Links of Interest: September 29, 2021

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Big Five Publishing

  • Congress questions Big Five publishers about ebook pricing for libraries. Lawmakers are asking each of the Big Five publishers to provide information on the economics of the market, including total revenue from ebook licenses from 2018 to 2020 as well as profit margins for each publisher’s top 100 sellers in both print and digital from library sales and from the consumer market. Read Andrew Albanese in Publishers Weekly.
  • Simon & Schuster launches AuthorFest. The series of online events is an initiative to help the publisher work more closely with book festivals. Learn more at Simon & Schuster’s website.

Influencers & Brands

  • Inside the rise of influencer publishing: Commercial nonfiction publishing can be driven by Instagram celebrities and books meant to become part of brands—because authors with a social media following are more risk free. Read Ellen Peirson-Hagger in The New Statesman.
  • When did the book become a brand? Sally Rooney’s latest novel is Exhibit A: it’s being merchandised with hats, pencils, tote bags, coffee carts, and $67 candle-making workshops. Read Alana Pockros at AIGA Eye on Design.

Comics & Graphic Novels

  • Penguin Random House starts distributing IDW Comics. It makes sense, given that the biggest sales growth in adult fiction is coming from manga and graphic novels. PRH is already distributing Marvel. Read more in Publishers Weekly.
  • Graphic adaptations for young readers are becoming a bigger part of the market. They include adaptations of backlist books plus reinventions of classics in the public domain. Read Brigid Alverson in Publishers Weekly.

Trends

  • There’s now such a thing as a climate change memoir. The narratives attempt to convince readers of the crisis and galvanize them to do something about it. Read David S. Wallace in The New Yorker.
  • The book club revolution: Marie Claire looks at four female founders of book-club businesses. Read Lily Herman.
  • Behold, the book blob: It’s also called “the unicorn frappuccino cover.” And it’s getting problematic when used for debut authors who are women of color. Read R.E. Hawley at Print.
  • The intersection of TikTok and fantasy book publishing. Print sales for the genre dropped in 2012, while online sales have flourished as fans create their own adaptations, share their own theories, and review books, particularly on TikTok. Read Issie Amelia at Lifehack.

Self-publishing

  • Some Kindle search terms just don’t make money. Dave Chesson offers a six-minute talk on how certain Kindle keywords get more searches but don’t lead to sales. Watch at YouTube.
  • PublishDrive now distributes print books through Ingram. If you use PublishDrive as a distributor, you can use their platform to make your print editions available through the Ingram distribution network. Learn more.
  • How BookBub ads will be affected by Apple Mail privacy protection. You may want to avoid placing ads based on CPM and use CPC instead. Learn more from BookBub.
  • There’s a Discord server for serial fiction writers and readers. If you write or read at Wattpad, Royal Road, Patreon, Tapas, AO3, or similar, you’ll find like-minded people at Serial Fiction Fans. Join.

Culture & Politics

  • Nearly every social group in the US has published a community cookbook. A fascinating look at the operations of Morris Press, a company in Nebraska that is the country’s largest community cookbook publisher. Read Sam O’Brien at Atlas Obscura.
  • Contemporary fiction: is it abandoning voice in favor of the pose? The inevitable criticism arrives for Sally Rooney. Read Stephen Marche at Lit Hub.
  • The controversy over the God Bless the USA Bible. HarperCollins denied it ever planned to print and publish the book in the first place. Read Molly Olmstead at Slate.
  • Books on race filled the bestseller list last year. Now, at least half a dozen new imprints have been created focusing on books by and about people of color and other underrepresented voices. But publishing leaders warn against lumping together books about race and racism—and some say it shouldn’t be a category at all. Read Elizabeth A. Harris at The New York Times.
  • Who doesn’t read books in the US? Demographic traits linked with not reading books include adults with lower levels of educational attainment and lower incomes. Older Americans are also less likely to be book readers. The number of adults who say they have not read any books in the past year is the same as in 2014. Read Risa Gelles-Watnick and Andrew Perrin at Pew Research Center.
  • Cozy mysteries and the paradoxical concept of a feel-good murder: Cozies are popular, but the genre has begun shedding its protective cocoon. Read Alyse Burnside at The Atlantic.
  • Learn about the heroine’s journey. Many writers study and use Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey to structure their stories. A Harvard scholar is now offering a “sequel”—The Heroine with 1,001 Faces—that looks at the women who live in Campbell’s blind spot. Read Gal Beckerman at The New York Times.
  • What are we to make of the literary novels of MacKenzie Bezos, the world’s richest woman, given her close proximity to Amazon? Mark McGurl asks, “How can the gifts she has given the world as an artist begin to compare with those she has been issuing as hard cash?” Read at The Paris Review.
  • Children’s books by politicians are big money makers. Such books offer something politicians can legally profit from and use to capitalize on their celebrity. Read Sophie Haigney at The Drift.