I haven’t written anything here for a while, mostly because I haven’t had anything to share on the writing front. As of right now, I have three novel manuscripts, a screenplay, a novella, and a young readers’ book trilogy all sitting on my hard drive, and another project making steady progress. But I can’t get anybody to read them.

Why?

Well, the main reason is that my last novel ‘One’ didn’t sell very well. The market for literary fiction in Australia has changed, and really, there’s not a heap of demand for lit fic books. People don’t read like they used to – on the train home, before bed. Most people are now far more likely to scroll through TikTok than to read a book, so it’s a real challenge to get any significant traction or interest in novels, especially literary works.

That then narrows your opportunities as an author, and if you misstep, you’re in trouble. Publishers logically look to invest in writers that will make them money, and to make them money, you need to build an audience of people that will reliably buy your books. My first novel, ‘Rohypnol’, sold really well for a debut, but then I waited ten years to release my next book, which meant that any momentum I might have carried over had basically evaporated. No one remembered who I was, ‘One’ is very different, and reading habits have changed. So it sold a lot fewer copies, which is not a trend that publishers want to see.

The hard part then is that you’re basically back to square one, or maybe even worse – because if you can’t shift units, why would any other publisher believe in your next project? I’ve spoken to agents and publishers that I’ve met throughout the years, and all of them have said essentially the same thing – middle-aged, male authors should be looking at crime fiction, as virtually nothing else is selling anymore.

Which I don’t do. I’ve thought about trying it out, but it’s not really me, and I’d rather continue working on my projects, but with no audience, it’s hard to stay motivated.

But I do think things will shift. Sure, attention spans are in decline, and you’re trying to compete with the entire internet, which people have in their pocket at all times. But I think you can see the impacts that the degradation of literature is having on pop culture more broadly.

Movies, for example, are either blockbuster, superhero action flicks, or crappy, half-baked Netflix projects. That, in itself, is a result of there being fewer book-to-film translations – and it does feel like, at some stage, great writing will be celebrated again, as younger readers re-discover the classics, and literature is once again viewed as an art form, as opposed to a political statement.

Then again, some would suggest that new, AI generators, like ChatGPT, could eventually be used to replace the manual creation of novels.

That’s not gonna happen.

AI tools are derivatives, replicants of things that have come before, and they lack the human touch, the creative element – the freshness in language that makes writing vibrant and vital. They might be able to come up with a few impressive lines, but again, literature is art, and an expression of place and time – it’s re-creating a feeling in the body of a reader.

Machines can’t do that, because they don’t understand environmental cues and emotional responses, they can’t pick up on the things that fill the blank spaces between the words. I don’t foresee any future where an AI system will be able to write a compelling literary novel.

A thriller maybe.

But essentially, right now, it’s not an ideal time to be an author. Some are still finding opportunities, and there are pockets of hope among the reading public. But much like opera or ballet, literary fiction feels increasingly niche, as specialist bookshops shut down, discovery becomes even more difficult, and people simply aren’t as open to the investment of time and mental energy required for more challenging, thoughtful fiction.

But it’ll change. It’s equally a matter of authors coming up fresh approaches, and new ways to meet younger readers where they are. I remember how alive ‘Trainspotting’ felt when I first read it in the mid-nineties, how active ‘Fight Club’ was when I first flicked through those pages. There’ll be a similar shift, it’s just a matter of aligning with modern experiences, and communicating your ideas in fresh, exciting prose.

I haven’t been able to crack the code yet, but I’ll keep working.