the quote in your icon seems really familiar, what is it from?

huh. well, its awesome anyway.

Writing my journal is sometimes just a way to work out things, tease them out from the head and get them exposed to air. It is hard to shake a feeling when there are reasons for it, but those reasons and feelings can create a spinning void when left alone together in the mind.

Truthfully, if it helps, The Red Tree isn't a failure, either artistically or financially. Right now, it's hard to get anybody to plunk down money on a book, which is a factor that I deal with firsthand every day. (Oh, I adore the people who made noises for years about how "your work is important" and "you really need to get your articles into a book, because I'd buy it," who then disappear the moment it's available. That right there was why I bought my copy of The Red Tree as soon as it was available.) Give it a bit more time, and let word of mouth kick in. Yes, it's slow going right now, but I figure that The Red Tree will still be purchased and talked about years after the impulse buys at Borders right now are pulped and turned back into toilet paper.

Well, I'm not indifferent about it, and neither is Amazon's SFF list.

You've been at this a lot longer than I have, so I'm sure I've no good advice...but I went through this last year, when I couldn't even sell a book, or give it away. Slightly lackluster solidarity fist bump?

Had to come home to rest my feet--I can barely walk after today!

I'm sorry you are feeling discouraged. I honestly can't figure out why your books are not selling much, much better. Your writing is outstanding, I love your voice, if I'm using the term correctly, and have been recommending your work to everyone.

Accessible. How sadly familiar. I hear that all the time.

If I never hear the word again.

If you'd just write the next "Twilight", you too could be a millionaire with zillions of tween and 35-year-old-soccer-mom fans. Yay...?

People are stupid, I think that is all there is to it.

"accessible"? What on Earth does that mean? Are they saying that... the reading level is too high... or something? I don't understand. *sigh*

Well, a lot of us love your writing and find it perfectly accessible or maybe we like having to stretch a little to understand characters and situations we would normally avoid in real life. Common touch? ugh, don't get me started...

I generally try not to comment here because I'm prone to fanboy gushing where your writing is concerned, and I know that's got to get annoying and old very quickly. So I apologize in advance.

I'm really sorry to read about your frustration. Scant consolation, I'm sure, but The Red Tree is sitting next to me at this very moment, and is only yet unread because I'm hell bent to read through the intervening books in published order (the progression of the style, voice, etc is almost as enjoyable as the content itself). I preordered the book on advice from friends who tell me it helps, and on the strength of your first few books that I had read... so you've got a recent buyer of anything of yours that's published from now on in me. In fact, I've railed on enough that my wife bought me a copy of your uncounted Beowulf novelization when she recognized the name she keeps hearing.

Dear Caitlin R. Kiernan-

As an avid reader currently employed at the retail counter of an independent bookstore, I feel that I must speak to you about your recent post regarding the sense of futility you are feeling at not receiving the larger sales you were expecting from the publication of 'The Red Tree'.

I have been reading your work since Silk, hungrily devouring every line of text I could lay my greedy eyes on. Your writing abilities far supercede the mass produced, cookie-cutter novels currently clogging the shelves of the bookstore I work at. I am frequently appalled at the sheep-like mentality of the masses to pay $30 or $40 dollars a whack for the latest Dan Brown or Danielle Steel book that I wouldn't wipe my a** with! (Pardon my French) Where as you have a storytelling prowess and unparalleled ability to create worlds with the english language that truly leave me in awe-struck.

The day 'The Red Tree' published I bought the book and then pretended to be spontaneously ill so as to leave work early and immediately begin reading. It was spectacular and eerie and perhaps my new favorite of your novels.

I'm sad to say that I think that the vast majority of people have become so drab and unimaginative that they need to have their entertainment regurgitated and fed to them via sieve and your books are far from the gray, gummy, tasteless bookgunk that they are used to.

It pains me to hear you question your continuing desire to write as this world would be a far less interesting place without your imagination. You are a unique and wildly talented writer who always keeps me coming back for the next cerebral fix. I hope you never stop.

All the best,
-J

Beg Pardon. My proof-reading skills leave much to be desired. As I'm sure you inferred, your abilities leave me awe-struck...not in awe-struck. I'm not enirely sure where awe-struck is, but I know that I'm not in it. :)

Apologies.
-J

Now you have me thinking about the scene from “Secret Window” when Johnny Depp’s character sits there with what, three sentences on the screen and he keeps re-writing them.

What is worse: staring at a blank screen or hammering away and realizing well, 89% of it is shit. Then again I am an old coward and the blank scream, wait, screen, whoa, terrifies me.

Can we talk about pumpkins again?

Your explanation makes so much sense. I won't start nattering on why but you really gave me inspiration. Thanks.

It pains me, but I have to agree with you.

Let’s say Amazon was right, and you wrote the second “best” SF/fantasy book to come out of America last year. (As I said, I bought it but haven’t read it yet. By all accounts, it is quite good.) I don’t see how writing an even better book this year is going to help—if nothing else changes for you.

So it seems to me the problem isn’t the quality of your writing. It’s the quality of your distribution channels.

This past weekend, I explained to my mom how she can watch any Perry Mason episode she wants at any time she wants on her computer—for free (since she already has a newish computer and a fast Internet connection). Then I showed her how to watch CSI, Amazing Race, and all the other shows she likes to watch “on demand.” And my mom is not one of those hip cougar moms who has sex with 20-year-olds and has all the flashiest clothes and the newest things. She’s frumpy and cheap. She drives a ‘99 Ford Focus. She only has a cell phone because my sister gave her one on her plan (and lied to her and told her it was free). And yet she has what amounts to almost unlimited entertainment available to her whenever she wants it as a kind of happy side effect for subscribing to Comcast.

And for fifteen bucks more a month, my mom could get Netflix (and get a bunch more content). And for sixteen more (and the price of a good video card), she could get World of Warcraft (and get a bunch more content). On and on.

And I’m not my mom. I wasn’t able to get out to see Star Trek when it hit the theaters, so I downloaded it (for free) and watched it on my iPhone, then again on my computer—during opening week. I did finally get out to see it, but only because I really liked it and wanted the “big screen” experience. If I had a mind to, I could probably download an electronic copy of one of your books and to read on my computer by the end of the day, without paying for it.

That’s what you’re competing against, not Cat Valente or Peter Straub or Neil Gaiman.

I don’t know if there are going to be any more Neil Gaiman’s, authors who just write good, accessible books that start to sell and sell. I don’t even know if there are going to be that many more you’s. Printed books are becoming an affectation, like $4 coffee. Soon, all media entertainment will be online, and people will expect to simply pay for a premium channel or sit through ads (World of Warcraft/Rhapsody/Netflix/Hulu), and/or the channel will be free (or have a fixed initial buy-in), and people will pay for individual pieces of content (Kindle/iTunes/Rock Band/Guitar Hero)—via whatever device they have on hand (Kindle, PSP, XBox, iPhone, PC, a Diamond Age-esque piece of nanotech paper). Only people who can afford to drink coffee at Starbucks and have the inclination to read an honest-to-Jesus printed tome will purchase books. It will all just be content.

You are a good author, but unless you start writing scripts for WoW (or whatever), or one of your books gets turned into a print sensation somehow, I think you’re going to have to keep running to stand still. It’s just going to get harder to make a good living via print channels. They only have room for a few monster sellers, and the definition of “monster” is going to get smaller and smaller. You have a better chance to cash in than an author who can’t write quality content, but I think it’s still a pretty slim one.

You really know how to cheer a lady up.

I wish I could be more cheerful. I’m in a mood; I apologize. For what it’s worth, I’m rooting for you. I want you to get the things that you want. But I think your best chance of making more money as an author (even if you never write another story) is to work to position yourself well within the new literature channels that are emerging. And the people who run those channels will see your work as “content,” even if you don’t.

As to why you can’t write, it sounds to me like you’re (slowly) killing the goose. Escaping into videogames is no more a substitute for a vacation than chewing a breath mint is a substitute for brushing your teeth. You have to give yourself what you actually need to revitalize and sustain you, whatever that is.

While I agree with you insofar as the challenges of the new market, consumers are still spending metric fuckloads of money on things like Twilight and Harry Potter.

And, in fact, this is one of the single greatest hurdles to the success (or even publication) of any new author, and it gets worse every day.

We sadly live in a world of Twimoms and twinklepeens, and that alone is something to be bitter about.

No arguments there.

In my opinion, certain series of books (like those and The Da Vinci Code) are the literary equivalent of American Idol. They have been selected by a subset of the masses for true mass promotion.

It’s a mammoth investment to promote anything on that scale, and companies that invest want to know—for certain—that their investments will bring them the profits that they seek. They can’t afford any misses.

While it’s fun for many people to read a series that “everyone” has read, it doesn’t really help the medium as a whole—unless what American Idol has done for popular music would qualify as helping.

Like you said, she has bought into the spoon-fed book market.

The reading public can only hold so many darling books in its collective head at one time. If a book doesn’t get into Costco or doesn’t get into the display window at Borders, it might as well not exist for them. That’s by design, I think, on both sides.

She wants entertainment. She does NOT want to work for her reading enjoyment. I gave up recommending books since she claims my suggestions read too much like “poetry.”

I want entertainment, too. I guess I’m just not entertained enough by the right things. I actually don’t find Caitlín’s writing particularly challenging, but I read a fair amount of poetry. I think have a good idea why some people find her work inaccessible. I’m just not one of those people.

How do I bring myself to do this again, knowing, as I do, that the book will almost certainly be received with the same general indifference that my previous novels have encountered?

I don't know. I am not indifferent.

Hello,

I merely wished you to know that your books have brought an immense sense of awe and joy to me. It's truly wonderful to read a novel that is so brimming with life and mystery and just all around wonder that the characters seem to leap off the page. They are so vivid they seem as though they are living, breathing people, the marginalized and the disenchanted, curled close, whispering their tales in my ear. I love the sense your novels convey of a universe so vast that we are like miniscule ants in comparison, mattering about as much to it as ants do to many of us. What you've captured is, I think, what so many overblown and gruesome "horror flics" attempt to.

And I've strayed far too much in to hyperbole, so I'll stop now. Naturally, the fact that I adore the novels makes nothing better, not the melancholy or the lack of success of the novel, but I just wanted to try to convey a bit of what your books have shown me, and somehow, something about this entry finally sparked the right words.

Hi! I read this post late last night and then discussed it with my significant other, since she is also a huge fan of your works.

I will certainly agree that "luck" plays a huge part in what catches the zeitgeist and what individual people find. In my case, I found your work only because I had just read and very much liked Justine Musk's BloodAngel and there was a blurb comparing her to Caitlin Kittridge (whose cover copy, quite possibly unfairly to her, so put me off I have yet to sample her novels). I saw your books, thought "this is exactly what I was looking for and I love these titles!" and didn't even realize I had the wrong author until months later (at which point, read her covers, and ran; again, not saying she isn't a terrific writer, the cover copy just put me off). Had I actually seen her books first, I might never have run across your spot on the shelf (and I saw Musk by pure serendipity, so double dose of luck to get there). Even after this, it was still more pure happenstance that my signif other wound up reading you, as she for the most part doesn't read fantasy/horror.

Anyway . . . We could think of only one author with obvious commercial success that both my signif other and myself really enjoy and consider a "must read" (their name left out so that I can say she thinks your books are on a completely higher level across the board, and you certainly are as talented and your books as successful from a literary perspective as anyone writing today) and like yourself this author is clearly intelligent and so are at least some of her characters. So, you don't really have to dumb down the characters to reach a modicum of success even now. But I do wonder if you almost *have* to have some sort of more easy to cheer on, less complex character among your leads.

The two biggest things we could think of as far as "differences that might work in their favor with mass audiences" might help define accessible, though Heaven knows I wouldn't want everyone to start writing only books that fit this. Variety among fiction is a good thing, yes?

The first difference is that even with lots of danger and death, those books are mostly upbeat and "fun" in tone. There's always a sense that things are going to work out in the end (to take a possible counter example, I even get that sense from grrm's ASOIAF series, though one certainly worries about one's favorite characters). Even things with relatively upbeat endings for your writing (I guess Daughter of Hounds is the closest to this?), it's really hard to say one is left feeling reassured about much of anything.

The other is that in most commercial successes, at. least some of the characters are wholeheartedly likable, and their flaws aren't really the sort of thing that are going to be offputting to most people. But to take Low Red Moon as an example, even though it probably has the most "accessible" plot of the bunch (clear good guys and bad guys, for the most part, as opposed to Silk, where you're sort of pulling for everyone and it's a giant tragedy of circumstance) there are a lot of times its hard to like Chance and Deacon, the two primary leads.

You pull for them to be okay, of course, because they are obviously good people trying their best and their nemesis is a batshit evil psychopath (that said, you did an awesome job with the Narcissa Snow character; even your batshit evil psychopaths are as complex as they can be, and you did a great job of showing their pov and making it understandable without glamourizing the evil; in fact, you showed the evil in such a realistic way the sheer realism might be offputting to some people), but they spend most of the book overhwelmed by anger and unhappiness, and it is for the most part not a joy to be inside their heads (Sarah's anger and unhappiness in The Red Tree was actually far more interesting to me, even though she might seem a less conventionally likable character, not having run around saving the world and such). I figure being 8 months pregnant will do that to you, and likewise I totally get the various aspects of his history that made Deacon the way he was, but I think a lot of people simply might recoil from them. (and this isn't a criticism! I loved that book!)

Likewise, Daughter of the Hounds, it's really, really hard to like Soldier at times (though there wind up being good and sufficient reasons for this), and to a lesser extent some of the other characters. In all of your books, your characters are real people whose flaws are real flaws and they can be difficult to get along with at times, as is the case with most real people. And they tend to be *really* at the margins of society because of who they are, not totally "normal" people with a couple of quirks who happen to be marginalized for plot purposes.

Part of the problem might be timing, too -- I suspect if it had come out in the late 70's or 80's, Low Red Moon would have at least made the top 10 list for bestsellers and might have hit #1; the market was somewhat different then, whether because publishers pushed different books or because times now are so difficult that fewer people want challenging and ambigious reads I don't know. Also, a lot of writers were working with that sense of cosmic scale queen_bellatrix mentions back then and having commercial success; these days, I can't think of any (except maybe in science fiction, but I'm not sure how much those books sale, either). But as with most commercial trends, this really could change tomorrow for reasons. no one is quite sure of, which is, maybe, reason enough to keep plugging away even for monetary purposes. You could suddenly become the "next hot thing" tomorrow, and since your books already have the merit to deserve this, once you get the recognition it's likely to be lasting, even after the trend moves on.

So, that's my best guess what your agent means by accessible. Personally, I'm more inclined to go with "luck" and "marketing" as the primary reasons, as I think practically anyone with enough intelligence to be a reader will be captivated by your prose if they give it a try, and if the academic community ever finds your work and can look past their snootiness towards fantastic fiction, you're going to wind up in the literary canon one day. (Silk and The Red Tree being the most obvious candidates for this, from my perspective).

This is way long so no time to try and go on about all I love about your books and I hope you found this other-than-annoying. Seriously, you are one of the best writers alive, and while your audience may not yet be huge, you have a much deeper and more profound impact on those who read you than most best-sellers (not all, some are actually good) are likely to for the totality of their readership. So, maybe not money-wise, but otherwise, you're accomplishing quite a lot for good in the world, which is more than most at any level of financial success can say.

Okay, half of the comments above about the state/future of readership have me absurdly depressed now, so I'm just going to ask out of curiosity, and for future reference: what sales count as "sales"? Only ones from major booksellers like Amazon, Borders, and Barnes and Nobles? Or do purchases of new books from independent bookstores also "count"?