Gold: The Final Science Fiction Collection
Part Three: On Writing Science Fiction Best-Seller
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In the December 1982 issue of this magazine, you may recall that the first two chapters of my novel, Foundation's Edge, were presented as an excerpt, together with an essay of my own on the novel's genesis and some pleasant comments from my friends and colleagues. I agreed to all this under strong pressure from the editorial staff, who thought it would be a Good Thing and who overrode my own objections that readers would complain that I was using the magazine for personal aggrandizement.
As it happened, my fears were groundless. Readers' comments were generally friendly, and a gratifying number indicated their determination to get the book and finish reading it.
It may be that you are curious to know what happened after the book was published. (For those of you interested in Asimovian trivia, it was published on October 8, 1982.) I'd like to tell you, because what happened astonished me totally. The book proved to be a best-seller!
I don't mean it was a "best-seller" in the usual publisher's promotion way of indicating that it didn't actually sink without a trace on publication day. I mean it appeared on the national best-seller lists and, as I write, it is in third place on both The New York Times and on the Publishers Weekly list of hardcover fiction. Maybe by the time this editorial appears, it will have disappeared from the lists, but right now it's there.
In the past, in these editorials, I have promised to keep you up to date on my endeavors and I will do it now in the form of an invented interview:
Q. Dr. Asimov, is this your first best-seller?
A. For some reason, people find that hard to believe, perhaps because I'm so assiduous at publicizing myself, but Foundation's Edge is my first best-seller. It is my 262nd book and I have been a professional writer for forty-four years, so I guess this qualifies me as something less than an overnight success.
Mind you, this is not my first successful book. Very few of my books have actually lost money for the publisher and many of them have done very well indeed over the years. The earlier books of the Foundation trilogy have sold in the millions over the thirty years they have been in print. Again, if you group all my books together and total the number of sales of " Asimov" (never mind the titles) then I have a best-seller every year.
However, Foundation's Edge is the first time a single book of mine has sold enough copies in a single week to make the best-seller lists, and in the eight weeks since publication (as I write), it has done it in each of eight weeks.
Q. And how do you feel about that, Dr. A.?
A. Actually, I have no room for any feeling but that of astonishment. After publishing two hundred and sixty-one books without any hint of best-sellerdom, no matter how many of them might have been praised,
I came to think of that as a law of nature. As for Foundation's Edge in particular, it has no sex in it, no violence, no sensationalism of any kind, and I had come to suppose that this was a perfect recipe for respectable nonbest-sellerdom.
Once I get over the astonishment, though (if ever), I suppose I will have room for feeling great.
After all, Foundation's Edge will earn more money than I expected, and it will help my other books to sell more copies, and it may mean that future novels of mine may do better than I would otherwise expect, and I can't very well complain about any of that.
Then, too, think of the boost to my ego! (Yes, I know! You think that's the last thing it needs.) People who till now have known I was a writer and accepted it with noticeable lack of excitement even over the number of books I have committed, now stop me in order to congratulate me, and do so with pronounced respect. Personally, I don't think that being on the best-seller lists makes a book any the higher in quality and, all too often, it might indicate the reverse, but I must admit I enjoy the congratulations and all that goes with it.
Q. Are there any disadvantages to all this great stuff: Isaac?
A. Oddly enough, there are. For one thing, my esteemed publishers, Doubleday and Company, would like me to travel allover the United States pushing the book. (It is, at the moment, their only fiction best-seller and they are as eager as I am to have it stay on the lists forever.) They are putting considerable money into advertising and promotion and it would only be fair that I do my bit as well. However, I don't like to travel, and so I have to refuse their suggestions that I go to Chicago, for instance. And it makes me feel guilty, and a traitor both to my publisher and my book. I have made a trip to Philadelphia, though.
There is also a higher than normal demand for interviews through visits or on the telephone. This doesn't demand traveling on my part and I try to oblige (telling myself it's good publicity for the book), but it does cut into my writing time, and I can't allow too much of that.
Then, too, there's an extraordinary demand for free copies. This is a common disease among writers' friends and relations, who feel that there is no purpose in knowing a writer if you have to help support him. My dear wife (J. O. Jeppson), who is a shrewd questioner, has discovered the astonishing fact that some people think writers get unlimited numbers of free copies to give out. They don't! Except for a certain very small number, they have to buy copies just as anyone else does. (Even if they did have unlimited numbers of free copies, giving them rather than selling them would ruin a writer, just as giving meat rather than selling it would ruin a butcher.)
What I have done is to resist firmly any temptation to hand out Foundation's Edge. I have told everyone they must buy copies at a bookstore. If they insist, I will give them copies of other books, but those sales of Foundation's Edge must be registered. Every little bit helps.
Q. Do you see any importance in this situation aside from personal profit and gratification?
A. I do, indeed. Soon after Foundation's Edge was published, Arthur C. Clarke's new novel, 2010: Odyssey Two was published, and it hit the best-seller lists, too. At the moment of writing it is in fifth place on The New York Times list. Earlier this year, Robert A. Heinlein made the list with Friday and Frank Herbert did so with White Plague.
I think this is the first year in which four different science fiction writers made the lists with straight science fiction books. I also think that in the case of Clarke and myself, this is the first time straight science fiction has landed so high on the lists.
This is gratifying to me as a long time science fiction fan. It indicates to me that, finally, science fiction is coming to be of interest to the general public and not simply to those few who inhabit the SF "ghetto."
In fact, I wish to point this out to those SF writers who are bitter and resentful because they feel that their books are shoved into the background and disregarded merely because they have the SF label on them. Neither Foundation's Edge nor 2010: Odyssey Two makes any effort to hide the fact that it is science fiction. The publishers' promotion in each case utterly fails to obscure that fact. In the case of Foundation's Edge, The New York Times carefully describes it as "science fiction " each week in its best-seller listing.
And yet it continues to sell.
To be sure, there is a trace of the "ghetto" just the same. There is one thing that Arthur and I have in common, aside from bestselling books. As of the moment of writing, neither Foundation's Edge nor 2010: Odyssey Two has been reviewed in The New York Times. I presume the paper hesitates to bestow that accolade on mere science fiction. Oh, well!
Q. And what are your present projects, Isaac?
A. Well, Doubleday has informed me, in no uncertain terms, that I am condemned to write one novel after another for life, and that I am not permitted to consider dying.
So I am working on another novel. This one is to be the third novel of the robot series. Both Lije BaIey and R. Daneel will reappear, and will complete the trilogy that began with The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun. The third novel is called World of the Dawn.
After that, I am afraid that Doubleday expects me to do a fifth Foundation novel; and, apparently, so do the readers. For three decades they badgered me for a sequel to the Foundation trilogy and when I gave that to them, the ungrateful dogs responded by badgering me for a sequel to the sequel.
I'd complain, except that I love it.
Note:
On December 19,1982, The New York Times finally reviewed Foundation's Edge, and very favorably too. On that day, the book had slipped to sixth place in the best-seller list (still not bad) but Clarke had climbed to second place.
As it happened, my fears were groundless. Readers' comments were generally friendly, and a gratifying number indicated their determination to get the book and finish reading it.
It may be that you are curious to know what happened after the book was published. (For those of you interested in Asimovian trivia, it was published on October 8, 1982.) I'd like to tell you, because what happened astonished me totally. The book proved to be a best-seller!
I don't mean it was a "best-seller" in the usual publisher's promotion way of indicating that it didn't actually sink without a trace on publication day. I mean it appeared on the national best-seller lists and, as I write, it is in third place on both The New York Times and on the Publishers Weekly list of hardcover fiction. Maybe by the time this editorial appears, it will have disappeared from the lists, but right now it's there.
In the past, in these editorials, I have promised to keep you up to date on my endeavors and I will do it now in the form of an invented interview:
Q. Dr. Asimov, is this your first best-seller?
A. For some reason, people find that hard to believe, perhaps because I'm so assiduous at publicizing myself, but Foundation's Edge is my first best-seller. It is my 262nd book and I have been a professional writer for forty-four years, so I guess this qualifies me as something less than an overnight success.
Mind you, this is not my first successful book. Very few of my books have actually lost money for the publisher and many of them have done very well indeed over the years. The earlier books of the Foundation trilogy have sold in the millions over the thirty years they have been in print. Again, if you group all my books together and total the number of sales of " Asimov" (never mind the titles) then I have a best-seller every year.
However, Foundation's Edge is the first time a single book of mine has sold enough copies in a single week to make the best-seller lists, and in the eight weeks since publication (as I write), it has done it in each of eight weeks.
Q. And how do you feel about that, Dr. A.?
A. Actually, I have no room for any feeling but that of astonishment. After publishing two hundred and sixty-one books without any hint of best-sellerdom, no matter how many of them might have been praised,
I came to think of that as a law of nature. As for Foundation's Edge in particular, it has no sex in it, no violence, no sensationalism of any kind, and I had come to suppose that this was a perfect recipe for respectable nonbest-sellerdom.
Once I get over the astonishment, though (if ever), I suppose I will have room for feeling great.
After all, Foundation's Edge will earn more money than I expected, and it will help my other books to sell more copies, and it may mean that future novels of mine may do better than I would otherwise expect, and I can't very well complain about any of that.
Then, too, think of the boost to my ego! (Yes, I know! You think that's the last thing it needs.) People who till now have known I was a writer and accepted it with noticeable lack of excitement even over the number of books I have committed, now stop me in order to congratulate me, and do so with pronounced respect. Personally, I don't think that being on the best-seller lists makes a book any the higher in quality and, all too often, it might indicate the reverse, but I must admit I enjoy the congratulations and all that goes with it.
Q. Are there any disadvantages to all this great stuff: Isaac?
A. Oddly enough, there are. For one thing, my esteemed publishers, Doubleday and Company, would like me to travel allover the United States pushing the book. (It is, at the moment, their only fiction best-seller and they are as eager as I am to have it stay on the lists forever.) They are putting considerable money into advertising and promotion and it would only be fair that I do my bit as well. However, I don't like to travel, and so I have to refuse their suggestions that I go to Chicago, for instance. And it makes me feel guilty, and a traitor both to my publisher and my book. I have made a trip to Philadelphia, though.
There is also a higher than normal demand for interviews through visits or on the telephone. This doesn't demand traveling on my part and I try to oblige (telling myself it's good publicity for the book), but it does cut into my writing time, and I can't allow too much of that.
Then, too, there's an extraordinary demand for free copies. This is a common disease among writers' friends and relations, who feel that there is no purpose in knowing a writer if you have to help support him. My dear wife (J. O. Jeppson), who is a shrewd questioner, has discovered the astonishing fact that some people think writers get unlimited numbers of free copies to give out. They don't! Except for a certain very small number, they have to buy copies just as anyone else does. (Even if they did have unlimited numbers of free copies, giving them rather than selling them would ruin a writer, just as giving meat rather than selling it would ruin a butcher.)
What I have done is to resist firmly any temptation to hand out Foundation's Edge. I have told everyone they must buy copies at a bookstore. If they insist, I will give them copies of other books, but those sales of Foundation's Edge must be registered. Every little bit helps.
Q. Do you see any importance in this situation aside from personal profit and gratification?
A. I do, indeed. Soon after Foundation's Edge was published, Arthur C. Clarke's new novel, 2010: Odyssey Two was published, and it hit the best-seller lists, too. At the moment of writing it is in fifth place on The New York Times list. Earlier this year, Robert A. Heinlein made the list with Friday and Frank Herbert did so with White Plague.
I think this is the first year in which four different science fiction writers made the lists with straight science fiction books. I also think that in the case of Clarke and myself, this is the first time straight science fiction has landed so high on the lists.
This is gratifying to me as a long time science fiction fan. It indicates to me that, finally, science fiction is coming to be of interest to the general public and not simply to those few who inhabit the SF "ghetto."
In fact, I wish to point this out to those SF writers who are bitter and resentful because they feel that their books are shoved into the background and disregarded merely because they have the SF label on them. Neither Foundation's Edge nor 2010: Odyssey Two makes any effort to hide the fact that it is science fiction. The publishers' promotion in each case utterly fails to obscure that fact. In the case of Foundation's Edge, The New York Times carefully describes it as "science fiction " each week in its best-seller listing.
And yet it continues to sell.
To be sure, there is a trace of the "ghetto" just the same. There is one thing that Arthur and I have in common, aside from bestselling books. As of the moment of writing, neither Foundation's Edge nor 2010: Odyssey Two has been reviewed in The New York Times. I presume the paper hesitates to bestow that accolade on mere science fiction. Oh, well!
Q. And what are your present projects, Isaac?
A. Well, Doubleday has informed me, in no uncertain terms, that I am condemned to write one novel after another for life, and that I am not permitted to consider dying.
So I am working on another novel. This one is to be the third novel of the robot series. Both Lije BaIey and R. Daneel will reappear, and will complete the trilogy that began with The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun. The third novel is called World of the Dawn.
After that, I am afraid that Doubleday expects me to do a fifth Foundation novel; and, apparently, so do the readers. For three decades they badgered me for a sequel to the Foundation trilogy and when I gave that to them, the ungrateful dogs responded by badgering me for a sequel to the sequel.
I'd complain, except that I love it.
Note:
On December 19,1982, The New York Times finally reviewed Foundation's Edge, and very favorably too. On that day, the book had slipped to sixth place in the best-seller list (still not bad) but Clarke had climbed to second place.
