What's the Future of Books?
esquire.com – Thursday November 9, 2023
The publishing industry is in flux. One major publisher has been acquired by a private equity firm, editors are departing (and getting laid off) from others, there are fewer book media outlets than ever, and most literary discourse is happening online. But what does it all mean for the books themselves, and the ways that readers are discovering them? Here, we make some predictions about the future of books.
“Celebrities and tastemakers are becoming the new medium for discovery,” says Ariele Fredman, a literary agent at United Talent Agency who previously launched eight #1 New York Times bestsellers as a publicist. As a result, it will be more important than ever for debut novels to land on book club rosters.
A Reese Witherspoon, Oprah, or Jenna Bush endorsement can be enough to not only secure a spot on the bestseller list, but anoint an author with a fanbase that lasts. “If you don't get one of those coveted spots, it becomes even harder to break a new voice,” Fredman adds.
Outside of those chosen debuts, “we're going to see a continued investment in bigger-name authors” from publishers, says former editor Molly McGhee, the author of Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind, “because they have guaranteed returns on investment.”
Days of The Jackal: how Andrew Wylie turned serious literature into big business
theguardian.com – Thursday November 9, 2023
Andrew Wylie is agent to an extraordinary number of the planet’s biggest authors. His knack for making highbrow writers very rich helped to define a literary era – but is his reign now coming to an end?
Andrew Wylie, the world’s most renowned – and for a long time its most reviled – literary agent, is 76 years old. Over the past four decades, he has reshaped the business of publishing in profound and, some say, insalubrious ways. He has been a champion of highbrow books and unabashed commerce, making many great writers famous and many famous writers rich. In the process, he has helped to define the global literary canon. His critics argue that he has also hastened the demise of the literary culture he claims to defend. Wylie is largely untroubled by such criticisms. What preoccupies him, instead, are the deals to be made in China.
Wylie’s fervour for China began in 2008, when a bidding war broke out among Chinese publishers for the collected works of Jorge Luis Borges. Wylie, who represents the Argentine master’s estate, received a telephone call from a colleague informing him that the price had climbed above $100,000, a hitherto inconceivable sum for a foreign literary work in China. Not content to just sit back and watch the price tick up, Wylie decided he would try to dictate the value of other foreign works in the Chinese market. “I thought, ‘We need to roll out the tanks,’” Wylie gleefully recounted in his New York offices earlier this year. “We need a Tiananmen Square!”
Has It Ever Been Harder to Make a Living As An Author?
esquire.com – Wednesday November 8, 2023
In early August, after Andrew Lipstein published The Vegan, his sophomore novel, a handful of loved ones asked if he planned to quit his day job in product design at a large financial technology company. Despite having published two books with the prestigious literary imprint Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Lipstein didn’t have any plans to quit; he considers product design to be his “career,” and he wouldn’t be able to support his growing family exclusively on the income from writing novels. “I feel disappointed having to tell people that because it sort of seems like a mark of success,” he said. “If I’m not just supporting myself by writing, to those who don't know the reality of it, it seems like it's a failure in some way.”
The myth of The Writer looms large in our cultural consciousness. When most readers picture an author, they imagine an astigmatic, scholarly type who wakes at the crack of dawn in a monastic, book-filled, shockingly affordable house surrounded by nature. The Writer makes coffee and sits down at their special writing desk for their ritualized morning pages. They break for lunch—or perhaps a morning constitution—during which they have an aha! moment about a troublesome plot point. Such a lifestyle aesthetic is “something we’ve long wanted to believe,” said Paul Bogaards, the veteran book publicist who has worked with the likes of Joan Didion, Donna Tartt, and Robert Caro. “For a very small subset of writers, this has been true. And it’s getting harder and harder to do.”
Demand for creative writing courses outpaces supply
stanforddaily.com – Tuesday November 7, 2023
It might seem that putting words to paper is hard, but for those interested in creative writing classes, it might be more difficult to get into a class.
Many creative writing courses are known for their long waitlists and enrollment caps, but the root of the issue lies with a low supply of lecturers and courses to meet the high student demand for courses. The low supply of lecturers stems from an even larger problem: funding.
For Kathaleen Mallard ’25, it was incredibly difficult for her to get into the creative writing classes she wanted, even as an English major with a creative writing emphasis.
“I feel like the demand was obviously much greater than the amount of classes that there were, so it was hard to get into anything,” Mallard said. Some of her courses required course enrollment forms, but seniority remained a large factor of selection, making it difficult to enroll into the classes that were part of the core major requirements.
Mallard believes that this could affect students in the future who wish to pursue an English major with a creative writing emphasis or a creative writing minor, who may not get to explore classes in the department because of low enrollment caps. She also raised the waitlist experience for creative writing courses. Since most people are unlikely to drop their spots in class, it’s really hard to get off the waitlist for these classes, Mallard said.
From Dream to Draft: Transform Your Ideas with Creative Writing Courses
fleepbleep.com – Friday November 3, 2023
Are you an aspiring writer with a head full of stories waiting to be told? Do you have a burning desire to share your thoughts, emotions, and imagination with the world? If so, you’re not alone. Many dream of becoming writers but struggle to turn their ideas into fully-fledged drafts. The good news is that there’s a path from dream to draft, and it often begins with creative writing courses.
In this article, we’ll explore the transformative power of creative writing courses, how they can help you unlock your creativity, hone your skills, and ultimately bring your writing dreams to life. Whether you’re a complete novice or an experienced writer looking to refine your craft, read on to discover how these courses can be your guiding light on the journey from dream to draft.
The Ultimate Guide to Finding a Literary Agent for Your Book
legaldesire.com – Thursday November 2, 2023
If you’re an aspiring author who dreams of publishing your book by a traditional publishing house, securing a literary agent is essential. A literary agent acts as a professional representative, connecting authors with publishers. Their industry connections, expertise, and experience are instrumental in selling your manuscript to the right publisher, negotiating favorable deals, and safeguarding your rights.
However, finding the ideal literary agent who is genuinely interested in your book and can secure the best deal can be daunting. Standing out from many aspiring authors and avoiding scams and pitfalls are common concerns.
In this guide, we will address these questions and provide valuable insights on how to find a literary agent. Whether your book is fiction or nonfiction, Christian or secular, genre-specific or literary, we will offer the best tips and strategies to help you find and attract the perfect agent for your manuscript.
Amazon Sues Scammers Targeting Authors
publishersweekly.com – Wednesday November 1, 2023
Amazon this week announced that it has filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of California against some 20 individuals scamming authors by falsely claiming an affiliation with Amazon Publishing and Kindle Direct Publishing. According to the suit, the scammers run fake Amazon knockoff websites designed to lure would-be authors into paying a fee to publish, and then deliver either substandard or no service at all.
“Defendants use the Amazon Marks in their domain names and on their websites to divert victims from Amazon’s genuine websites to Defendants’ websites that purport to offer services to help authors create, edit, and publish their works through [Amazon Publishing or Kindle Direct Publishing],” the suit states, adding that, “to further the ruse of affiliation with Amazon” the websites often have chat boxes or advertise phone numbers to call that provide “false and misleading representations of affiliation with Amazon.”
Kindle Direct Publishing Will Beta Test Virtual Voice–Narrated Audiobooks
publishersweekly.com – Wednesday November 1, 2023
In a post today in the Kindle Direct Publishing community forum, the self-publishing giant announced that it has begun a beta test on technology allowing KDP authors to produce audiobook versions of their e-books using virtual voice narration. The ability to create an audiobook using synthetic speech technology is likely to result in a boom in the number of audiobooks produced by KDP authors. According to an Amazon spokesperson, currently only 4% of titles self-published through KDP have an audiobook available.
Under the new initiative, authors can choose one of their eligible e-books already on the KDP platform, then sample voices, preview the work, and customize the audiobook. After publication, audiobooks will be live within 72 hours, and will distributed wherever Audible titles are sold. Prices can be set between $3.99 and $14.99 and authors will receive a 40% royalty. All audiobooks created by virtual voice, the post says, will be clearly labeled and, as with any audiobook, customers can listen to samples.
New Magazine Listing: Abridged
firstwriter.com – Monday October 30, 2023
Aims to publish and exhibit contemporary/ experimental poetry plus contemporary art. Each issue is themed. Themes focus on contemporary concerns in a rapidly changing society. We are offering an alternative and complete integration of poetry, art and design. We experiment continually.
Do we need to save fiction from conglomerate publishing?
washingtonpost.com – Saturday October 28, 2023
Literature is, variously: a refuge from reality, an encounter with an era, an expression of a singular sensibility and a sheer delight. But it is also a business, as Dan Sinykin, an English professor at Emory University, explains in his new monograph, “Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature.”
Many academics are clinical prose stylists, but Sinykin writes with verve and narrative flair as he documents the consolidation of the major publishing houses — and, along the way, overturns the myth of “the romantic author,” that lone genius unfettered by social circumstances or material constraints. Far from working in isolation, he argues, writers inhabit a “hidden world” of “subsidiary rights specialists, art directors, marketing managers, sales staff, wholesalers, chain book buyers, philanthropists, government bureaucrats.” In “Big Fiction,” these shadowy figures, so central yet so uncelebrated, slink out of the wings and onto the stage. The result is a fascinating and informative account of the convulsions roiling the American publishing industry for the past half-century — and a devastating reckoning with the ways in which conglomeration has altered American fiction.
Still, sentimental and naive as I am, I cannot quite shake the conviction that literature is more than an emanation of economic circumstance. For all its fragility and susceptibility to material degradation, it continues to strike me as a member of that endangered and embattled species: art.
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