From the article:
"Despite this healthy launch (without any publicity), you won't find a single copy of The Love Spell in any Barnes & Noble anywhere in the U.S. and you'll have trouble finding it elsewhere."
Ok, no publicity? She did a few news articles that the AP picked up, and for a while it was all you could Google! I'm sorry, but I don't conscider that no publicity.
And you can indeed find her book at the local B&N in my town, as well as the Books A Million, and the Waldenbooks. We're right in the zipper region of the Bible Belt and we never have any trouble. There are days when you can't swing an athame around here without hitting one of Phyllis' books, while more...how shall I put it...talented authors get squeezed out of the market by the spiritual equivalent of Pez candy. (catty much...sheesh)
Most bookstores are more than happy to order anything you want, because they know that they must compete with major online retailers like Amazon. The real problem right now is that (many) Pagan authors are either not willing or not able to embrace on-demand publishing as the new business model. They cling to the dead-tree publishing industry, not realizing that the whole ship is going down around them. This isn't censorship, it's free market economics. Nobody promised being an author would be easy.
I'm not a published author- but I am a reader. So, here's a readers opinion: It does seem we are saturated with many Pagan 101 books, and love spell books. (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)
Are Wicca and Paganism really being squeezed out by the Evangelicals? I'd have thought the wider "New Age" market would be more significant, which is where Wiccan materials are likely to be placed in bookshops. Surely Wiccans and Pagans are more in competition with the likes of the Dalai Lama and Fritjof Capra than with Tim LaHaye?
Curott claims in an article she did for Witchvox that Evangelical groups are pressuring chain bookstores to trim or get rid of their "occult" books. I don't really buy her assertion, not that I don't think Evangelical groups would do such a thing, but that corporate chains will do whatever makes them the most money. I doubt they would alienate a large niche market like the modern Pagans.
I responded to her claims that Borders was being pressured to stop selling her books over at Chas Clifton's blog.
As a pagan who works in a Borders in the "buckle" of the Bible Belt, I can say that her claims are hogwash. I get the feeling that Ms. Curott has never educated herself to how bookstores work, because her complaints about her books being sent back, unsold, could be made by 99.99% of all authors- of all religions.
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Thanks!
I too bought 'Love Spell' at a Barnes & Noble. So I'm not sure why she's claiming they won't carry it. This may simply be a matter of the book not selling well.
I'm shopping around a book proposal as well that's gotten great positive feedback - there seems to be a sense, even at Llewellyn, of publishers wanting more serious books about paganism.
Interesting, the opposite seems to be happening in Australia. You do find the "Left Behind" stuff and uberliberal Jesus was an Egyptian Freemason style texts, but that's about all.
And as a Christian I'd be happy for that to disappear too as it's some of the worst trash that's been put out by our camp in years. Vomit material.
You'd have no worries in the land of Oz.
I am not an author, but I am a librarian, so that so of makes me an interested party here....
I suspect that the drop off in Pagan book sales is genuine and for good reason - how many Wicaa 101 books does the world really need? How many $20 hardbacks do we need telling us that sex is a nice thing to have? Most of the readers of this blog would probably like to see more advanced titles, but the major publishers won't put them out because they won't sell in six-figures which is what they'll want to turn a handsome profit.
Plus a good case could be made that we're in a recession for just about everyone making under $50(US) a year.
So between the ample supply of beginner books, a slack economy and the lack of a mass market for upper level books - it's going to be a bad time for Pagan-topic authors. Even if there's isn't any corporate persecution. My advice would be to wrtie pagan-themed fiction, at least *that* seems to be selling quite well.
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