Links of Interest: March 29, 2023

by

Traditional Publishing

  • Wattpad–Webtoon’s book publishing program grows. It published 30 new titles in 2022, added three new imprints, and now has a staff of 21. Sales increased 486 percent over 2021. Read Jim Milliot in Publishers Weekly (subscription required).
  • Update from Clarkesworld. The SFF literary magazine that was overwhelmed by AI submissions has re-opened after making some changes. Read Neil Clarke at his website.
  • The fastest growing independent publishers of 2023. Keep in mind there’s some curation and subjectivity at work here, and the list includes at least one pay-to-play publisher, Forefront Books. Read Jim Milliot at Publishers Weekly.
  • Everything has always been going to shit, yet the book trade endures. Canadian publisher Kenneth Whyte pulls out some gems from the 1948 publishing memoir The Adventure of Publishing by Michael Joseph. While some things about the business have changed, there remains “startling similarity.” Read at SHuSH.

Audio

Bookselling

  • The 10 most recession-proof industries include bookstores. Industry vets have always known that books do well during an economic downturn. But even more than that, bookstores saw the biggest increase in the number of businesses during the latter part of the pandemic, along with steady wage growth. Bookselling is the most recession-proof business, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Read John Egan at Forbes Advisor.

Creator Economy

  • Substack is opening up to community fundraising. After abandoning its effort to raise a new round of funding from VC firms, Substack is looking to become “self-sustaining” through new revenue streams, cost-cutting measures, and a call for Substack’s users to purchase a stake in the company. Read Sara Fischer at Axios.
  • Creator funds are arbitrary and, for some, total BS. Whether it’s TikTok, Kindle Unlimited, or some other creator-revenue-sharing fund, there’s typically little or no transparency in how the funding pools are determined. Creators may receive smaller and smaller payments as more creators join. A former TikTok executive said point blank at a recent panel, “If you see a $2 billion creator fund, who’s actually checking if we paid $2 billion? Nobody. Nobody could check.” Read Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter.
  • One in four UK book buyers used TikTok in 2022. Nielsen UK estimates that TikTok’s influence drives about 3 percent of all books purchased. Read Alice Kemp-Habib at the Bookseller.

Libraries

  • There’s a new European study of ebook lending practices. The study was conducted to “overhaul” current stereotypes about digital lending—namely that it cannibalizes sales. Some studies show an individual title may see 818 percent growth in ebook sales and 201 percent growth in print sales when a book is promoted by a library. Read the EBLIDA press release and download the report.

Culture & Politics

  • A literary magazine editor rethinks what it means to be previously published. The literary publishing community has long refused to consider short work that has already appeared in print or online, even if it’s been placed on a dusty blog no one reads. Perhaps it’s time to change that rather antiquated mindset? Read Timothy Green at Lit Mag News.
  • There’s a certain type of story that middle-aged white guys write. So says Julian Simpson, a middle-aged white guy himself, who is a writer and director working in film, TV, and audio. He writes, “The gatekeepers of this industry are people in their 20s and 30s, and you’re handing them a script that MAYBE their parents or, more likely, their grandparents would have liked. But the world has moved on. And rightly so.” Such a story isn’t necessarily racist or sexist, but “it just doesn’t feel contemporary, it doesn’t feel aware. It doesn’t feel like it was written by someone who is still engaging with the world.” Everything Simpson writes here can easily be applied to book publishing and novels. Read at Development Hell.
  • The disabled villain: can we rid ourselves of this trope? While some stories can be revised to edit out slurs or remove casual racism, the same is not true for stories featuring a character with a disability. Read Jan Grue at the Guardian.
  • Potentially offensive language removed from Agatha Christie novels. The latest HarperCollins editions have been edited by sensitivity readers. Read Rachel Hall at the Guardian.
  • Wired runs a profile of Brandon Sanderson based on the premise he doesn’t write very well. As you can imagine, this has sparked wide-ranging discussion—and anger. Sanderson himself responded in a Reddit post with remarkable and rare kindness. Author Leigh Stein comments, “Ultimately, this is the story of a writer on a personal journey to understand why human beings love stories, even badly written ones.” Read Jason Kehe at Wired.
  • Are literary agents seeing acquisition changes as a result of book bans? Book Riot wants to know and is conducting a survey for agents to complete. Take a look.