{"id":638,"date":"2005-08-09T22:04:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-09T22:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/generic-books\/"},"modified":"2017-02-26T21:25:50","modified_gmt":"2017-02-26T21:25:50","slug":"generic-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/generic-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Generic books"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many of us remember the ultra-plainly-labeled, \u00fcber-cheap generic foods sold in bulk at grocery stores a few decades back. Stuff like bulk beer, which came in plain white cans with just the word “BEER” in stark black letters, plus minimal nutrition information and a bar code.<\/p>\n

Fewer people remember that, for a very<\/i> brief period of time in the white-label heyday of the early 1980s, someone attempted to market generic genre books.<\/p>\n

Yes, completely<\/i> generic paperback books. They had a plain white cover with just the title in black block lettering: ROMANCE<\/i> or SCIENCE FICTION<\/i> or HORROR<\/i> or WESTERN<\/i>.<\/p>\n

They released one book in each genre; an older friend of mine collected the whole set. The books had no back-panel blurb, no author information, no publisher information, not even a copyright page.<\/p>\n

My friend said the novels were uniformly awful, but entertainingly so. Apparently the writer or writers went out of their way to incorporate every possible genre clich\u00e9 into the paper-thin storylines.<\/p>\n

I’m guessing the white-label SCIENCE FICTION<\/i> novel had a bad case of white room syndrome<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The books, of course, failed miserably except as a collector’s oddity for bibliophiles. It’s hard to get authors to do good work when they’re not even given a pseudonym, and it’s even harder to get readers to pick up a book without the benefit of snazzy cover art, a catchy title, or author name recognition. And, of course, without publisher information attached to the product, there’s not much possible motive or method to marketing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of us remember the ultra-plainly-labeled, \u00fcber-cheap generic foods sold in bulk at grocery stores a few decades back. Stuff like bulk beer, which came […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookstores","category-publishing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qT6f-ai","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5215,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/2020-ohioana-book-festival\/","url_meta":{"origin":638,"position":0},"title":"The 2020 Ohioana Book Festival","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"August 27, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This year, because of COVID-19, the Ohioana Book Festival is being held in a virtual format from Friday, August 28 through Sunday, August 30th. I'm participating in the \"Adventures in Speculative Fiction\" panel, which will go online at 2pm Eastern on Sunday. Adventures in Speculative Fiction The best speculative fiction\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "bookstores"","block_context":{"text":"bookstores","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/bookstores\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ohioana Book Festival Cartoon","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Ohioana2020.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Ohioana2020.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Ohioana2020.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Ohioana2020.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Ohioana2020.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2075,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/recitatif\/","url_meta":{"origin":638,"position":1},"title":"Recitatif","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"July 28, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Recitatif is the French word for recitative, which is a type of spoken performance that's a combination of regular speech and singing, similar to the German term Sprechgesang. It's typically used in narrative interludes during operas, for instance. \u201cRecitatif\u201d is Toni Morrison\u2019s one and only published short story; you can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "book review"","block_context":{"text":"book review","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/book-review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Toni_Morrison_2008.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Toni_Morrison_2008.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Toni_Morrison_2008.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Toni_Morrison_2008.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Toni_Morrison_2008.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Toni_Morrison_2008.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":669,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/why-its-a-bad-idea-to-pay-a-vanity-press-to-publish-your-writing\/","url_meta":{"origin":638,"position":2},"title":"Why it’s a bad idea to pay a vanity press to publish your writing","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"July 11, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Vanity publishers will publish anything if the author has the money, be it a family history to distribute to relatives, a guide for classes, or a volume of badly-written poetry. With a vanity press, there's no editor making an informed decision as to whether or not the manuscript in question\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "publishing"","block_context":{"text":"publishing","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/publishing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":161,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/on-urban-fantasy\/","url_meta":{"origin":638,"position":3},"title":"On Urban Fantasy","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"February 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"On several occasions, I\u2019ve heard readers bemoaning the comparatively small number of horror novels being released by major publishers. But the horror is out there; it just sometimes isn\u2019t being marketed as such. In the case of supernatural horror in particular, it\u2019s often being marketed as urban fantasy. Take Tim\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Writing Advice"","block_context":{"text":"Writing Advice","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/writing-advice\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/liens_infernaux_1920x1200.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/liens_infernaux_1920x1200.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/liens_infernaux_1920x1200.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/liens_infernaux_1920x1200.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/liens_infernaux_1920x1200.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/liens_infernaux_1920x1200.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2027,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/roll-of-thunder\/","url_meta":{"origin":638,"position":4},"title":"Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"July 5, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry\u00a0by Mildred D. Taylor tells the story of a black farming family attempting to cope with racism in Mississippi during the Great Depression. The viewpoint character is Cassie Logan, a 9-year-old schoolgirl who is just starting to realize the depth of the bigotry in her\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "book review"","block_context":{"text":"book review","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/book-review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/RollofThunder9.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":585,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/literary-journalism\/","url_meta":{"origin":638,"position":5},"title":"Literary journalism","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"November 23, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Literary journalism refers to the use of fictional techniques in writing a work of nonfiction. In other words, it's a true, well-researched, journalistically-sound story that might normally be written in a dry newpaperly manner that has been instead written with style, vivid description, and narrative flow that immerses the reader\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "writing"","block_context":{"text":"writing","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=lookwhatifoun-20&l=ur2&o=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}