{"id":1747,"date":"2009-10-25T14:00:25","date_gmt":"2009-10-25T21:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2009\/10\/as_long_as_im_quoting_writers\/"},"modified":"2009-10-25T14:00:25","modified_gmt":"2009-10-25T21:00:25","slug":"as_long_as_im_quoting_writers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2009\/10\/as_long_as_im_quoting_writers.html","title":{"rendered":"Straight From the Horse’s Mouth"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Here’s the truth, simply stated … bookstores are suffering from a serious crisis of falling sales. Don’t believe a single zero of all those editions claimed to be 100,000! 40,000! … even 400 copies! just for suckers! Alack! … Alas! … only love and romance … and even then! … manage to keep selling … and a few murder mysteries … rather wanly … Matter of fact, nothing is selling … bad times! … Movies, TV, appliances, mopeds, big cars, little cars, middle-sized cars really hurt book sales … credit merchandise! imagine! and weekends! … and those good old two! three month! vacations … and posh cruises! … hi there, little budgets! …watch those debts! … not a red cent to spare! … so, you know, buying a book! … a camper? well! … but a book? … easiest thing to borrow there is! … a book gets read, for sure, by at least twenty … twenty-five readers … Hah, just suppose bread, or better yet, ham, could satisfy, one slice! some twenty! … twenty-five consumers! what a windfall! … the miracle of shared loaves would set you dreaming, but the miracle of shared books, and the writer working for free, is a well-established fact. This miracle takes place, no fuss, at the secondhand counters or, a bit more nicely, in reading rooms, and so forth and so on … In every case the author goes a-begging. That’s the main thing!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those are the opening lines of Conversations with Professor Y<\/a>, published more than half a century ago, though you’d never know it.<\/p>\n


\nPrefer the original? Voilà, Entretiens avec le Professeur Y<\/em>:<\/p>\n

La vérité, là, tout simplement, la librairie souffre d’une très grave crise de mévente. Allez pas croire un seul zéro de tous ces prétendus tirages à 100.000! 40.000!… et meme 400 exemplaires !… attrape-gogos ! Alas !… Alas !… seule la “presse du coeur”… et encore… se défend pas trop mal… et un peu la “série noire”… et la “blême” … En vérité, on ne vend plus rien … c’est grave !… le Cinéma, la télévision, les articles de ménage, le scooter, l’auto à 2, 4, 6 chevaux, font un tort énorme au livre… tout “vente a tempérament”, vous pensez ! et “le week-ends” !… et ces bonnes vacances bi ! trimensuelles !… et les Croisieres Lololulu !… salut, petits budgets !… voyez dettes !… plus un fifrelin disponible !… alors n’est-ce pas, acheter un livre !… une roulotte ? encore !… mais un livre ?… l’objet empruntable entre tous !… un livre est lu, c’est entendu, par au moins vingt… vingt-cinq lecteurs… ah, si le pain ou le jambon, mettons, pouvaient aussi bien régaler, une seule trance ! vingt… vingt-cinq consommateurs ! quelle aubaine !… le miracle de la multiplications de pain vous laisse reveur, mais le miracle de la multiplication des livres, et par conséquent de la gratuité du travail d’écrivain est un fait bien acquis. Ce miracle a lieu, le plus tranquillement du monde, à la “foire d’empoigne”, ou avec quelques façons, pars les cabinets de lecture, etc… etc… Dans tous les cas l’auteur fait tintin. C’est le principal !<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s the truth, simply stated … bookstores are suffering from a serious crisis of falling sales. Don’t believe a single zero of all those editions claimed to be 100,000! 40,000! … even 400 copies! just for suckers! Alack! … Alas! … only love and romance … and even then! … manage to keep selling … […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-sb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}