Links of Interest: August 22, 2018

by

Traditional Publishing

  • HarperCollins reports increased sales in children’s and Christian publishing. HC is also the publisher of Magnolia Table by Joanna Gaines, one of the top-selling books this year. Read more in Publishers Weekly from Jim Milliot.
  • How publishers profit from licensed publishing deals. Publishers Weekly looks at various strategies for refreshing and promoting well-known and loved brands. Read Karen Raugust.
  • Canadian bookseller Indigo sees a revenue decline. However, in a bright spot, the store’s online sales grew. Indigo’s first US store is set to open this year in New Jersey. Read more in Shelf Awareness.

Trends

  • Fanfiction is becoming more respectable. Once seen merely as a training ground for new writers, fanfiction is now the province of professionals and beginners alike. Mikaella Clements of The Guardian looks at how fan fiction went mainstream.
  • Instagram book exchanges—they’re not a scam. Slate describes them as a back-to-the-real-world movement. Learn more from Heather Schwedel.
  • Yes, it’s tough to sell a memoir. A roundtable of memoirists, agents, and publishers comments on what it takes to get a memoir traditionally published. Read Jack Smith in The Writer.
  • Celebrity book clubs fill the void left by Oprah. Reese Witherspoon and Jimmy Fallon are included in this roundup of celebrity book clubs. Read Alicia Rancilio in The Boston Globe.
  • Meanwhile, Keanu Reeves is publishing books. His publishing office looks like something out of The Matrix. Really. Read Max Lakin in The New York Times Style Magazine.

Audio

  • The state of audio in the UK: it’s growing there, too. Some publishers in both the US and UK are adopting a total audio policy—every book with a narrative must release print and audio versions concurrently. Read Francesca Angelini in The Times (UK).
  • Podcasts are central to the self-help, aspirational community—especially the men. Molly Worthen calls them a “significant cultural phenomenon” that includes folks like Tim Ferriss and Lewis Howes. Read in The New York Times.
  • Audible has seen a staffing shakeup. There have been departures in Audible’s short-form original programming division (for podcast-like programming); Nicholas Quah sees greater reliance on partnerships in the book-publishing world. Read at Nieman Lab.
  • Smart speakers are becoming more widely used, but not necessarily for shopping. A recent study showed 2 percent of Alexa users have made a purchase with their voices. That’s out of 50 million sold. Read more in The Information from Priya Anand (subscription required).

Marketing Toolbox

  • Some old-school media tactics no longer work. For instance, it’s no longer enough to link to influencers to get them to share or send automated messages. Get up to date on best practices from Aja Frost at Buffer.
  • NoveList is the best book database you’ve never heard of. At least we hadn’t heard of it. NoveList is available (hopefully) from your library and can help you identify lookalike authors for your marketing. Learn more in Book Riot from Abby Hargreaves.
  • Make videos social with Instagram. The folks at Penguin Random House have a quick tutorial on how to use IGTV, which is for long-form vertical video (up to one hour). Read Neda Dallal.
  • Speaking of Instagram, how do you market yourself there in the first place? Thriller author Melissa Frey offers concrete action steps at Shayla Raquel’s blog.

Self-publishing

  • ALLi interviews the manager of Amazon KDP in the UK. ALLi head Orna Ross asks about purging of reviews, rank-stripping, book-stuffing, appeals processes, and practical issues as well. Read at the ALLi site.
  • Smashwords partners with Romance Daily News. The partnership includes daily romance bestseller lists and fulfillment for the magazine’s free Book of the Day giveaway. Learn more at the Smashwords blog.

Legal

  • Piracy is down, at least in Europe. The study is a reliable one and indicates the decrease is visible for music, films, and books. Notable conclusions of the study: Pirates are also legal users, and the pirate and non-pirate groups resemble one another demographically; pirates’ median legal consumption is typically twice that of non-pirating legal users. You can read a brief summary at The IPKat blog.
  • Court case may have a chilling effect on embedding and linking. A developing court case may make it more dangerous to embed or link to social content that includes images you don’t have permission for. Read Eriq Gardner in The Hollywood Reporter.

Long Reads