Stupid Bookstores...

Pike · May 19, 2007

Last year I went to a Borders for the first time. It was huge, full of paperbacks but when I tried to find the horror section I had to really search it out.

So, last night, I went to the local outlet mall where they opened up another Borders, hoping to pick through the paperbacks. Lo and behold, they had squat. Tons of How-To's, better sex books, gardening up the wazoo, and a beautiful kid's section - which my kids loved. But as for horror, the only books remotely close were in the paranormal romance section. I'm not opposed to them, I used to read Laurell K. all the time until I got tired of my wife giving me strange looks like I was getting ideas. (maybe I was, but that's immaterial)

Just can't stand the fact that if you want to find a horror novel you have to raid used book stores for ratty copies, or beg the local library to add some to their shelves.

Anybody have a similar situations?

Pike

Haggis · May 19, 2007

My local Borders has a (relatively) small horror section, but it's hidden amongst the Sci Fi books. 50% of it is King, 25% of it is Koontz. I can usually find something I haven't read in the remaining 25%. After all, I did find my first Liam Jackson book there.

eta: Were the "better sex books" and the "gardening up the wazoo books" next to each other?

veinglory · May 19, 2007

Horror is on a down-swing as a dedicated shelving area, I think it started about 5 years ago as far as I can tell. At first everything with a monster went into horror even if it was really romance, then there was an exodus. Now even classic horror is more likely to be in literary or mainstream instead. Horror always seemes to go through these phazes, that's one reason there is a pretty healthy small press and zine industry in this genre to get the real fans over the lean periods....

Will Lavender · May 19, 2007

It's strange, however, that you can walk in a Blockbuster and seemingly all you see on the New Releases shelves is horror.

I can speak as a rabid book buyer and a former (big-time) horror fan:

I can't read horror anymore. The genre for me, for some reason, went stale. Thrillers -- literary thrillers in particular -- are so much scarier to me personally, so much more deft on the whole than the more transparent (intentionally so) horror genre.

What's happened, possibly, is this:

Ten, fifteen years ago a lot of these literary thrillers would be shelved as Horror. Publishers want to cross over, obviously; they want to attract a mass audience. If you bill something as "horror," you alienate part of your audience right away. If you bill a book as a "literary thriller," though, you have thriller readers, high-brow literary readers, and possibly a good dose of genre-only readers opening the book to read the flap.

For instance:

I'm reading Justin Evans' A Good and Happy Child. That book is billed today as a thriller; in Stephen King's heyday, Evans would have been right there on the shelf beside him.

Haggis · May 19, 2007

Will Lavender said:
It's strange, however, that you can walk in a Blockbuster and seemingly all you see on the New Releases shelves is horror.

I don't think that stuff's horror, Will. I think it's crap. And I think that crap like you see in Blockbuster is what's hurt the genre. Real horror doesn't rely on blood and guts and limbs being pulled off and skulls being crushed and scantily-clad 20-somethings being fed into meat grinders (although I kind of like the scantily-clad 20-somethings). Real horror is far more subtle. It's visceral, not visual. Because it's not what you see that's gonna get you. It's what sneaks up on you from behind. :e2teeth:

Calla Lily · May 19, 2007

Haggis said:
I don't think that stuff's horror, Will. I think it's crap. And I think that crap like you see in Blockbuster is what's hurt the genre. Real horror doesn't rely on blood and guts and limbs being pulled off and skulls being crushed and scantily-clad 20-somethings being fed into meat grinders (although I kind of like the scantily-clad 20-somethings). Real horror is far more subtle. It's visceral, not visual. Because it's not what you see that's gonna get you. It's what sneaks up on you from behind.

I think I'll spend tonight watching the ORIGINAL The Wicker Man (absolutely frelling brilliant). And maybe Event Horizon. (Yes, it splatters blood but you can't beat it for its: "don't turn around, run faster, it'srightbehindyou!)

And IMO there aren't enough scantily-clad 20-something MALES in these movies. I rented the Godawful remake of House on Haunted Hill just so I could watch Taye Diggs take his shirt off--and he stayed clothed the whole time! Meh. :e2brows:

zahra · May 19, 2007

callalily61 said:
I think I'll spend tonight watching the ORIGINAL The Wicker Man (absolutely frelling brilliant). And maybe Event Horizon. (Yes, it splatters blood but you can't beat it for its: "don't turn around, run faster, it'srightbehindyou!)

And IMO there aren't enough scantily-clad 20-something MALES in these movies. I rented the Godawful remake of House on Haunted Hill just so I could watch Taye Diggs take his shirt off--and he stayed clothed the whole time! Meh.

Wicker Man is on in about 15 mins in the UK, but I'm watching 'Vera Drake', so there. (Got 'Wicker' in collection, so that's OK).

My local bookstore doesn't even have a horror section. It's appalling. I go to amazon, now. I prefer trad horror, anyway, rather than smarty-smarty stuff with women's breasts turning into drum-kits or whatever. I want horror to be about the consequences of death, not about people regretting they didn't have children.

So, go to amazon, I'd say.

Pike · May 19, 2007

Haggis - eta: Were the "better sex books" and the "gardening up the wazoo books" next to each other?

They were back to back, though I spent most of my time learning about the best time to plant peas. Really.

Callalily - And IMO there aren't enough scantily-clad 20-something MALES in these movies. I rented the Godawful remake of House on Haunted Hill just so I could watch Taye Diggs take his shirt off--and he stayed clothed the whole time! Meh.

I am so ashamed. I would have thought you were rooting for Clint Howard to strip down (Yuck - scratch that comment. I burned a bit of my brain out just coming up with that less-then-snappy comment.)

I hear what all of you are saying. The genre is shifting, with paranormal romance taking the lead. I did find the works of Poe as well as the original Dracula and Frankenstein among the "literary" works of Melville and Fitzgerald. It's a shame that we have to dig for these works, or that more publishers don't put out more books. I've been following Leisure books for several years and noticed where they used to publish two books a month per genre, now they publish four to six P/R novels and two of everything else, and they say they are one of the largest horror publishers.

And the crap in the video stores is just a gorefest. There just isn't enough "scary" tales out there because, as the old adage states, sex and violence sells. I guess we'll have to swing the pendulom back ourselves.

Pike

Anthony Ravenscroft · May 20, 2007

Go complain to the bookstore, & to the publishers. I was just talking about a related matter with a friend, who noted that the title (plus obviously content...) of The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror is plainly saying "fantasy & horror are interchangeable."

Therefore, if a store has plenty of fantasy, they probably feel "We've already got a representative selection of that sort of stuff."

Unfortunately, "that stuff" might be every "Harry Potter" & "Eragon" spinoff & trinket & clone currently available.

The same thing's been happening for years with "science fiction & fantasy." When "Deryni" was hot, high-tech skiffy was sparse. Then Star Wars came out & you sometimes couldn't find The Hobbit. Now you'll probably find the latest "Spiderman" novel before you trip over a Samuel Delany novel.

But it all starts by pitching a collective fit at Those In Charge that you are tired of being treated as a retard for not "understanding" that "it's all the same stuff."

Jamesaritchie · May 20, 2007

Horror

Outside of three or four or five big name horror writers, horror fiction just does not sell very well. Bookstores try their best to stock books on the basis of "most sold, most stocked."

The best way to increase the size of a horror section in a bookstore is to buy as many of the horror novels they do stock as possible, and to encourage everyone you know to do the same.

Number of sales is the largest factor at most bookstores. There's limited room, and for books to receive a section of their own, sales numbers have to be pretty darned good.

And the trouble is, people gripe at a great deal of whatever is placed in a horror section. If you really want a horror section, you can't complain that you don't think many of the novels in it are horror by your definition.

Pike · May 20, 2007

Good point. That reminds me of the number of romance and paranormal romance novels fill the Target book section. With four kids I shop where my dollar gets the most so I often cruise their shelves and catch an occasional Dean Koontz or Stephen King novel, which is sometimes more then the SCi-Fi/ Fanasy titles on the same shelves.

I'd love to go on a compaign to empty the shelves of every horror title to sckew the sales to placement ratio. Maybe that should be a plan for the next National Day of Horror?

Pike

Jcomp · May 22, 2007

Considering many bookstores in my area don't even have a horror section, I'm actually quite pleased with the horror section found at my local Borders, which is why I shop there (and at Half Price).

HorrorWriter · May 25, 2007

Calla,
I agree that there need to be more scantily-clad males in the horror movies! :rant:

Pike,
I shop at Walden's, which if I'm not mistaken, is akin to Border's, and they have a nice horror section---where I live. So, you may want to suggest that they invest in one. I also go to Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million. The used books stores where I live get you awesome copies---nothing ratty!

zahra · May 25, 2007

Jcomp said:
Considering many bookstores in my area don't even have a horror section, I'm actually quite pleased with the horror section found at my local Borders, which is why I shop there (and at Half Price).

I shall be sending you my list soon.

Pike · May 25, 2007

I'm going to hit some used books stores here soon to overload my shelves, but in Border's defense...

I went to the Border's at the Everett Mall tonight and found that they increased their horror section to twice its original size. They dedicated most of one shelf to Stephen King, the rest were filled with Koontz, Little, Saul, Laymon, Matheson, and many more. I almost passed out from kneeling down to check the lower shelves then snapping back up to the upper ones. To appease my sense for dread I grabbed Michael Laimo's Deep in the Darkness. I'm hoping it's a gruesome read.

Pike

bsolah · May 26, 2007

Although Border's section in my local store is small (south-west Sydney, Australia), at least it exists compared to most local bookstores that hardly stock horror.

Fox The Cave · May 26, 2007

The horror section will always be the smallest in the store, which is a real shame. And what there is, is always pretty much 90% King and Koontz, as I think somebody else mentioned. One of the reasons it's a hard market to break into.

Pike · May 26, 2007

I think it also revolves around how people percieve horror. I read a wonderful article by Richard Laymon in Fiction Writer many years ago that said, "Horror writer's find out how it feels to be the target of bigotry. We are the second-class citizens of the literary world. Hell, we aren't even citizens of that world. We are aliens, trespassers, interlopers. Geeks, freaks. Purveyors of trash." (From the article "The Horror, The Horror" by Richard Laymon, published in Fiction Writer, Oct. '99)

He goes on to say that it's an image problem, that people see horror as mindless, gory trash. Of course that doesn't include King, Koontz, or many others that are seen as mainstream authors. They, according to the masses, have ascended. Because we write about taboos, people feel guilty about reading them, and enjoying them. So why would a bookstore put that kind of trash on its racks. They might as well fill in the gaps with Hustler and Swank for that matter.

But as James said earlier, if the shelves ran dry because customers bought up the books, they might start to rethink their attitude.

Pike

Will Lavender · May 26, 2007

Pike said:
I think it also revolves around how people percieve horror. I read a wonderful article by Richard Laymon in Fiction Writer many years ago that said, "Horror writer's find out how it feels to be the target of bigotry. We are the second-class citizens of the literary world. Hell, we aren't even citizens of that world. We are aliens, trespassers, interlopers. Geeks, freaks. Purveyors of trash." (From the article "The Horror, The Horror" by Richard Laymon, published in Fiction Writer, Oct. '99)

I think all genres get that sometimes, though. Maybe all writing period.

Romance? Too sentimental. Erotica? Porn. Thrillers? Too scripted. Horror? Too gory. Literary? Too boring. Sci-fi? Too impossible. Fantasy? Too derivative. On and on.

So horror doesn't have the market cornered on pigeonholing. It's simply found itself really dampened and hurt by bad writing, thus poor sales.

In the early 1990s, as the King bubble began to wane and those old familiar tropes started glutting the market (werewolves, vamps, etc. etc.), I think many fans were turned off. And when the fans are turned off, the sales plummet.

Suddenly there's no money in the business. Good writers who might have written horror in the 1980s are writing other stuff now. These books might have horror roots, but they won't be shelved as Horror. (I'll put myself in this camp, although I'm obviously an unknown at this point; my WIP might have been shelved as horror once upon a time, but it owes a lot more to thriller writers.) They're just following the cash.

louisgodwin · May 26, 2007

Okay, this settles it. I'm now classifying my horror novel as a 'dark urban fantasy.' Sheesh.

I actually haven't had this problem. The bookstores I go into around the Dallas/Fort Worth area usually have a horror section, though somewhat small.

Pike, you might want to check your local comic book stores. There's a Lone Star Comics in my area that has an extensive Horror, SF & F collection. The entire store is only about half the size of a 3-bedroom house, but it still has the largest horror novel section I've ever found.

bsolah · May 27, 2007

Yeah, louis, I have a local fantasy/comic story and they're horror section is quite decent and got some titles that are too full on for the mainstream stores.

Pike · May 27, 2007

The local comic shops around here carry more adult graphic art books then horror. I can get multiple copies of the works of Royo before finding anything creepy and gory. I going to had out to visit the used bookstores in the area here soon and see what I can come up with. There's one I remember visiting years ago that had a huge spec fic section, if I could remember where the hell the store is.

Pike

Saundra Julian · May 27, 2007

Boy, did this post hit me hard.
I have a "horror" novel I'm about to shop around to agents...

Anyone still like (sexy) vampire books?

HorrorWriter · May 29, 2007

Saundra,
I was advised by an already established horror author to market my novel as dark urban fantasy or thriller. You may want to try that with agents. If agents specifically ask for horror, like Lori Perkins does, then I say horror. If they don't have horror on their list and accept fantasy, I'd go with dark urban fantasy.

Saundra Julian · May 29, 2007

Makes sense to me! Thanks, HorrorWriter, I like the sound of "dark fantasy" better anyway!

Stupid Bookstores...

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