A Look at A&P by John Updike

A Look at A&P by John UpdikeIt's nice to see John Updike's long-time colleague and friend, Calvin Trillin, writing a look at A&P by John Updike. This book is actually one of his best and they share a lot of mutual friends and acquaintances in the literary world. It is great to see another prominent member of the literary community supporting such a great book.Trillin starts out this interesting essay by briefly summarizing Updike's own notion of writing the article as an art form rather than a mechanical means to market an author's product. He goes on to talk about how a part of Downers Grove Publishing's philosophy is to produce low-priced but quality literature while the article itself is still at a professional level.This is a very interesting topic. Usually an author's article will go out to one of the major sites for writers, then into a newsletter after that and finally into some sort of site directory. However, the article will not be used to market the author or his or her pr oducts since it is not published in the traditional manner.One of the major problems with articles from a writer like Updike is that they are difficult to find. Articles get published and then either the article gets buried in the pile or buried in some other articles altogether. This seems like a very convoluted way to market an author's product.The thing that Trillin discusses here is that the majority of authors focus their writing careers in the 'opinion' genre and tend to forget that their work is going to have to be written to reach a specific audience. Authors need to know their audience so that they can write articles that speak to them and make them want to purchase the product.There are many reasons why articles do not reach their potential audience, but a huge part of the problem is that the writer is focusing solely on writing the article, and they do not think about the kind of article that they are writing. By 'thinking about the kind of article', I mean that the autho r needs to research the audience that he or she is writing to and then spend time creating that kind of article.This is an interesting essay and well worth reading. It really helps you understand why Updike was so critical of articles as a marketing strategy.Finally, I thought the main point of this writer's essay was worth reading in its entirety. I would encourage you to check out Calvin Trillin's essay on A&P by John Updike if you have not yet read it.