I read Tayari's post on Lexus commissioning fiction, and thought eww...until I clicked through and realized I have a old connection to one of the writers involved.
As there are definitely issues (many of which Tayari outlines very well, and I'll be watching all followups with interest), that discovery compelled me to think about the other side of the coin in a way that LOL INTERNET usually doesn't. One could argue, I suppose, that the Lexus thing is only different from soliciting for a theme issue of a literary magazine in how big the checks are. Or that artists have had wealthy patrons who compelled them to work under commission since the beginning of time. One could also argue that as a car company, Lexus is under less obligation to publish quality unknowns than, say, the New Yorker or any of the other highly regarded fiction venues who regularly do not do so. And of course there's the music-in-commercials analogy, which gets some discussion over at Jeff's.
That last one got me to thinking about marketing, which I'm sure went further than anything else in driving (ha!) the Lexus project. If you've ever sat in a marketing meeting where people are trying to decide how best to get other people with discretionary income to buy something that is not necessarily the least expensive option? And especially if you've ever been in the presence of people who might buy a Lexus? It's not that hard to imagine commissioned fiction of this sort, from writers of this sort, as a result. Such is having lived in Connecticut as a working stiff for 10+ years, I suppose.
At any rate...whether you get a bigass check from a luxury car company or not, marketability is interesting to think about from a fiction perspective. Would this story go better with Buddig ham? IKEA furniture? Pabst Blue Ribbon? A Volkswagen? Depends undergarments? This is true especially when you've got a stack of work on your desk that you're about to send out. Which reminds me, I need to find some paper clips...
