One of my pet peeves about the publishing industry can be summed up as follows …

• If you want to sell a novel 8 years ago, it better be about wizards and dragons.
• If you want to sell a novel 4 years ago, it better be about zombies.
• If you want to sell a novel now, it better be about vampires, or werewolves, or both.

Actually, this characterization is a bit over the top, but still an accurate description of an industry that embraces books just like “Harry Potter”, “Eragon”, and the “Twilight” series. People are looking for the next big thing to be just like the last big thing. Clearly, this works as customers flock to scratch a newly discovered itch, but the next really big thing is never a retread the last big thing. It’s always the new thing (or at my age, at least the so old it’s new again thing). This is no doubt why we’ll never be rid of those pesky vampires.

This shows up in movies where it seems that half the movies being made today are remakes of films from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s (some of which were remakes of movies from the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s). Even when the movies are better than the original, I’m still struck by the thought – “Aren’t there enough new ideas in the world?”

It also shows up in music. Look at who has been successful after American Idol. Sometimes the winner, more often the singers who came in 2nd, 3rd, or 4th. I suspect that this may stem from an expectation that with the canned record deal built into 1st prize comes an obligation for the artist to pound their peg into the record producer’s designated hole no matter how mis-matched the shapes. I always saw Jordin Sparks as a top-tier singer of Jazz standards rather than a middle-tier R&B singer. Hopefully, she’ll evolve in that direction. I can’t wait to hear what comes out next from Chrystal Bowersox (who was never going to be a good fit in anyone else’s niche) and Siobhan Magnus.

Anyway, three cheers for originality – in all its forms.