For publishers, sending authors on tour is expensive-they have to cover transport, meals, and nice hotels. And perhaps more importantly, touring doesn't necessarily translate into better book sales. It's hard to tell, in fact, what effect they have at all, as sales records don't show what prompted someone to buy the book, only where the book was purchased. With the publication of my two books, most recently The Art of Forgery in June, I've found myself part of a lucky group that still gets to partake in this somewhat fading institution. I've witnessed firsthand how publishers have adapted to a changing industry-by becoming more selective about which authors to send on tour, which promotional appearances to secure, and how to make the dollars stretch.
Links of the week October 19 2015 (43)
Our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world:
26 October 2015
The editors and publicists I spoke to for this article explained that, back in the day, publishers would send authors out on tour fairly regularly - the more events and cities covered, the better. But in this new, more austere era, publishers only regularly pay to send authors who are compelling public speakers, authors with large established audiences who are guaranteed to sell well and therefore cover expenses (the James Pattersons, Gary Shteyngarts, J.K. Rowlings, and so on), or authors with a high profile that extends beyond books (such as actors, athletes, comedians). Publishers might send the odd debut writer, in hopes of more media coverage, but it's no longer a given.
The number of Americans who claim to have read a book in the previous year declined slightly, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. However, in a somewhat surprising twist, the survey also showed that young adults 18-29 were more likely to have a read a book over the past year than their older counterparts.
According to the survey, which was launched in 2011 and has been conducted annually since, over the past year 72% of American adults read a book, either in whole or in part, compared to 80% of young adults.
The Pew Research Study indicates that the reading habits of Americans, balanced between print, e-books and audiobooks, have remained fairly stable since the first report in 2011. This year's survey shows that 27% of Americans read an e-book over the past year, up from 17% in 2011, and about 12% of Americans listened to an audiobook. According to Pew the figures, which cover the period 2011-2014, are "statistically similar based on the size of the e-book reader population.
As Amazon invests $10 million its translation project, Susan Bernofsky ask if Amazon is turning translation into a "glorified form of self-publishing."
AmazonCrossing, Amazon Publishing's five year old literary translation imprint, has announced a $10 million commitment over the next five years to increase both the number and diversity of its books in translation.
With 77 titles from 15 countries and 12 languages being published in the U.S. in 2015, AmazonCrossing has become one of the largest publishers of translated literature in the States. The announced investment will go towards fees paid to translators over the next five years, as well as to increasing the countries and languages represented on the AmazonCrossing list, which, since 2010, has included more than 200 titles by authors from 29 countries writing in 19 languages.
And at Translationista, writer and translator Susan Bernofsky wrote this about the new submission process and its impact on translators:
“… Several years ago, Amazon set up a portal that allowed translators to bid on translation projects to be published by AmazonCrossing, and while my contacts at Amazon assure me that these gigs do not automatically go to the lowest bidder (there’s someone checking credentials and weighing skill against cost), I don’t know what other purpose a bidding website can have other than to drive prices down, obviously at the translators’ expense. Drive them down to how low? It’s impossible to say, since last I heard Amazon was still requiring the translators who accepted contracts to work for it to sign a non-disclosure agreement. (If they’ve since dropped that requirement, I’d love to hear about it and will publish a statement to that effect right here.)
Last week, on the eve of the Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two., the largest and oldest in the world (it dates back to the fifteenth century), AmazonCrossing, Amazon Publishing's translation imprint, announced it would be committing $10 million over the next five years to publishing more works in translation. "We launched AmazonCrossing five years ago to introduce readers to voices of the world through English-language translations of foreign-language books," AmazonCrossing's publisher Sarah Jane Gunter said in a statement. "While we are now one of the largest publishers of translated literature in the United States, translated fiction is still a tiny fraction of new publications."
Over the past five years, only Dalkey Archive, the uber-literary small press that has published books by authors like Carlos Fuentes, Viktor Shklovsky, and Danilo Ki%u0161, has published more works in translation than AmazonCrossing. This year, AmazonCrossing plans to publish "77 titles from 15 countries and 12 languages" in the United States, which will almost certainly dwarf the output of Dalkey and its ilk. And, with this new $10 million commitment, the number of works in translation published by AmazonCrossing should continue to soar. Which means that AmazonCrossing will almost certainly be the largest publisher of translated literature in the United States for at least the next five years. Of course, $10 million over five years for works in translation is not a world-shaking announcement - after all, Simon & Schuster just gave comedian Amy Schumer close to that amount for just one book. And, while AmazonCrossing did announce a few interesting tweaks to its operations (more on those in a moment), it is mostly committing to continuing to do what works, just on a slightly grander scale. Still, though $10 million over five years will not turn AmazonCrossing into a publishing powerhouse, it still has important implications for translators and for readers.
When it comes to reading books, the kids are all right. But the rest of us have some work to do.
A new survey from the Pew Research Center reveals that the percentage of Americans who read books has dropped in the past year, but millennials definitely aren't the ones to blame. The study found that overall, 72% of American adults have read a book in the past year, while the percentage for millennials, ages 18 to 29, was higher: 80%.
Education proved to be the best predictor of whether a person is a book reader. Ninety percent of college graduates reported having read a book, compared with 34% of those who didn't graduate from high school.
The India Book Market Report released by Nielsen at Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two. last week values the print book market in India, including book imports, at $3.9 billion. This positions India among the largest English-language book markets in the world. The compound annual growth rate of the market is 20.4% between 2011-12 and 2014-15, according to the report.
A growing literacy rate, estimated to reach 90% in 2020, government spends on education, digital initiatives, and outsourcing of publishing services to India, are all identified as the strengths of the Indian publishing industry. While the market is highly fragmented, it is also experiencing consolidation, in part as a result of the involvement of foreign multinationals.
Jo Henry reports on some of the findings of the Nielsen India Book Market Report 2015, launched last week at the Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two..
As an attractive market for publishers, China has been getting many of the headlines in recent years. New research from Nielsen Book, however, shows that India is another huge market that has not yet reached its full potential for the book industry. The numbers are mind-boggling. Currently the world's second-most populous country with more than 1.28 billion people, India is forecast to surpass China by the end of 2030, with a population of some 1.53 billion.
The unique features of India's demographics in terms of a growing population, especially of young people who are literate and educated, present tremendous opportunities for the growth and expansion of the publishing industry in all sectors - but these huge opportunities do not come without challenges. For example, India has 22 official languages, and with regional languages and dialects from all states the figure is more than 1,600.
19 October 2015
Today's writers have never had a more global reach; ebooks and digital distribution have made it easier for authors to find readers in other countries as well as their own.
Of course, the potential of a global readership only matters if an author knows how to access it, and this is where many marketing plans fall short. Given the endless buffet of books to choose from, it can be hard to get a book the attention it needs.
The Benefits of Fishing with a Smaller Net
It can be tempting for an author to rig a marketing freighter with big nets and start trawling for a readership. But your goal is not to seek out any old catch you can. To get the most out of your marketing efforts, you want to attract a specific type of reader suited to your book. This means you need to know who they are and where they hang out.
To Answer the Who, We Need the What
When it comes to understanding which readers are most likely to enjoy your book, you first need to look at what makes your book special, and this means thinking beyond genre, which is simply a guidepost to a readership. You must answer this question: What makes my novel stand out from all others like it?
"There are too many adjectives in publishing already," writes Carla Douglas. An editor based in Kingston, Ontario, Douglas is a frequent participant in our #FutureChat Twitter discussions and an engaging observer of the creative scene in publishing. "We need to bridge the self-pub/trad-pub divide" she tells us in her manifesto, "do away with these distinctions and let writers be writers." And as she develops her point here, note that Douglas is talking not only to the industry that surrounds such talent but also to the writers, themselves: "Focus on the writing, publish however you like, but publish well." - Porter Anderson
'Let writers be writers'
We need to bridge the self-pub/trad-pub divide, do away with these distinctions and let writers be writers. Because in many ways the lines have blurred already. To publish their books, indie authors are assembling teams of professionals in a way that makes them look a lot like publishers. Some independent publishers have more in common with indie authors than with traditional publishing houses. Authors of every persuasion are exploring new ways to be discovered and reach readers.
Why can't we acknowledge that they're all in the same boat?
Fake five-star reviews for books on Amazon can be bought for as little as £3 a time, a newspaper investigation has found.
The Sunday Times has uncovered that one reviewer in the US sold positive reviews of titles for $5 (£3.26) and claimed to have control of more than 70 different accounts in order to leave the reviews.
The practice was uncovered after the newspaper published a fake e-book called Everything Bonsai! written over a single weekend and littered with errors. The newspaper's journalist then paid the scammers a total of £56 to give the book five-star reviews and take advantage of Amazon's e-book deals to earn it a place at the top of the gardening category of Amazon UK's Kindle chart.
The newspaper subsequently went on to find that identities of those leaving the ‘reviews' had been stolen from youngsters on Facebook.
Amazon has since closed the accounts of e-book reviewers who were found to be posting fake reviews in exchange for cash.
As self-publishing shrugs off its "vanity press" stigma and becomes recognized as a bona fide and lucrative option, more and more authors are finding that going indie just makes more sense.
Here's how the indie success story typically goes: little-known new author puts out a book, which skyrockets in popularity in sales and eventually attracts a lucrative deal with a mainstream publisher. It's a rags-to-riches sort of story that's re-told to encourage new writers to try out self-publishing for its ease and accessibility to readers. But what about the opposite side of the coin: the best-selling traditionally published authors who have kicked their publishers to the curb, focused on self-publishing their books both past and present? As self-publishing shrugs off its "vanity press" stigma and becomes recognized as a bonafide and lucrative option, more and more traditionally published authors are finding that going indie just makes more sense.
After polling 1,674 Guild members, Mary Rasenberger, executive editor at the Authors Guild, created a splash a few weeks ago by claiming that most of its members' annual earnings were below the federal poverty level of $11,670. She spread the blame around: bookstore closures, the rise of Amazon, publisher consolidations, and the low royalties authors receive from publishers. But do these alarm bells ring true?
It became clear that Rasenberger was talking about the five publishing conglomerates, while ignoring the more than 2,000 independent publishers listed in Literary Market Place This site uses the huge publishing database belonging to the American publishing bible Literary Market Place, but free access is only to the small press listings and publishers' names and addresses. To get access to all the other information and to use of their powerful search facility, the annual fee is $399. www.literarymarketplace.com/lmp/us/index_us.asp
Rasenberger claimed that "unless writers share more equitably the profits their publishers see, we'll stop seeing the quality of work the industry was built on." What quality is she talking about? My impression is that the quality of writing has gone down and down and down over the decades. As the member of a small press interested in publishing literary fiction, I applaud this development. Why? Because the reason we've been able to find, introduce, and publish so many award-winning novelists is because the conglomerate publishers increasingly reject them. Dumbing down artistic merit in favor of wider sales works if the goal is making money. But if one's passion is to find and introduce artful writers, this strategy doesn't work. Amy Schumer is not Mark Twain, though both are humorists, and James Paterson is not Elmore Leonard. I fault neither Patterson nor Schumer for their financial success any more than I would fault the winner of a million-dollar lottery. Patterson's name on a book guarantees high sales, even if his "coauthors" do all the work, and many people find Schumer irresistible.
Ten years ago, the idea that any old Joe could become famous from the comfort of their own room seemed ridiculous. Today it's a very different story. Vloggers are not just well-known figures to a select few fans - they're global stars in their own right. With millions of followers between them, these YouTubers are at the top of their game, reaching out to young people all over the world every single day.
And they don't just restrict themselves to the confines of YouTube: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, SoundCloud, Snapchat...if there's a social media platform out there, chances are your favourite vloggers are on it. But recently these stars have widened their net even further - they've gone from your nearest screen to your nearest bookshelf, and these bookshelves are filling up fast.
Aside from the ever-popular Fault In Our Stars by John Green, one of the first YouTubers to venture into the book world was beauty blogger Zoe Sugg. Her 2014 novel, Girl Online, was the fastest-selling book from a debut author. Despite claims of ghostwriting and reviews that were far from glowing, the book proved to be a massive hit amongst young audiences and continues to remain a strong presence in the charts.
"I want to work in a flourishing industry known for its competence, kindness, innovation and creativity." In one of the clearest iterations yet of her call for contemporary skills in a venerable industry, regular FutureBook contributor Emma Barnes of Bibliocloud and Snowbooks draws up a seven-step manifesto for action. Concerned for the rising generation of publishers, she writes, "Our current expectations of what junior roles should be is going to look and feel more and more Stone Age." Barnes will be joining us on 30th November for The FutureBook's Author Day, with a presentation on what our tools of the trade tell us. We hope you'll be with us then. Because we are talking, she writes, of "a matter of urgency. "People are angry about having to prove themselves in menial roles."-Porter Anderson
'Our people do not have the skills'
Whatever the other Manifestos for the Future of the Book Business are - whatever exciting areas people propose for change in the industry, whether it's in digital, or business workflows or product development - our people do not have the skills to make it happen. I was amazed at the response to the FutureBook piece Menial publishing jobs are destroying our future, which questioned: Why, as an industry, we still get humans to do the work of computers, Why we keep entry-level positions secretarial, and Why we don't provide the right sort of training to equip our people for the future. I thought it'd be accused of hyperbole. Instead, the response was quite the opposite. People sent sackfuls of public and private messages of fervent agreement and thanks for writing about the problem. It seems that there's a groundswell of discontent throughout the junior ranks, horrified at what is evident to any impartial observer: we don't train our people and we don't expect them to be formally skilled.