Recent Changes in Publishing

I've changed the title of my series to "Recent Changes in Publishing" not just to spice things up (though that may be in part) but to talk about things that may not be easily quantifiable. So with that in mind let's begin.

The holiday season is fast approaching which is a very good thing for the industry as a whole. Throughout this year, it turns out that book sales have actually been down and people have generally been reading less. Why is that you may ask? Well, since restrictions have been loosening up and lockdowns ending, people are more concerned with enjoying the outside more than ever, so that cuts down on their reading time. I think this could be another opportunity for audiobooks to shine but that's besides the point.

With winter season on the way, at least in the Northern hemisphere, numbers of books sales will start to rise again and even out with people buying books as presents or just to keep on top of the avalanche of end-of-year releases and sales.

All in all, the coming months will be a big opportunity for book marketing and hopefully books sales.

Another thing I wanted to discuss in this post was what literary agents want in the coming months, for those of you wanting to go on the traditional route.

I know in the publishing field comp titles and whether or not a book can be boiled down to a one-sentence tagline are one of the big indicators of whether or not a manuscript gets picked up by a publishing house but that's only a small part of the story.

Tory Hunter, a developmental editor, highlighted in a blog post, the increased demands for character-driven stories in genres all across the board. Characters people will love to go on a journey with through the course of a novel or a series are what appeal to agents rather than high-concept plots. Another thing to add is that a mash-up of genres is also receiving a boost. Take for instance Delia Owen's debut novel which is a New York Times Bestseller, Where the Crawdad Sings is a mystery/thriller/romance/courtroom drama. Not fitting in neatly with the conventions of those aforementioned genres, according to the negative end of the spectrum of reviews, actually serves the purpose of creating a unique story instead of writing to market. Genre cliches and plot beats have their place, but if want to be truly memorable in the eyes of agents, write the story you want to write.

So that's all from me. What do you think of the predictions for the upcoming months? Let me know below in the comments.