A publishing success story that continues to receive mainstream (and industry) media attention is that of Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey. One wonders how many more profiles can be written of Kaur, though the story offers multiple angles: her work was first self-published, for example, and it's a collection of poetry. Who reads and buys poetry anymore? Young people who use Instagram, it turns out.
Links of the week September 17 2018 (38)
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:
24 September 2018
Many writers meet disappointment when they're only one or two books into a career and find themselves constantly giving their work away because no readership has been developed yet and there is no demand for the work. At such a time, it can feel natural for them to blame readers and believe that their work isn't valued. The truth most likely is that the work doesn't yet hold any market value, or that the author hasn't found the package or context that would offer value worth paying for.
The rise of audiobooks, a small but rapidly growing piece of book publishing, is by now well documented, but rarely is it framed as a tech story. It's maybe a little counterintuitive to think of what we once called Books on Tape (so cumbersome they had to be abridged to remain affordable) as a format on the disruptive cutting edge. But this decade's double-digit annual growth - with total sales doubling to $2.5 billon over the past five years - has a clear analog in the e-book boom that preceded it, and the same company has driven it: Audible.com owner Amazon.
The audio companies have driven not only innovation but also spending, bidding aggressively on unsold rights (i.e., those not retained by print publishers). One big agent says Audible paid twice as much for one of his client's audio rights as a print publisher paid for the rest. "The Big Five will not relinquish the audio rights," the agent says, "so the only way Audible is going to get their hands on brand-name authors is to throw down an eyebrow-raising amount of money, in hopes that the agent will be willing to sell it to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt or Norton," two larger independent publishers without their own audio divisions.
Besides being a social burden I'm finding it to be a problem in my reading and writing. Facts/lines of poems/details of plot smear in my head, and often I find myself left with impressions of texts that are far too vague for me to build opinion around. Reading non-fiction or heavily referential fiction feels near pointless as things go in one ear and out the other. Marginalia helps, but I get most of my books from the public library and I don't wanna be a defacer.
The answer is yes, there is training. There is training for almost everything! I think we often assume that other people's learned skills must be innate talents. I know a lot about perfume and a fair amount about wine, so people are always saying to me, Your sense of smell/taste must be really good. And they are, kind of, but I wasn't born with some kind of sensory superpower; I was interested in smells and tastes, so I started paying attention, then looked for corroboration of what I noticed. By smelling a lot, and reading about smells, you can learn to have a good nose, and I think you can learn to have a better memory.
It took a less than an hour in 2013 for Anna Todd to change her life. The Army wife and part-time babysitter had spent a lot of time reading fan fiction, stories by amateur writers about existing fictional universes and real-life celebrities. So her erotic tale about Tessa and Hardin-a wholesome college freshman and a tattooed bad boy who is a thinly veiled stand-in for singer Harry Styles-came together quickly when she sat down to type the first chapter of After on her phone. Todd posted it to Wattpad, one of the world's largest destinations for online reading and writing.
After has since been read more than 1.5 billion times on Wattpad. It's now a bestselling book series, with 11 million copies sold after Wattpad brokered a mid-six-figure deal for Todd with Simon & Schuster. She fully credits Wattpad with getting her in the door. "If I had sent After to any publisher, there's no way they would have even read it," says Todd, 29. Wattpad got paid for its work, taking an estimated 15% of Todd's book earnings-about what a typical literary agent would charge-and it's also a co-producer of the After movie that began production in June. The lucrative evolution from Wattpad post to mainstream book to Hollywood movie is precisely what Wattpad wants to see more of.
I imagine writing a crime novel is close to the middle of human experiences ranked by difficulty. It isn't brain surgery, but neither is it a walk in the park (although, conceivably, you could write a novel while doing either of those things, and I'm sure plenty have). I was fortunate to come from a family that loved books, and lucky to go to good schools, where books were bountiful. I was less lucky in that, when I started writing, I didn't have much in the way of sympatico teachers, mentors, friends or even, really, acquaintances who knew anything about writing books, finishing them, and publishing them. Which is to say, I learned how to write from reading. One of the joys of my adult professional life is the opportunity to be a friendly and encouraging (if busy, occasionally cranky, sometimes unpleasant, not-so-rarely angry-well, no one's perfect here) older friend to younger writers when they need one. But as writers, our best friends aren't people; they're books. If we got along with people so well, we'd be out there among them, instead of home alone, writing. Here's some of my best friends, and the crime writing lessons I learned from them; I hope these introductions will make new friendships, and I hope these friendships will serve you as well as they've served me.
Structure Is Everything
James Sallis, The Lew Griffin Series
Structure is a part of style, a part of story, and even a part of character. In addition to remarkable characters and killer prose, this series jumps around in time, revealing evocative moments and meaningful clues in emotional order, rather than chronological. The books aren't organized around their mysteries; they're organized around the detective and his inner life. This unusual structure allows for a deeper look at the titular character, detective and writer and teacher Lew Griffin. It also allows for strange doors to open in the heart and mind of the reader, by connecting things we might not have connected otherwise.
It's a common question in our constantly evolving digital world: are publishers adapting quickly enough? Yet through a decade of rapid technological change, a global recession, and ever-shifting consumer expectations, the global book business has shown its resilience. And one needs look no further than 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. for an example of the industry's strength.
Book publishing is, of course, a mature business in some parts of the world, including Europe and the U.S. But globally, Boos points out, there is strong growth in a number of emerging markets-particularly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. And that growth is fueling an era of international expansion for 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..
"At Frankfurt, over the past 10 years, we went from 60% German exhibitors, 40% international to the other way around," Boos says. "We now have more international exhibitors than we do German-language exhibitors-it's like 65% to 35%." And along with that international business comes an equally important opportunity: to showcase more talent, stories, and cultures from around the world-something fair organizers are always working to encourage. "It is very important to listen to other voices," Boos adds, "and I think we must invest as an industry to make these voices accessible."
One day last week, after I spent the best part of an hour opening two days' worth of post at my office - I work as literary editor of the Spectator - I posted a peevish tweet: "Can we all stop publishing, for good and all, nonfiction books about the future, books about how to change your life, books about what it means to be/how we came to be human, and books about fucking Nazis? For a start."
This was bad manners, for which I apologise. But it's a semi-public expression of the sort of momentary eye-roll that's the occupational hazard of my work.
Publishing micro-genres have always been with us. Remember, in the wake of Longitude, that late-1990s run of biographies of inanimate objects? Or the still barely abated torrent of abuse memoirs that followed A Child Called It? More recently the success of Robert Macfarlane has produced a flowering of "new nature writing"; the prominence of H Is for Hawk spawned a nature-writing/mental-health hybrid; wild swimming books went, briefly, wild; and the efforts of Henry Marsh, Adam Kay and Paul Kalanithi mean that everyone who has ever donned surgical scrubs now seems to be writing a book about it.
The number of adults in the US reading novels and short stories has hit a new low, with the decline of almost 8% in the last five years seen mainly among women, African Americans and younger adults, according to a major new survey.
While not going into detail on reading, the new report does provide some breakdown on who is reading what. In what is likely the biggest surprise among its findings, the percentage of adults reading poetry rose between 2012 and 2017, marking the first time poetry reading has increased in the history of the NEA's survey of participation in the arts. In 2017, 11.7% of adults said they read some poetry in the prior year, up from 6.7% in 2012. And although the report does not list reasons why interest in poetry rose, it does give some evidence that the boom in interest in Instagram poets such as Rupi Kaur is an important factor in the increase. The report found that between 2012 and 2017, the share of adults ages 18-24 who read poetry more than doubled, placing that age group above all others when it comes to poetry reading rates. The report also found that nonwhite groups, including African-Americans and Asian-Americans, read poetry at the highest rates overall.
17 September 2018
'The Children Act' novelist and screenwriter reflects on what he's learned about endings and studio execs' suggestions: "They were all formed out of a pattern, as if they'd all taken Screenwriting 101 years ago."
After penning 14 novels and winning the Man Booker Prize, Ian McEwan seemingly doesn't have much left to prove. Still, the author says, "I don't think I've ever worked harder in my life" than in 2018. This year, three film and television adaptations of McEwan's books - two of which he wrote the screenplays for - are rolling out while just last week, McEwan finished another novel. "So yes, it's been quite an interesting year," he says.
Social media is one of the best ways to connect with readers, build a large, engaged audience - and promote your books. Whether you're an author working on your own social media, or a publisher developing a social media presence for one of your authors, it pays to think strategically about what you want to achieve.
However, this is still surprisingly rare. Book-based social media is still incredibly prone to last-minute-ism, 'throw stuff out and see what sticks', and 'same old same old' copycat churn. So make sure you think through these eight elements when putting together a social media strategy, if you really want to see results.
Never underestimate the power of one determined person. What Carole Cadwalladr has done to Facebook and big data, and Edward Snowden has done to the state security complex, the young Kazakhstani scientist Alexandra Elbakyan has done to the multibillion-dollar industry that traps knowledge behind paywalls. Sci-Hub, her pirate web scraper service, has done more than any government to tackle one of the biggest rip-offs of the modern era: the capture of publicly funded research that should belong to us all. Everyone should be free to learn; knowledge should be disseminated as widely as possible. No one would publicly disagree with these sentiments. Yet governments and universities have allowed the big academic publishers to deny these rights. Academic publishing might sound like an obscure and fusty affair, but it uses one of the most ruthless and profitable business models of any industry.
The model was pioneered by the notorious conman Robert Maxwell. He realised that, because scientists need to be informed about all significant developments in their field, every journal that publishes academic papers can establish a monopoly and charge outrageous fees for the transmission of knowledge. He called his discovery "a perpetual financing machine". He also realised that he could capture other people's labour and resources for nothing. Governments funded the research published by his company, Pergamon, while scientists wrote the articles, reviewed them and edited the journalsfor free. His business model relied on the enclosure of common and public resources. Or, to use the technical term, daylight robbery.
French booksellers have called on literary judges to "defend books and not those who threaten them", after one of France's most prestigious prizes selected a self-published novel available only via Amazon.
Among the 17 titles in contention for this year's Prix Renaudot is Marco Koskas' Bande de Français, which was self-published on Amazon's CreateSpace platform. According to the Syndicat de la librairie française, which represents French booksellers, the jury have put them in an impossible position.
The French-Israeli author, who has published more than a dozen books via more traditional routes, told the Guardian he was forced into put out an edition of Bande de Français himself after no French publisher picked it up.
"As I didn't want to bow down to this decision," Koskas said, "in the end I decided to self-publish. Otherwise I might have gone into some sort of literary hiding."
The novel is only available for sale through the internet giant, so according to the Syndicat, it is "technically and commercially almost impossible" for bookshops to put it on their shelves.
There was widespread reaction when the Philosopher's Stone in the title of the first Harry Potter book became the Sorcerer's Stone after its US publisher, Scholastic, decided that children might confuse wizards for Plato.
But hordes of books have had their titles changed in America. Disproportionately, they are mysteries. Twenty-five Agatha Christie titles have been "localised" but unfortunately, their new names do not add to their allure. Instead, they merely baffle Brits who, when buying Murder in Three Acts or Poirot Loses a Client on vacation, discover they are Three Act Tragedy or Dumb Witness in disguise.
Naturally, book titles change from country to country. Altering the first Potter adventure to Harry Potter a l'Ecole des Sorciers in French is far less baffling than what was done to its American counterpart. Some localisation is to be expected: if you're translating the text, why not change the title to match? But, with the UK and US sharing a language, why change titles?
Knowing which type of printing service to use depends on authors' publishing needs - and before any decision is made, it's important to have a clear understanding of the two types of printing.
While the vast majority of indie authors turn to print-on-demand services when it's time to take their book public - and for good reason - there are certain cases in which offset printing is the way to go.
POD was developed more than 15 years ago to help publishers manage the economics of deep backlists; in other words, as a way to keep older titles in print without being forced to print and store piles of physical books, says Kelly Gallagher, VP of content acquisition at Ingram Content Group.
Today, and for a similar reason, self-published writers use print-on-demand as a flexible distribution strategy that allows them to make their work available in markets around the world - without making a significant upfront investment or dealing with the logistics of shipping, distribution, and storage.
Every agent is different, and every agency has slightly different guidelines, but here are a few tips I would suggest bearing in mind when submitting. Agents receive a number of novels and non-fiction proposals every day, making it so important to do everything you can to ensure yours stands out from the rest... good luck!
Always include a blurb in the body of the email - much in the same way an agent's job is to catch the attention of an editor and get them excited about a project, a writer needs to hook an agent. One way of ensuring your book/proposal ends up on the top of their reading pile is by including an enticing blurb that piques their curiosity without giving too much away.
When Penguin and Random House announced in the fall of 2012 that they intended to merge, Hurricane Sandy was barreling toward New York City, America's publishing capital. It was an instant metaphor for headline writers: "As Sandy Loomed, the Publishing Industry Panicked." People inside both companies worried about their jobs; people outside the companies worried about the market power of a new conglomerate comprised of the country's two largest trade publishers. Agents and authors, meanwhile, worried that the consolidation would further drive down advances.
This has been the story of Penguin Random House these past five years. Privately owned, the company has moved deliberately, while publicly traded competitors like HarperCollins (which is owned by News Corp) and Simon & Schuster (CBS) have had to fend off pressures from shareholders. It has not used its gargantuan size - it controls more than half of the traditional literary marketplace according to many estimates - to take back territory from Amazon. Instead, it has focused on building equity and ensuring that it publishes the next generation of bestsellers. In so doing, Penguin Random House has built what may be the perfect corporate publishing house. There's just one problem: Thanks to Amazon, the age of the imperious corporate publishing house is coming to an end.