After soaring 18.9% in the first half of 2021 over the comparable period in 2020, unit sales of print books retreated in the first half of 2022, dropping 6.6% from 2021 levels. According to NPD BookScan, total first-half print sales were 362.6 million, down from 386.6 million a year ago. All the major categories except adult fiction had declines, with the largest drop coming in the industry's biggest category, adult nonfiction, where print sales fell 10.3%.
Links of the week July 4 2022 (27)
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:
11 July 2022
Sales at the midpoint of 2022 were still about 15% above the first six months of 2019, the last prepandemic year, which many in the industry are using as a benchmark, in light of the unexpectedly strong subsequent two years of the pandemic. The 6.6% decline is also an improvement over the first quarter, which saw an 8.9% drop in sales compared to last year's first quarter.
Much has been made of the weakness in frontlist sales again this year, and that was evident in the BookScan data. Frontlist sales were down 11.7% in the first half of 2022, while backlist sales were off a more modest 4.1%, according to BookScan.
Small indie presses say they are struggling to balance the spiralling cost of living and "prohibitive" print expenses, with at least one publisher fearing it will be put out of business altogether.
The UK's general economic outlook, with inflation, housing, food and fuel costs rising in addition to publishing-specific expenses is making the position of many small presses difficult, while "disappointing" Brexit legislation means European sales are still struggling. There are also concerns that raising the price of a book may increase the "north-south divide" and adversely impact indies.
Small indie presses say they are struggling to balance the spiralling cost of living and "prohibitive" print expenses, with at least one publisher fearing it will be put out of business altogether.
The UK's general economic outlook, with inflation, housing, food and fuel costs rising in addition to publishing-specific expenses is making the position of many small presses difficult, while "disappointing" Brexit legislation means European sales are still struggling. There are also concerns that raising the price of a book may increase the "north-south divide" and adversely impact indies.
In the late spring and summer of 1999, it did not take a wizard to see that something unprecedented was afoot in the rarified precincts of American publishing bestsellerdom. After an unremarkable run of Sundays in which New York Times fiction list stalwarts Tom Wolfe, Stephen King, Danielle Steel, John Grisham, Patricia Cornwall, and Mary Higgins Clark vied for the top position, the June 20 list delivered an eye-opening surprise when a newcomer to the club, a young Scottish fantasy writer named J.K. Rowling, ascended to the #1 spot with the release of her second children's book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Following Chamber's debut just days after Thomas Harris's latest horror novel, the Guardian chortled: "Hannibal [Lecter] eaten for breakfast by [a] 13-year-old." By mid-September, Rowling had emerged as her own stiffest competition and scored the hat trick of having had all three of her then-published Potter books reach the summit of the list within three months. Less than a year later, the New York Times announced the introduction of a separate children's bestseller list. As the Book Review's editor, Charles McGrath, commented: "The time has come when we need to clear some room."
Coast-to-coast midnight book-release parties; worldwide paper shortages; tales of hijacked delivery trucks; cover stories in Time, Newsweek, and Vanity Fair: these were just a few of the jaw-dropping indicators of a phenomenon. (By 2003, Rowling had already amassed a fortune greater than that of the Queen of England.) In July 2000, the series' fourth installment, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, became the fastest selling book in publishing history, burning through an initial 3.8-million-copy print run over a weekend. Even Harold Bloom weighed in. The Yale professor, writing in the Wall Street Journal, derided the cross-generational infatuation with the Potter books as dire confirmation of the "dumbing down" of Western culture.
The late 1970s saw the start of an unprecedented surge in independent children's-only bookstores opening, just as the eight million boys and girls born during the so-called baby boomlet of 1971-1974 came of reading age. Among the pioneering ventures that sprang up across the U.S. as the phenomenon gathered steam were the San Marino Toy and Book Shoppe (San Marino, Calif., 1975), Cheshire Cat (Washington, D.C., 1977), Children's Book Shop (Brookline Village, Mass., 1977), Hicklebee's (San Jose, Calif., 1979), Blue Marble (Fort Thomas, Ky., 1979), Books of Wonder (New York, N.Y., 1980), and Red Balloon Bookshop (St. Paul, Minn., 1984). Remarkably, of this pioneering group, all but one-the Cheshire Cat, which Washington's general interest bookseller Politics and Prose absorbed in 1999-remains a going concern. As college-educated baby boomers made their own children's reading lives a top priority, the new stores prospered.
The indie trend crested in the 1990s when an astonishing 750 such stores were in operation. Not surprisingly, their collective success caught the attention of Barnes & Noble, which by 1999 had amassed an armada of 1,000-plus stores nationwide, including many that the company plunked down in close proximity to standalone shops with proven track records. As B&N beefed up its own stores' children's and teen departments, consumers were forced to choose between lower prices and customized service. Costco, Target, and other big-box discount chains also entered the fray, and by 2005 fewer than 100 indie children's-only stores were still standing.
They sued the Internet Archive in June 2020 for copyright infringement. Now, American publishers file for summary judgment.
In a week roiled by difficult news - not least today's (July 8) assassination of Japan's Shinzo Abe - four primary member-publishers of the Association of American PublishersThe national trade association of the American book publishing industry; AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies have filed a motion for summary judgment against the Internet Archive in this case that has international implications because of the reach of Internet connectivity. A "summary judgment" is a way for one party to win a case without a trial.
As Publishing Perspectives readers will recognize, this is a stage in two years of litigation that began in early June 2020, when the publishers, three of them among the Big Five, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the Internet Archive, in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York...
The 2020 lawsuit asked the court to enjoin the San Francisco-based Internet Archive's "scanning, public display, and distribution of entire literary works"-which it has offered to the international public through what the association terms "global-facing businesses" branded the "Open Library" and "National Emergency Library."
Gone Girl is ten, and the virtual ink of the think piece is spilling all over the internet. As I read them, I sank into a familiar disappointment. The monotony of one writer after another discussing the book as a publishing phenomenon, the near ancestor of a proliferation of books categorized as domestic suspense or psychological thrillers, is not only not a novel observation it's dismissive of Gone Girl as literature. Of course, Gone Girl has spawned a genre's worth of books about troubled marriages and pretty missing white women. If anyone knows from this phenomenon, it's me: I cover these books, and month after month I sort through a pile of them and find a few to recommend.
Despite being enmeshed in the publishing world, I try to read outside of business hours: to read not like it's my job, but like it's my passion. And I am passionate about Flynn's book and her accomplishments, about the depth and the resonances of the novel she wrote which slyly tackles so many topics and themes beyond the obvious ones of a crummy marriage and a missing girl.
So let's do something radical: let's look at Gone Girl as literature. Gone Girl is not just clever marketing and good timing. It's art.
Poet, playwright and author Joseph Coelho has been named the new Waterstones children's laureate, and will look to celebrate the power of poetry during his two-year tenure.
Coelho takes over the role from How to Train Your Dragon author Cressida Cowell, who served three years instead of the usual two because of the coronavirus pandemic. He was announced as laureate at an event today at the Unicorn theatre, London, where he was given his bespoke laureate medal by Cowell. At the ceremony, Coelho performed a new poem he had written to mark the occasion, titled The Power of a Poem.
Coelho's laureateship will focus on three major projects, including Poetry Prompts, a campaign to make the writing and reading of poetry accessible to everyone. Coelho said there was "a lot of baggage with poetry", with adults and children often feeling poetry was something "done to them", and that there was "a right and a wrong way, and a correct way of analysing a poem".
"I'm all for analysing poetry, but we tend to miss out on writing poetry, and realising poetry is for everyone," said Coelho. "And as soon as you write poetry and realise that your voice is valid, then that opens up the world of poetry and makes you more interested in reading other poets."
Every now and again, if an author is exceptionally lucky, a character steps into a book fully formed and sheds a special kind of narrative glow on more or less everything. One such godsend is Werner Nehmann, who co-anchors Katastrophe, the latest in my Spoils of War series. His first outing was in Book Five - Last Flight to Stalingrad. Nehmann was born Mikhail Magalashvili in the wilds of Svaneti, a lawless mountain area in the wilds of Georgia, but self-rebadged as a German journalist of genius he quickly won the hearts of countless readers, thus earning himself a return for another fictional bloodbath.
It's a brave author who fashions a key character entirely from the workings of his imagination, and I make no such claims for my nerveless Georgian. So where did Magalashvili, aka Werner Nehmann, come from?
Honestly, if you are reading this essay, I probably already know one thing about you: You devoured the Nancy Drew mysteries as a child. And from that moment on, you were hooked on the female amateur sleuth (aka, the FAS). What drew you to her? Why did you progress at speed from the gateway drug of Nancy to Miss Jane Marple, to Amelia Peabody, to Blanche White, to... the list goes on and on. I would argue that it is because there is something about the female amateur sleuth that is, at heart, radical. Radical as in, to quote Merriam-Webster, "very different from the usual or traditional."
First of all, she consistently upends society's traditional view of women and girls as essentially harmless, biddable creatures. Even when the FAS appears to be conventional, like Agatha Christie's Miss Jane Marple, that appearance is almost always deceptive. As a character in The Murder at the Vicarage points out: "Miss Marple is a white-haired old lady with a gentle appealing manner-Miss Wetherby is a mixture of vinegar and gush. Of the two, Miss Marple is the more dangerous." Hah. Do not EVER underestimate the female amateur sleuth.
She is also unapologetically smart and will not be condescended to. Just listen to Elizabeth Peters' archaeologist Amelia Peabody, who says bluntly, "I have been accused of being somewhat abrupt in my actions and decisions, but I never act without thought; it is simply that I think more quickly and more intelligently than most people." Or Alan Brady's eleven-year-old chemistry prodigy Flavia de Luce, muttering between clenched teeth, "If there is a thing I truly despise, it is being addressed as "dearie."
California-based United Talent Agency's (UTA) decision to buy Curtis Brown GroupRepresents screenwriters and specialises in film and TV. Commission : 15-20%.
Website includes submission guidelines. Also represents directors, designers and actors.
Founded 1914. (CBG) is an opportunity to respond to the growing needs of clients as well as dealing with big publishers and streamers "in a constructive way" by having size and influence, according to CBG c.e.o. Jonny Geller.
Speaking to The Bookseller after the deal was announced, Geller said his approach to agenting has always been "if you're going to build a bigger agency you need to have a global strategy". He explained the agency has acquired a number of businesses over the years, and the deal is "a logical progression" to get more resources for the clients that need them.
Under the terms of the deal, London-based CBG will continue to operate under its current name, and all staff and leadership will remain in place, including Geller, with more employees expected to be taken on. The deal announcement noted that this structure "will allow both Curtis Brown GroupRepresents screenwriters and specialises in film and TV. Commission : 15-20%.
Website includes submission guidelines. Also represents directors, designers and actors.
Founded 1914. and UTA to continue their fruitful and longstanding relationships with other agency partners in the UK and US".
Margaret Drabble was a bright young star with five novels to her name in 1971, when she was talked into joining her old friend JB Priestley on the judging panel for a new book prize. "Jack told me that I should spend the fee (which came in wine) by choosing some very nice half-bottles to drink by myself, which I did," she recalls.
The USP of the Whitbreads, which morphed into the Costas 14 years before they were abruptly scrapped this month, was that they didn't buy into that sort of literary snobbery. For 50 years, they spread a wide and egalitarian net across different genres, supporting bookshops as well as writers and publishers (later panels would include a bookseller). Drabble doesn't remember much about that first awards ceremony, except that Hill was "quite grumpy". The following year, poetry was dropped as a category, in favour of children's fiction. It would take 15 years for it to be reinstated, as part of a roster that by then had grown to include first novels alongside novels, children's fiction and biography.
While many book lovers would find it hard to not finish a book over the course of 365 days, this is the reality of over half of US adults. In a new study conducted by WordsRated, an international research and data group focused on reading and the publishing world, 48% of adults finished a whole book in the last year.
The American Reading Habits survey asked 2,003 American adults about their reading habits over the last year. This study was done as a means of offering a different perspective on reading than what's typically offered via groups like PEW. Rather than define reading as a broad spectrum of activities, WordsRated had two criteria: the book must be print or digital (aka: no audiobooks, despite the fact audiobooks are indeed reading) and the book must have been finished in whole.
How do you write a book about a tween who lives for TikTok when you aren't on TikTok?
You don't.
When I set out to write my new middle-grade novel 12 to 22, which is about a girl who makes a wish on a TikTok filter and winds up in her 22-year-old self's body, I knew I had to get familiar with the one social media platform I had tried to avoid. I was writing the book in the early days of 2020 when, like many of my author friends, I found the only way to connect with readers during a pandemic was to take to social media in ways I never had before. I ordered a ring light, then hid in a quiet corner of the house and recorded myself giving writing prompts for Facebook. I posted my attempts to find a writing spot after my kids started doing school from home on Instagram. I did teacher book giveaways on Twitter.
A lesser-known fact about me: In addition to writing my own novels, I am a developmental editor. I help authors improve their novels. Sometimes these novels get sold; sometimes-as one of my despairing clients knows all too well-they don't. About a year ago, she came back to me wanting to work on a sixth draft based on the suggestions of an interested agent. "At this point," she said. "I just want this novel to be over."
There was true heartbreak in her voice-and also real animosity for her novel. It was clear to me that she had begun to hate the book she once loved, had been working on for years. And while the one interested agent's suggestion to move the end of the novel to the beginning, forecasting the events to come, could work, it was more likely not a good idea. I could sense pure dread. All the joy, all the play was gone. "You can rework material to death," I warned her, and honestly, she already had. "Why don't you start something new. See what happens. Have fun. Play."
Negotiation "is something you can practice, a skill you can develop. Everyone can learn it."
Like many people, I've never studied or learned how to negotiate, and do not always feel confident when I have to do it. When Pia Owens-a lawyer, writer, and alumna of the Harvard Program on Negotiation who has taught and practiced negotiation, mediation, and active listening skills for over a decade-offered to provide me with professional negotiation tips after I shared some writing advice, it occurred to me that readers of this newsletter might also benefit from our discussion. Last month, Owens and I spoke about how negotiation is a skill anyone can learn, the importance of advocating for yourself in a way that feels authentic to you, and what writers and creatives should keep in mind when entering a negotiation or weighing a professional decision.
In the 18th-century, a specter was haunting Europe-the specter of "Werther Fever." Goethe's 1774 epistolary novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, was so popular that it catapulted the young Goethe into international fame and set off a trend of young men wearing yellow trousers and electric blue jackets... and also, allegedly, thousands of imitation suicides.
Goethe was an unknown 24 year old when he wrote the book, and he certainly didn't set out to popularize garish fashion or suicide. The novel is an example of both art's cultural power and also the unpredictability of its influence. There's no better example of that than overtly political works. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle was written to expose the poor working conditions of meat packers and inspire a socialist movement, but readers focused on gross meat industry health violations so instead of socialism we got the 1906 Meat Inspection Act. Even works as blatantly left wing and anti-capitalist as Iain M. Banks's Culture novels and Star Trek can be turned into inspiration for rabid capitalists like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Etc.