I tried to order a copy of Chuck Klosterman's Eating The Dinosaur yesterday from Waterstones. Everybody who reads stuff here at ZL needs to read Fargo Rock City by the man. It is, beyond any shadow of doubt, the best book about growing up a metal-head in the 80's ever written - or at least until Almost Human is finished. Bit of wishful thinking on my behalf there...
Anyway, he's written a fair few books now - all worthy of actually paying for and Dinosaur is his latest, but it's incredibly odd (or maybe I mean shit) that it will take three weeks for Waterstones to get this book in for me.
Let's square this up, Chuck Klosterman is the premier pop-culture writer on the face of the planet right now and that's not only my opinion. I can't buy his book anywhere off the shelf and I care about this stuff - so how is anybody supposed to get involved as a casual buyer? The answer is, you can't. In hardback, paperback or as an ebook that I can read RIGHT NOW that I would PAY FOR - I can't get it and therefore, I don't get it. I can actually get it on amazon, but I was in the mood to buy it there and then - and what casual browser has ever really discovered a chance purchase by scrolling through pages and pages at amazon?
Maybe it says more about the Waterstones system than Klosterman's publisher - but there are still lessons to be had here.
Seems to me that Klosterman would actually be more successful by self publishing and taking care of the distribution himself via some third-party web application - except I rather suspect he's too stoned to care, hence general lack of website or blog.
Note to self: don't get caught in the trap of ever thinking you - or any company that works with/for you - can coast it. You can't. Somebody will come up behind you steal your crown and beat your face into the dirt. I suppose this largely depends on whether you take the Keith Richards mentality of "fuck it, I'll just show up and do what I do best" or the Gene Simmons route, which is "let's do this bigger and better than the next guy - and then set fire to it - and then tell the world and his sister." Me? I think we know which camp I'm in.
Talking of which, my buddy Ray Van Horn out in Baltimore is going through the same shit-kicking bleakness that is hanging up your gloves in the music business that I went through. It's hard trying to do the right thing by bands you love simply because it doesn't pay - and like he said to me yesterday, all the great writers are getting canned/caned in favour of writers who will play "the game". It sucks but it's the way it is and it takes a wise man to know when he gets to that point. One of the prices you pay for having other "responsibilities" I guess. Heads up bro! For what it's worth, his recent blogpost on Destroyer is a classic.
