Digital Innovations
- The Sourcebooks and Wattpad partnership is expanding. So far, Sourcebooks has published seven YA novels by four authors discovered through its Wattpad collaboration. Next, Sourcebooks plans to acquire and promote romance authors. Read more in Publishers Weekly.
- Tapas is matching revenue up to $10,000 on new stories published on its platform. We recently covered Tapas here; you can learn learn more about its latest initiative over on Medium.
- What are the key technology trends publishers need to know? The folks over at Digital Book World have combed a report from the Future Today Institute and pulled out a few takeaways for publishers. Read more.
In the News
- Did coloring books save publishing—or is it really YouTubers? While you may not be familiar with the biggest YouTube celebrities, young people are, and they are buying print books. Learn more at the New Statesman.
- Learn how an Amazon Kindle scam made millions of dollars. Authors who are familiar with self-publishing ebooks through Amazon KDP are not likely to be surprised by this story of low-quality authorship and publishing. Read the (rather long) report at ZDNet.
- Indie author and commentator David Gaughran has called on the London Book Fair to ban exhibitors that may exploit authors. He also calls on the Society of Authors to intervene. Read the full post.
- Google has processed the text of 11,000 novels in order to improve its artificial intelligence linguistics. Some authors, as well as the Authors Guild, are unhappy. Read more in the Guardian.
- Comic book sales are at a twenty-year high. The growth is directly related to Hollywood and comic book adaptations. Read more at the Verge.
Traditional Publishing
- Penguin Random House has launched Unbound Worlds. [Since rebranded.] The successor to the old community known as Suvudu, it’s a reader-facing website—and Discord server—focused on science fiction and fantasy. This isn’t PRH’s only consumer-based marketing effort; they also run Brightly (children’s literature) and Signature (literature and culture) [since rebranded].
Marketing Toolbox
- Unsure how to price your self-published book? An indie author has written a very comprehensive blog post on the various factors involved in pricing both print and ebook editions. Read at his blog.
- Twitter is allowing all users to create Moments. Twitter Moments are visual stories that pull tweets and multimedia from varied accounts. Buffer has an overview of what you need to know to get started.
- How does BookBub decide a book’s category for a featured deal? Their editorial team explains the process at their blog.
- Trying to gain momentum on YouTube? The folks at Hootsuite have written a straightforward post with five ways to get more views on YouTube.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.