Bloggasm

Mark Sarvas lives the quiet life in Los Angeles, where he has been a newspaper editor, travel agent and bass player. He has written episodic comedy for HBO and Showtime as well as screenplays for Warner Brothers, producer David Foster, and the World Entertainment and Business Network. His fiction has appeared in Troika Magazine, The Wisconsin Review, Apostrophe, Thought Magazine, Pindeldyboz and as part of the Spoken Interludes reading series in Los Angeles. His book reviews have appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Modern Word, Boldtype and the Los Angeles Review, and he has completed work on his first novel. He is best known as the host of the popular and controversial literary weblog “The Elegant Variation” which has been mentioned in The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Guardian (A Top 10 Literary Blog), Forbes Magazine (Best of the Web), Los Angeles Magazine (A Top L.A. Blog), The Scotsman, Salon, the Christian Science Monitor, Slate, The Village Voice, NPR and numerous other fine publications. He is also a founding member of the Litblog Co-op, a group of 21 literary blogs dedicated to drawing attention to the best of contemporary fiction.

Simon Owens: After working with HBO and other screenwriting ventures, how does this compare to writing short fiction and novels? Do you feel that you have a lot more creative control over your work this way?

Mark Sarvas: There’s no comparison, really, because as I’ve often said, screenwriting isn’t really writing. It’s a blueprint for a movie, that’s all, and it’s got about as much to do with writing as honor has to do with politics. When you write a film, you’re working by committee – first your agent weighs in. Then the development executive. Then the producer. Then studio executive. Then the studio head. It’s an endless chain of trying to guess at what a growing group of often inarticulate people wants – and most of the time, they themselves don’t really know. Whereas writing fiction, you might have all those discussions, but you largely get to have them with yourself. Sure, there are notes and revisions and the like – but there is a liberty to pursue your own fancy in fiction that’s not there in screenwriting, where you’re expected to be innovative while remaining firmly within the rules.

Simon Owens: Did you still get insider’s information from those places (HBO, Showtime) that you’re able to report in your blog?

Mark Sarvas: Yes, I still hear about the silliness that is the film business but I don’t bother with it on my blog, which is really focused almost exclusively on literary fiction – with the occasional (some might say tiresome) digression into cycling. Hollywood’s not what my audience is interested in, and it feels rather like blogging about your day job. (And there’s always the fear of retribution – Hollywood is pretty insular, so I’d never blog about the juiciest stuff anyway. Josh Friedman – whose blog I Find Your Lack Of Faith Disturbing is my favorite showbiz blog, updated far too infrequently – wrote about the wariness with which producers were approaching him in light of his popular blog. It had the potential to start costing him work.)

Simon Owens: How has your experience been with the Lit-blog Co-op? Do you think you guys are effective in promoting the titles you select?

Mark Sarvas: I’m extremely proud of the work the Litblog Co-op has done. I think the selections have been consistently interesting, and the turnover of membership has kept the group fresh and the discussion lively. I know that whenever I talk to authors, editors and the like, they seem genuinely grateful about what we’re trying to do. How effective are we in promoting things? It’s hard to measure and I suppose it does depend on your definition of effective. If effective is merely selling books, well, we’re probably not as effective as we (or our authors) would like. But I think it’s early in the game, and we’re still making ourselves known. If effective can be defined as raising awareness around a title, elevating its profile and getting people talking about it, then I think we’ve been remarkably effective so far.

Simon Owens: Can widely-read book blogs make good money through affiliate programs (like Amazon and other book sellers) since they have a tightly-niched, book-buying readership?

Mark Sarvas: I don’t know. You’d have to ask the blogs that participate. I suspect a blog like Bookslut, which is an Amazon affiliate and is very popular, probably does reasonably well. (“Reasonably well” being a truly relative measure – we are talking books here.) I can’t speak more knowledgeably because, although I’ve been invited by a number of these programs, I’m too lazy to adminster that side of it. The blog is a labor of love for me and I’ve resisted anything that would make it feel like a job. I want the liberty to post about whatever I want – or not post at all if I choose. And once money gets into the equation, that freedom feels compromised for me.

Simon Owens: What upcoming book publications are you looking forward to the most?

Mark Sarvas: Like much of the literary world, I’m deeply curious about Thomas Pynchon’s forthcoming title. And the University of Chicago is releasing a multi-volume set of the Selected Writings of Frederich Durrenmatt, which should keep all of us busy for a while. And finally, I’m very excited to see how the world receives John Banville’s pseudononymous thriller Christine Falls. (I’ve already read that one and loved it – I think people will be surprised; it’s quite a departure from the lyrical style most readers associate with Banville.)

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs you’d recommend to supplement the reading of your own?

Mark Sarvas: For literary news, Maud Newton and Moorishgirl are daily musts. The aforementioned I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing is worth devouring the archives. LA Observed is the best blog about my hometown. For you cycling fans, Fat Cyclist is a hilarious treat. For politics, I visit Talking Points Memo and James Wolcott. And there are tons more noted on my blogroll at The Elegant Variation.