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Is the western dead?
By Terry W Burns
Monday, January 20, 2003

Walk up to any book rack and 80% of the western titles are by Louis L'Amour. What does this mean?

Walk up to any book rack, particularly in a chain store, and the offering in the western section will be 80% Louis L'Amour or even higher. Let me say, I love L'Amour, and always have. I have the full leatherbound set of his books.

Having said that, this mix begs the question from me, "Is he still such a big seller because of public demand, even so long after his death? Or is the public demand there because his books continue to be what is primarily offered?"

It is very much to the publisher and the distributor's benefit for him to continue to be such an icon. It saves them a ton on publicity trying to establish a replacement. But when do we reach the point where every reader of westerns has all of his books and no longer wants to buy one? What happens then?

Or did we reach that point and because booksellers failed to start offering very many titles by other authors, readers simply switched genres which was immediately interpreted as a drop off in western readership? To what extent is the tail wagging the dog here?

Add to this mix the idea that books have moved away from the "western" label and a lot of books from western authors have ended up as historical romance or historical fiction, or some other genre designation, adding to the strength of those areas and further promoting the idea that people aren't buying westerns. 

The notion has been wide-spread that the western was passe' both in print and in TV and movies as well. Yet what few western offerings that were produced always found a significant audience. There are a lot of new westerns in the mix for TV and movies as we speak. In a recent interview actor Bruce Boxleitner said "If just one of these connects with an audience, look out."

I think they will connect. America has always been in love with the old West and a generation is waiting to discover it. I believe this new generation are the ones buying the L'Amour books, because all of us lifelong dedicated readers of the western already have them. So instead of just producing titles for the new readers, why don't we produce a larger fare for that substantial base who have always bought westerns - - - and the new readers will buy them as well.