Links of Interest: March 31, 2021

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Submissions

  • Editors at traditional publishing houses say they receive about three to five submissions every weekday. On Twitter, editors recently revealed the volume of materials they typically receive from agents. Thursday appears to be the busiest day. Read the thread.
  • Yes, more people are working on their novels. Online writing groups have thrived during the pandemic. We expect those submission counts to just keep going up. Read Sophia June at The New York Times.
  • Simon & Schuster editor Yahdon Israel addresses prospective authors directly on Instagram Live. He said, “I want everything. If you’re not represented, that’s fine. I’m your direct plug. Send it straight to me.” Watch.

Self-publishing

  • Amazon will stop taking MOBI files in June for reflowable ebooks. Instead, authors can upload EPUB, KPF (Kindle Create), or Microsoft Word files. If you’ve uploaded a MOBI file in the past, you do not have to update it. For complete guidelines, visit KDP.
  • Indie Author Project regional contests launch on April 1. The contests are hosted by libraries across the country and focus on identifying the best self-published fiction in each state. Entry is free. Learn more.

Legal

  • People are binding up fanfiction in beautiful covers and selling their creations on Etsy. It’s a very fine line between “bookbinding” and “publishing” and “copyright violation.” Read Julia Alexander at The Verge.
  • States try to pressure publishers to offer ebooks to libraries at reasonable cost. Maryland, as well as other states, are considering laws to require ebook publishers to license ebooks to libraries on “reasonable terms.” Such laws are primarily targeted at Amazon Publishing but would affect all publishers. The issue was discussed recently in a Washington Post column that was widely shared and commented upon. However, the Association of American Publishers argues that any such law, if passed, would be invalid. Read Andrew Albanese in Publishers Weekly.

Substack

  • Substack is a tool for the “sovereign writer.” After recent controversy over who uses Substack (with some Substack users choosing to leave the service because it has refused to de-platform some controversial writers), Ben Thompson at Stratechery makes the argument that Substack’s users are not employees, creators, contractors, etc. Rather, readers literally pay writers directly, and the writers pass on 10 percent of their revenues to Substack. Read at his site. Meanwhile, Anne Trubek of Belt Publishing wrote a Substack newsletter asking why the people who are upset about Substack’s writer relationships aren’t also walking away from Big Five publishing deals.
  • Facebook will launch a Substack competitor. Twitter has already acquired a competitor in this space as well. It’s hard to imagine all of these efforts surviving. Read Todd Spangler in Variety.

Bookselling

  • Barnes & Noble launches a new Nook tablet. The new model comes from Lenovo and will be priced at $129.99, available as of April 5. Read Chaim Gartenberg at The Verge.
  • Ingram starts a grant program to aid independent bookstores. The program will be administered by the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, with an initial donation of $1 million from Ingram, Bookshop, and several Big Five publishers. Last year BINC distributed $2.9 million to help bookstores. Read Jim Milliot in Publishers Weekly.
  • Things at The Strand are tense. The New York bookstore and city landmark held a successful marketing campaign in 2020 to help it stay afloat. But the store remains in a tenuous position, and its unionized employees are unhappy. Business is down 70 to 80 percent. Read Madison Malone Kircher at Vulture.

Traditional Publishing

  • Penguin Random House will distribute Marvel worldwide to comics shops. This announcement is bad news for comics distributor Diamond, which used to distribute Marvel. If Diamond wants to sell Marvel products to stores, it must now order from PRH, although it can do so as a wholesaler. Read John Maher at Publishers Weekly.
  • McGraw Hill charges 2.2 percent invoicing fee to all freelancers. The publisher explained that the “small supplier fee … supports labor market compliance, administrative tasks, and the Vendor Management System (VMS) associated with payment processes.” Freelancers must use the VMS and cannot be paid through any other method. Read Hamilton Nolan at In These Times. The Authors Guild has started a petition demanding an end to the practice.
  • Duke University Press employees look to unionize. A majority of non-management employees have created a new unit of The NewsGuild and hope to form a union to negotiate with the press. Read Ed Nawotka at Publishers Weekly.
  • A Decameron for the pandemic, edited by Margaret Atwood. The Authors Guild has partnered with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to publish Fourteen Days, a collaborative novel that features the writing of more than a dozen authors. All proceeds will go to the Authors Guild Foundation. Read Calvin Reid in Publishers Weekly.

International

  • European book sales fell 2 to 5 percent in 2020. In short: sales dropped more modestly than expected, although performance varied widely by market. Digital subscription sales were way up in Norway and Sweden; Eastern Europe saw declines. Read Porter Anderson in Publishing Perspectives.
  • Subscription service Storytel acquires majority stake in Swedish publisher Lind & Co. The publisher covers genre fiction—especially crime/thrillers—nonfiction and hobbies. Its digital releases (namely, audiobooks) represented more than 50 percent of its revenue. Read the press release.

Audio

  • Audiobook listening is flattening, according to Edison Research. In 2019, 50 percent of the total US population was listening to audiobooks, up from 44 percent the year before. But in 2020, Edison Research shows listening at around 45 percent. Review the full report.
  • Spotify offers transparency around its royalty system. To start with: there is no single, uniform amount paid per stream to every artist, and Spotify doesn’t know what musicians get paid because they don’t pay artists directly—they pay rights holders. In the past five years, payouts have grown by 50 percent. Learn more at Spotify.

Social

  • A group of Clubhouse creators have formed the Audio Collective. The company is meant to help audio creators build their businesses and push Clubhouse to improve its practices and tools. Read Taylor Lorenz at The New York Times.
  • How publishers are finding audiences on Clubhouse. Brands such as Cosmopolitan, Yahoo Finance, and Insider have been hosting chats and testing out how to monetize the platform. Read Kayleigh Barber at Digiday.
  • Spotify acquires Locker Room, a live audio app, putting it in competition with Clubhouse. Spotify plans to evolve and expand the sports-focused app “into an enhanced live audio experience for a wider range of creators and fans.” Read Dylan Byers at NBC News.
  • A second wave of Instagram poetry is here. According to Bustle, it’s more comedic and crass. Read Samantha Leach.

Culture & Politics

  • Controversy continues to surround translations of Amanda Gorman’s poetry. So far, two translators have ceased work on the project; there have been multiple stories about the issue from varied perspectives. At Asymptote, a site for world literature in translation, Allison Braden asked translators to weigh in. And The New York Times offered a big-picture overview by Alex Marshall. The American Literary Translators Association said the real problem underlying the controversy is the scarcity of Black translators.
  • How Sara Gruen lost her life. The bestselling author of Water for Elephants became involved in a fight to free an incarcerated man. It’s left her broke and critically ill. Read Abbott Kahler at Vulture.
  • Scholastic pulls a Dav Pilkey book originally published in 2010 for passive racism. Pilkey has apologized and said, “It was and is wrong and harmful to my Asian readers, friends, and family, and to all Asian people.” Read Christina Morales in The New York Times.
  • Racial diversity in children’s books grows slightly. A forthcoming study from the Cooperative Children’s Book Center reports that children’s books written by authors of color in 2020 increased by 3 percent (to 26.8 percent) compared with 2019. Read Christine Fernando at the AP.
  • University presses are more white than general trade publishers. A new study from Lee & Low Books and the Association of University Presses found that 81 percent of the university press workforce is white. Meanwhile, general trade publishing is 75 percent white. Read Ed Nawotka in Publishers Weekly.

Marketing Toolbox

  • How to use video to engage with readers. Struggling with how to use Instagram video or TikTok? BookBub has you covered with 30 ideas. Read Leila Hirschfeld.
  • How self-published authors can sell children’s books. It can be more difficult for indie authors to reach and sell to young readers. Author Karen Inglis suggests starting locally. Read at ALLi’s site.