You wrote a book! Now make a viral TikTok about it.
mashable.com – Sunday October 15, 2023
Authors can no longer succeed in their craft by writing alone. They must embody multiple roles: writers, publicists, digital marketers, and social media managers. They must be rabid in their self-promotion and steadfast in their personal branding. They have to produce viral tweets, create viral TikTok videos, and optimize their Instagram accounts so that they can get paid to do the work they want to do.
In 2023, writing a book is the easy part.
That's not to say that self-promotional branding is a novel concept for writers. In the 18th and 19th centuries, authors pulled off some wild stunts to build their brands in newspaper column inches. In the 1920s, Virginia Woolf went shopping with Vogue. Ernest Hemingway did photo ops on safaris and fishing trips. John Steinbeck posed for beer ads. And beyond that kind of classic self-branding, promotion in the 1900s involved a significant amount of personal networking. Anne Sexton, for instance, became a literary star not only because she was an exceptional poet, but also because she was the daughter and wife of salesmen and excellent at self-promotion, as Joy Lanzendorfer pointed out in LitHub. Sexton, who won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967, tried aggressively to get her work seen. She was ambitious, sending her poems to dozens of publications at a time and hunting down poets she admired, flirting with them, and then demanding they mentor her.
Frankfurt-Bound Nermin Mollaoğlu Opens a Press in the UK
publishingperspectives.com – Saturday October 14, 2023
It’s not every day that a literary agent tells you she’s opening a publishing house. But that’s the case today (October 12), with a message from one of the best-known regulars in Frankfurter Buchmesse‘s (October 18 to 22) sold-out Literary Agents and Scouts Center, the “LitAg.”
Nermin Mollaoğlu—who tells Publishing Perspectives that her Kalem Agency in Istanbul now has 13 team members—is working with Tasja Dorkofikis and Geraldine D’Amico to establish Linden Editions in London, a publishing house with a mission to promote translation, internationalism, and “cross-cultural understanding.”
“It came out of our joint desire to publish outstanding literary works of fiction, narrative nonfiction, reportage, and essays, as well as some modern classics primarily in translation from Europe, the francophone world, and the Mediterranean region.”
In an exchange with us today, Mollaoğlu says, “I will definitely go on with Kalem. I love working as an agent.”
But the new press, she says, “will give me more opportunity to try another side of agenting, as we’ll buy some titles for the world rights and I’ll be selling them to the world, as well.”
New Publishing Imprint Listing: Bird Eye Books
firstwriter.com – Friday October 13, 2023
Imprint publishing high quality illustrated books about the visual arts. We plan to work with authors, artists, sculptors, ceramicists, photographers, illustrators, crafts people, architects and other creatives to publish beautiful books about our visual culture.
Poland joins CAA as agent in books department
thebookseller.com – Thursday October 12, 2023
Harriet Poland has joined the books department at the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) as an agent.
Poland will be working across a range of books, including narrative, voice-driven non-fiction, pop culture, memoir and journalism.
She comes to the agency from Hodder & Stoughton, where she was editorial director and published several titles from authors including Rob Delaney, Garth Marenghi and Jessie Ware. Prior to Hodder, she held positions at Hodder Studio, Audible and The Hanbury Agency.
Rebecca Netley on the difficulties of writing ghost stories
culturefly.co.uk – Thursday October 12, 2023
As a long-time lover of supernatural and ghost stories it had always been my burning ambition to write one. My first book had been a thriller and I hadn’t anticipated the particular difficulties that might confront me when moving to this particular genre.
I am in complete agreement with Susan Hill who famously said of writing ghosts stories: ‘Less is more.’ Greater fear is generated by suggestion and ambiguity than by a fully-formed apparition – the shadow behind the door, the singing tones of a ghostly child, a rocking-chair moving on its rockers with no apparent cause and footsteps in an empty room. Once you present the ghost, although the moment should be fear-inducing, it is actually the instant when some fear is dispelled.
New Literary Agent Listing: Ericka T. Phillips
firstwriter.com – Thursday October 12, 2023
Interested in non-fiction authors working in the Buddhist and mindfulness arena with a focus on health and spiritual well-being. She has a passion for developing projects and building platforms that help amplify the voices of women of color and black women writers in particular. She is experienced in platform development, marketing, and publicity and helps authors translate their message into brand strategy.
What Was Literary Fiction?
thenation.com – Tuesday October 10, 2023
As an English professor, I’m often asked, “What do you like to read?” Sometimes I answer, “Literary fiction.” By that phrase, I mean fiction that privileges art over entertainment. I did not know until recently that literary fiction—the phrase, not what it stands for—grew up with me. We’re about the same age. And while I hope I’m only midway through my life, literary fiction might be dead. More precisely, what might have died is literary fiction as a meaningful category in publishing and bookselling.
The term “literary fiction” began its rise about 40 years ago. In the summer of 1980, John Dessauer, a book industry analyst, raged against those who were bemoaning the state of publishing. A wave of mergers and acquisitions had consolidated the industry in recent years, as once-independent publishers were absorbed by conglomerates. Gulf + Western owned Simon & Schuster. Pearson owned Penguin, which had merged with Viking to form Viking Penguin. S.I. Newhouse had just acquired Ballantine, Knopf, Pantheon, and Random House from RCA. Eventually, just five multinational conglomerates—the Big Five—would control most of trade publishing.
New Publishing Imprint Listing: Scarlet
firstwriter.com – Tuesday October 10, 2023
Aims to bring audiences fresh voices in psychological suspense and domestic thrillers.
New Literary Agent Listing: Camille Kantor
firstwriter.com – Tuesday October 10, 2023
Looking for titles, whether fiction or non-fiction, that will inspire the public to engage with nature while imparting fascinating knowledge about our planet and its inhabitants. She is particularly interested in popular science non-fiction work. Her fiction tastes include books that immerse the reader in descriptive but clear imagery and that have themes of nature-human interactions. She especially loves interesting, well-developed characters and high concept literary fiction that approaches philosophical topics about our relationship with our planet.
AnyBook is aiming to be “the Netflix or Spotify” of publishing
calcalistech.com – Monday October 9, 2023
The company has raised a total of $2 million to help revolutionize the publishing industry
“The book industry is lagging behind while other content-based industries are flourishing and revolutionizing themselves,” explained AnyBook co-founder and CEO Eliran Navon. “While other industries have been completely disrupted and changed by digitization, like Netflix and Spotify in the entertainment and music industries, 80% of book sales are still physical books.”
AnyBook was founded to tackle this. Alongside his partners, he decided to create a model that would provide a new experience that would expand usage and encourage consumers to read more. “Thanks to AnyBook’s technology, workplaces can provide employees with a continuous supply of books they’ll find compelling and enjoyable,” he said.
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