Are Westerns history?

Are westerns history?

  • Yep. Deadier than Billy the Kid.

    Votes: 9 18.0%
  • Not yet, but the sun's not quite set yet. Soon though.

    Votes: 2 4.0%
  • Dormant. Like a frog in the mud during the winter.

    Votes: 6 12.0%
  • It's just a market that is on the down cycle. It'll come back.

    Votes: 28 56.0%
  • Other : Please specify what you think.

    Votes: 8 16.0%
  • Westerns? What in tarnation are westerns? Did they die out with black and white TV?

    Votes: 2 4.0%

  • Total voters
    50

Vanatru

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Is the western market dead? Most grocerybook racks I've been to lately have at most a handful to choose from, less than the sci-fi selections; where as, romance and generic name brand thrillers glom the available space.

http://www.westernwriters.org/news.htm from Nov 2006 had an interesting comment on the sales of Western books.

So, do you think the western market is dead, dying, stagnant, dormant, or just waiting for it's cycle to come back around?

I think it's just waiting for it's turn to come back around.
 

Festus

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Hell NO! Westerns aren't dead, they ain't even that sick yet. Would appreciate a place on that poll for "No" instead of dormant or not yet. Dadburn whipper-snapper! :)

A handful is better than none. I'm glad you think they'll even get more popular. But they are a helluva long ways from being dead yet.

Course, I do have a vested interest in this!
 
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Cav Guy

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Western Writers of America is also an organization that has for some time been moving its support from fiction to non-fiction (this from a member who's well-published in the Western fiction field and should know). They don't really provide much in the way of communication or support for newer authors (unlike the romance, SciFi, Fantasy, and Mystery communities and authors' associations).

When you have good authors who tell good stories, the market picks up. Terry Johnston's death was a big blow to the community, and with there being few to no short story markets it's hard for new authors to make their marks.
 

Puma

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One of the AW members who's been dormant for quite a while is very active in the Western Writers group and his own local writer's group. I haven't seen him on the forums since the Western forums showed up. I'll see if I can dig him up.

And, yes, the Western Writers Association does have a magazine (and I suspect there are some others) but you may have to buy a copy to find out what submission requirements are. The magazine is Roundup. Puma
 

Jamesaritchie

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Dead

Traditional westerns are not dead, but they are very sick. Not much of a market for them at all. But there is no such thing as a truly dead genre. Even the sickest is simply waiting for the right new writer to come along and heal it.
 

AussieBilly

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Maybe on the down side in the US, but in London? Alive and kicking!

For reasons I won't go into, I decided to start my fiction writing career by producing Louis L'Amour style westerns ... and sold my first one to a London publisher. Since then have sold two more and had two of the three picked up for reprint by another London publisher (large print). I dearly love having my books show up in the local library! However, I haven't been able to find any agent or publisher in the US accepting this genre ... so, as noted in the title ... go east, young man, go far east. (Except I'm in Australia, so it's go way up there)
 

AussieBilly

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Thanks for the welcome, partner ... Pull up a chair and I'll try to explain my good fortune ...

No agent, sorry to say. I am presently searching for someone to represent my latest modern crime story ... However for the westerns, I simply went to the library and found a couple publishers and queried them. Before everyone starts thinking I'd actually done something worth congratulating me about ...
the publisher, Robert Hale Publishing Ltd, prints books for direct sale to libraries in the Commonwealth ... the UK, Australia, Canada, etc. The books never get to a book store, altho I believe you can buy one through Amazon.com. Hale pays a one time royalty, prints 1,000 copies and that's it. If the printed book is picked up by another publisher, large print, then there's another royalty check. Two of mine are coming out in large print later this year. Does that mean I will then be able to brag about having five books published?

What I really want is to write something and have it go to the book stores. Somehow that is important to me in my quest to become an author.

Now, as far as the storyline ... two are with the same hero ... in the style of that old TV hero, Paladin. Lending a helping hand as he travels here and there in the west sometime after the end of the Civil War.
The third is a young man on his way south through central Oregon to see what the California gold rush is all about ... but meets a damsel in distress. Ah, but those were the good old days ... Now I gotta hang out on street corners to find DinD's

Did I answer everyone?
As I say in my queries ... thanks for the interest ...
billy
 

Scribhneoir

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So, do you think the western market is dead, dying, stagnant, dormant, or just waiting for it's cycle to come back around?

I once asked Frank Price, who produced numerous TV westerns, including The Virginian, why he thought westerns had died and had yet to be revived, unlike other genres.

His answer: "I don't know. There are potential answers. One of which someone else mentioned to me, could have been Roy [Huggins], that is that the minute somebody in a space suit stepped off onto the moon, that science fiction became real. Westerns were at their most popular when cowboys were more real, we were closer to that time. As we got further and further away from that time, there was more of an unreality to somebody riding around on a horse than going around in a space suit. Science fiction seems to have filled the gap. But westerns once ruled. So, that's part of it. What do people believe? And science fiction is now more credible than the West."

So, what do you guys think? Is the western genre suffering because science fiction is more credible to today's readers, at least those too young to have experienced a flourishing western genre? I'd like to think westerns will have a revival in popularity, especially since SF leaves me cold, but I think Frank has a point. I also think it's telling that AussieBilly's books were published in the UK, not the US. (btw, congratulations AussieBilly!)

It will take an extraordinary writer to revive the fortunes of the western. Let's hope that person comes along before US publishers give up on the genre all together.
 

Cav Guy

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That may be part of it, but then how do you explain the popularity of rodeo and country music?;)

I tend to think the answer's a bit more complex than that. SciFi has a strong network behind it (in terms of authors' associations, writing groups, etc.). Westerns really do not (and I don't want to go into WWA again...they don't do near as much as the other genre associations). There's also a number of "training" markets for SciFi in terms of magazines, fan fiction, and so on. No such thing for Westerns.

The popularity of things like the SASS and other groups (reinactors and otherwise) shows that there's interest in the West. So does the NF market. I think Western authors are (by their natures) fairly solitary types, which does not bode well for mentor-type relationships. Finally, you have the growth of the "Adult Western" in the 1980s and the lack of a strong, prolific successor to L'Amour. Many factors, all leading up to what we see today.
 

Jamesaritchie

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SF

Science fiction isn't all that popular, either. It's certain more popular than traditional westerns, but even SF has only about a 3% market share.

My own opinion is that most readers simply want bigger, better-written, more in depth stories these days. Larry McMurtry type westerns, Cormac McCarthy type westerns, etc. They want new and different. Honestly, Louis L'Amour did about all there was to do with traditional westerns, and the three or four writers out there who still write and sell such westerns satisfy reader need nicely.

The western is not at all dead, or even terribly sick. The only western that's really in serious trouble is same old, same old traditional westerns of the kind Louis L'Amour wrote. And why shouldn't they be? There comes a point where there's simply nothing left to say unless you change style and story type, and I think that time came some time back for the Louis L'Amour type western.

Today's readers, as a whole, have too much fiction to choose from, and have more sophisticated taste than readers did thirty years ago.
 

Vanatru

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Interesting what you two (Cav Guy & Scrib) have said.

I was moaning and groaning to myself the lack of quality westerns on the market (quality by my standards) and I made a snarky comment that there are more recent civil war novels than westerns.

That gave me a pause. Are there more CW books due to a genuine interest in 'em, or because there's a lack of westerns and many CW fans I've met are also westerns fans. So, IMO, they're flocking to the new market and propagating it.............making westerns slide back a bit further.

Does that make sense?
 

Vanatru

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My own opinion is that most readers simply want bigger, better-written, more in depth stories these days. Larry McMurtry type westerns, Cormac McCarthy type westerns, etc. They want new and different. Honestly, Louis L'Amour did about all there was to do with traditional westerns, and the three or four writers out there who still write and sell such westerns satisfy reader need nicely.


Strongly agree with that. That's what I find annoying is the lack of anything new or fresh, IMO.

I love Will Henry's material (Custer, Black Apache, I-Tom Horn), Terry Johnston, and Steve Frazee (High Chapparal, Zoro, Ghost Mine), along with Dan Cushman (The Adventures of Comanche John, The Pecos Kid).

These guys have written about things that are still in the main, but not over written about..........like cattle drives, gamblers, sheriffs, etc).http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Co...0733540?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175875685&sr=1-4
 

Jamesaritchie

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Writers

Strongly agree with that. That's what I find annoying is the lack of anything new or fresh, IMO.

I love Will Henry's material (Custer, Black Apache, I-Tom Horn), Terry Johnston, and Steve Frazee (High Chapparal, Zoro, Ghost Mine), along with Dan Cushman (The Adventures of Comanche John, The Pecos Kid).

These guys have written about things that are still in the main, but not over written about..........like cattle drives, gamblers, sheriffs, etc).

I think we see it the same way, and with the same writers.
 

AussieBilly

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My humble opinion rides on the same pony that Jamesaritchie offers about the perceived death of the western genre. Here in Australia, as far as I can tell, western novels are popular with older male readers ... I don't know of too many women who like and read western (okay, I'm generalizing ... I know there are some, somewhere) ... so right away half the population of readers are lost to western writers.
But here's something to add to the quest for an answer ... I'm told that novels of the American west are big in Germany, somewhat popular in France and are growing in popularity in China. So I've been told. Now what does that tell you?
Meanwhile, I'll keep putting out my Louis L'Amour style stories and hope someday to reach the Will Henry level ... at least as long as that London publisher will print them.
 

Scribhneoir

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I don't know of too many women who like and read western (okay, I'm generalizing ... I know there are some, somewhere) ...

Right here, for a start. I'm female. :D And I know a number of women who like and read westerns -- both fiction and non-fiction.