with Endgame, FFF’s second YA series to be optioned by Hollywood. FFF has now launched FFF Digital, its own digital publishing arm that is essentially a startup epub venture. So naturally, the Internet has a serious problem.
Google ‘Full Fathom Five digital’ and you’ll find links to all the goings-ons of this indy digital imprint specializing in commercial YA and adult titles. Change the search terms to ‘Full Fathom Five publishing’ and the results tell a different story. You’ll find a scathing hatchet job from New York mag. High minded bloggers calling for boycotts. The Hugo-award winning novelist John Scalzi suggests that a writer offered to work for FFF should kick James Frey in the nuts. FFF has been called a ‘fiction factory’ and ‘James Frey’s Author sweatshop’ — picture Frey the foreman, writers begging for breaks and being fed Adderall. The good people of Goodreads assembled a list of FFF books to ‘avoid like the plague’, with the comment ‘shame on the author who works with Full Fathom Five. They should know better’. Because Full Fathom Five is a conspiracy hatched by the Koch brothers while fracking in the West Bank. If only e-readers didn’t melt when you try to burn them.
Full disclosure, I am a Full Fathom Five author. After reading through pages and pages of links to criticism, I found zero in terms of a counter-narrative. One of those rare instances on the Internet where there’s no second side of the story. The web is unanimous: FFF is evil. And I’m, apparently, a sucker.
The blogosphere’s beef (as if it needs a reason) is with the writers’ contracts. Without getting into the specifics of each deal, or my deal, the prevailing issue is this: writers get 30–50% of all royalties related to the book (since updated to 50/50). Writers do not own the book. If the book doesn’t sell, the writer earns in the area of bubkis. While the negative press is ubiquitous, finding the actual facts require some digging. In this way, the Internet is like the newspaper that trashes a public figure on the front page, and prints the retraction on pg. 19.
The most troubling aspect of the lynch mob is how comfortable it is with the idea of boycotting books. The reason for the calls to boycott is to protect ‘the writers’. A noble, endangered species. If only they had a voice of their own. Writers whose grasp of language couldn’t possibly help them understand the terms of a contract they’ve signed. It’s startling how ‘helping writers’ is paired with the idea of a ‘book boycott.’
I believe the blogosphere means well. For some, there may be some misconceptions about how the world of publishing fiction actually works. For old authors and publishing hands, there is a gag reflex to new concepts and new blood getting in the door. Throw in the name ‘James Frey’ and watch the pitchforks amass by torchlight. As a novelist who has published through the traditional route, and am now publishing with Full Fathom Five Digital, I would like to dispel some notions:
- After writing a good novel, people read it.
Not necessarily. The work that goes into writing a novel does not entitle you to money or an audience. This isn’t the sort of job where you punch a clock and collect a bi-weekly check and respond to fan mail. Finding an audience could take a lifetime and may not ever happen.
2. Full Fathom Five screws writers out of royalties.
Traditional publishers pay from 10–15% of the cover price to the writer. For paperbacks, as low as 8%. Many advances do not earn out. FFF Digital, at 50%…Well, do the math.
3. Novelists are paid for their work.
All aspiring fiction writers work on ‘spec’. Meaning we do the work, and the prospect of money is ‘speculative’. It doesn’t exist beforehand. It may not exist ever. A fiction writer who has a deal before he or she writes is off to a good start.
4. Packaging a book series for kids means you have no soul.
Book packaging for Young Adults is as old as the Hardy Boys. When was the last time anyone stuck up for the uncredited, underpaid writer of a Nancy Drew novel?
5. An author should have his or her name on the book.
True, unless the author has forfeited that right, or doesn’t want his or her name on the book to begin with. Like that guy who wrote the last seven Hardy Boys novels. Or girl, maybe? Who knows.
6. Writers should just get an agent and sell their book ‘the right way’.
You go cold query 20 literary agents and see how significant you feel.
7. Full Fathom Five takes advantage of gullible MFA students.
MFA students who paid over $50,000 a year to write literary short stories are not ‘gullible’ for pursuing a commercial writing opportunity.
8. Full Fathom Five’s writers are unpublished, unagented and desperate.
I guess I can only speak for myself here, but no, no and no.
I signed on with Full Fathom Five to work on A New Day in America, an apocalyptic, father-daughter survival thriller that will be released on January 21st. I read the contract, showed it to my lawyer, and I signed it. Don Corleone did not have Luca Brasi put a gun to my head. I appreciate that some bloggers are concerned about how I get paid, but I suspect it’s more about an ongoing obsession with Frey.
I am afraid of being judged before anyone has read a single sentence.
An audience is the lifeblood of an author. There’s no magic bullet. It takes doing the work, getting that work in front of readers, and hoping the story engages, transports, and stays with them. I realize that I am not entitled to an audience simply by the act of writing. The only way a writer makes a decent living is by finding an audience, not by getting overpaid for a book that no one reads. If you’re concerned about the plight of the writer, read. Read whatever you can get your hands on. Books don’t need boycotts.
Theo Black Gangi is the author of A New Day in America and the breakout crime thriller Bang Bang. His stories have been anthologized in First Thrills, edited by Lee Child; The Greensboro Review; The Columbia Spectator; and The Kratz Sampler. His articles and reviews have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Mystery Scene Magazine, Inked Magazine, and Crimespree Magazine. A graduate of Columbia University’s Masters in Fine Arts Program, Gangi is the Director of the Low Residency MFA Program at St. Francis College. He lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn with his wife. Their dog’s name is being withheld for security reasons.
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