Recently you may have heard about book publishing's printing problems from outlets such as the New York Times and Publishers WeeklyInternational news website of book publishing and bookselling including business news, reviews, bestseller lists, commentaries http://www.publishersweekly.com/. In the US and UK, spring and summer titles were delayed until fall, making for a crowded season. Not only is it challenging to get media attention for new releases right now, but it's also leading to a "printer jam"-a tight printing market.
Links of the week September 28 2020 (40)
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:
28 September 2020
Meanwhile, a surge in print book sales during the pandemic, with a volume increase of about 12 percent over the summer, has made things worse. In fact, for the year print book sales are up by nearly 6 percent versus 2019; traditional publishing is expected to have its strongest performing year since 2010. But it has come at a cost: reprints that normally take two weeks now sometimes take more than a month. Some publishers have now pushed back release dates to 2021 as a result of low printing capacity.
So what's caused this tight print market?
National Poetry Day today (1st October) will feature a social media campaign in response to Margaret Atwood's new poem, a 24-hour poetry lock-in previewing Cerys Matthew's new album and guest appearances from poets Inua Ellams, Nikita Gill and Don Paterson.
Commenting on the importance of the event, poet Benjamin Zephaniah said: 'National Poetry Day helps people discover poetry: it doesnt just get them thinking about poetry, it gets them thinking about the world. If I want to know what a woman's life is like, say, where can I go? I could listen to the government and I'd get a bland version of it, or I could look at some statistics, but if I want to know what they feel like when they get up in the morning, and what they feel like when they have children, or what they feel that when they go to the bathroom, poetry will tell me a lot more. I could say, without sounding too dramatic, that poetry saved my life.'
In 2007, as Apple's iTunes was cementing its dominance over digital music distribution, Amazon tried something bold. It launched the Amazon MP3 store, where all the music was DRM-free. It even used the slogan: "DRM: Don't Restrict Me."
It worked. Companies initially lured to iTunes by the promise of DRM as an anti-piracy measure had increasingly come to see that DRM was a trap. Because Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it a felony in the U.S. to provide someone with a tool to remove DRM, every song sold through iTunes was permanently locked into Apple's platform. And it didn't take long for the music business to recognize that DRM didn't stop piracy. All it did was make labels beholden to a tech company that put its interests first.
Enter Amazon's new MP3 store. Wary of Apple, the record companies supplied Amazon with MP3 files stripped of DRM. And Apple's dominance over the music download business basically died...forever.
A few months after its move in the music business, Amazon completed its acquisition of a scrappy upstart audiobook company called Audible. At the time of the acquistion, Amazon publicly announced it would remove Audible's DRM. After all, why would a company with a self-proclaimed "relentless customer focus" impose such restrictions on audiobook users?
Fast-forward 12 years, and Audible has accomplished remarkable things. The company has helped grow the audiobook market to the point where it is a vital revenue stream for publishers. And Audible commands a huge share of the digital audiobook market-as much 90% of the market in some verticals.
But, they never removed the DRM.
The formats varied, but children's and YA authors and editors cut through any anxiety about digital sessions with candid and powerful discussions about identity, race, mental illness, immigration, history, and art at the combined New Voices New Rooms conference for the New Atlantic and Southern Independent booksellers this week.
Amy Cherrix, children's book buyer at Malaprop's Bookstore in Asheville, N.C., moderated a four-author panel called Tough Subjects Need Special Care on Tuesday, in which authors shared their reasons for taking up difficult themes in books for middle grade and young adult readers. After years of writing about LGBTQ subjects, Bill Konigsberg told booksellers about his reasons for shifting to take on the subject of mental illness in The Bridge (Scholastic Press).
"In some way my books are all about an exploration of self," Konigsberg said. "I was beginning to think, who else am I? And what else can I say? I realized that I should come out about mental health.... Suffering from depression is a big part of who I am, since I was a child. [It was] not a fun book to write, but an important book to write."
Dear United States Of America,
My first novel, The Thursday Murder Club will be with you very soon. I hope you'll love it, I really think you might, especially if you love a classic mystery tale. I have to let you know, however, that it is very British. British countryside, British quirks, obscure British references you will have to Google. Cookies are biscuits, fries are chips and, let's face it, homicide is murder. I'm just thankful we both have the same word for ‘Thursday'.
There are red post boxes, there are black London taxis, there are pubs, and there are plenty of cups of tea. That is honestly how things are over here, we're not making this stuff up. Rest assured there are also plenty of murders, and there is plenty of British humor. If you can handle Agatha Christie then you can handle The Thursday Murder Club.
But why does Britain provide such a satisfying backdrop to a murder mystery? I think it's because pretty much everyone in Britain is a potential murderer. All of us. The vicar? Murderer. The elementary school teacher? Murderer. The old lady collecting for charity in the park? Serial killer.
Brits are all so unfailingly calm and quiet that you literally suspect no-one. Which means, of course, that you end up suspecting everyone.
In 2020, it's easy to feel like we're living in a dystopian tale, and many of us are in survival mode. We naturally look to food, water, safety, clean air, masks, jobs, and healthcare for sustenance. But we also look to stories to keep us going. We at Shondaland understand the power of storytelling because that's what we do. We also know the power of a good book. Now more than ever, we realize their importance to help us feel connected and comforted during trying times. With that in mind, we decided to explore the world of books and publishing as it exists today, from trending genres to the survival rate of independent bookstores to the destiny of audiobooks.
To say that independent romance is a beast in romance publishing is a well-known understatement. Indie romance has actually changed the business across the board, setting trends in craft and marketing strategies. But perhaps most importantly, indie romance has reshaped the narrative of what kinds of stories readers really want.
Days after a host of prominent literary names signed a letter defending JK Rowling "against hate", more than 200 writers, publishers and journalists including Jeanette Winterson, Malorie Blackman and Joanne Harris have put their names to another stating their support for transgender and non-binary people.
The letter, which is described as "a message of love and solidarity for the trans and non-binary community", was pulled together by acclaimed writers Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Daisy Johnson. With signatories also including Juno Dawson, Elizabeth Day, Max Porter, Nikesh Shukla, Sara Collins, Irenosen Okojie, Mary Jean Chan, Naoise Dolan, Olivia Sudjic, Sharlene Teo and Patrick Ness, it states that "non-binary lives are valid, trans women are women, trans men are men, trans rights are human rights".
"Culture is, and should always be, at the forefront of societal change, and as writers, editors, agents, journalists, and publishing professionals, we recognise the vital role our industry has in advancing and supporting the wellbeing and rights of trans and non-binary people," the letter reads.
The proportion of authors of colour writing for young adults in the UK has more than doubled in the last two years.
Research from University College London associate professor Melanie Ramdarshan Bold has found that 19.6% of YA authors published in the UK in 2019 were people of colour, compared with 7.1% in 2017 and 13.25% in 2018.
The increase comes in the middle of a reckoning for the books industry. The newly formed Black Writers Guild has called on publishers to "tackle the deep-rooted racial inequalities" in big publishing houses, saying that, in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd, publishers were raising awareness of racial inequality without significantly addressing their own.
Profits from sales of Adam Kay's Dear NHS: 100 Stories to Say Thank You (Trapeze) have raised £250,000 for charity in 11 weeks
Published in 100 days from initial idea to hitting the bookshops across the UK, and supported by a list of famous names sharing their personal stories of the health service, Dear NHS has sold almost 85,000 copies across all formats. All profits from the book go to NHS Charities Together to fund vital research and projects, and The Lullaby Trust which supports parents bereaved of babies and young children.