The five-year anniversary of Covid-19 is just months away, but at this year's Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two., the pandemic felt like a thing of the past. While the show floor isn't as bustling on the face as it had been in pre-pandemic years, each night, the Frankfurterhof remains jam-packed-and, more importantly, all reports indicate that the deal-making business has been brisk.
Links of the week October 14 2024 (42)
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:
21 October 2024
The opportunity for facetime with international partners, as always, has proved of value to publishers big and small, even when deals aren't made at the fair itself. "It's a chance to have people from a hundred different countries show up to your booth, talk to you about your books, and see if there's a potential partner there," said Josh Hayes, VP of sales at Boom! Studios, recently acquired by Random House, but still operating its own booth at the show this year. "We continue to see a lot of traction on everything, from a licensing standpoint."
Sometimes, that facetime is unexpected.To wit: David Campbell, publisher of Everyman's Library in the U.K., arrived on Wednesday and, finding himself free for lunch, went to the fish and chips stand on the fairground, where he found himself at the same table as six people from the Akademnasher Publishing House in Uzbekistan. "Are you the David Campbell of Everyman?" one asked. "But you are my hero!" Shortly thereafter, a deal was struck for an Everyman title, and Campbell has a trip planned for Tashkent.
The fair also provided publishers with moments to reflect on their role in the international marketplace while sitting, quite literally, in the middle of it. HarperCollins was preparing to host party at its booth on Thursday evening to celebrate its international business, which was launched following the acquisition of Harlequin in 2014.
In January, David Shelley took on a new role for Hachette, as CEO of an English-language management structure that united Hachette U.K. and the Hachette Book Group in the U.S. In announcing the new structure, Arnaud Lagardère, CEO of Hachette parent company Lagardère, said the new structure would position the company to be "a global leader" and would unlock new opportunities for growth, and deemed Shelley "the best person to create a strong and unified English-language publishing team." PW executive editor Andrew Richard Albanese caught up with Shelley in New York earlier this month to talk about how it's all going.
The thinking behind the move was really to share best practices, and, where there's exceptional talent on either side, to allow that great talent to flourish and to have an impact in different markets. So, for instance, Carrie Bloxson, who I promoted to be head of culture and DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] across Hachette U.S. and Hachette U.K., is already having a great impact. Another example would be Matt Wright, who heads up distribution services in the U.K. and now in the U.S. as well. So, in both directions, where something exceptional is happening or where someone is doing brilliant work, it gives us a chance to share best practice and to provide an opportunity for people to expand their careers.
Export editions have continued "cannibalising" sales for international publishers, while the market has become increasingly more competitive, The Bookseller heard at the 2024 Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two.. This is particularly felt in countries like The Netherlands, where English literacy levels are high, and increasingly in larger territories like Germany.
Juliet Mushens of Mushens Entertainment said: "Conversations around the threat of English-language export editions to translation editions continue, particularly in the Dutch market. There is definite pressure there for the Dutch to be able to publish simultaneously or ideally ahead of the cheaper English edition."
Will Francis at Janklow & NesbitCommercial and literary fiction and non-fiction.
No poetry, plays, film/TV scripts.
Send an informative covering letter with full outline (non-fiction), synopsis and first three sample chapters (fiction) to the main Janklow and Nesbit (UK) Ltd address for the attention of the Submissions Department.
Please include return postage if you would like your manuscript returned to you. US rights handled by Janklow & Nesbit Associates in New York. explained that certain publishers in the Netherlands have even stopped working with some of their authors, and the issue seems to affect literary writers from the UK the most.The prevalence of English-language editions is making the market very competitive for authors writing in English, and agent Madeleine Milburn said that this may be leading some editors to prefer local writers. Milburn said: "International editors are publishing a lot more homegrown talent and only offering for the very best voices from the UK and US, given the competition with export editions cannibalising their sales, and the increased costs of translation." She also noted a "huge growth in translated fiction".
The world's biggest trade publisher has changed the wording on its copyright pages to help protect authors' intellectual property from being used to train large language models (LLMs) and other artificial intelligence (AI) tools, The Bookseller can exclusively reveal.
Penguin Random House (PRH) has amended its copyright wording across all imprints globally, confirming it will appear "in imprint pages across our markets". The new wording states: "No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems", and will be included in all new titles and any backlist titles that are reprinted.
The statement also "expressly reserves [the titles] from the text and data mining exception", in accordance with a European Parliament directive.
The move specifically to ban the use of its titles by AI firms for the development of chatbots and other digital tools comes amid a slew of copyright infringement cases in the US and reports that large tranches of pirated books have already been used by tech companies to train AI tools. In 2024, several academic publishers including Taylor & Francis, Wiley and Sage have announced partnerships to license content to AI firms.
Nick Harkaway was a successful novelist in his own right when his brothers asked him to continue their late father's spy series. Could he pull it off?
It takes a few anxious minutes for me to ring on Nick Harkaway's north London doorbell, on the grounds that neither the taxi driver nor I is convinced it's a private residence; its blankly businesslike doorway and proximity to a pub and an undertaker would lead a passerby to think of a discreet accountancy firm or therapist's office. Or, perhaps, a safe house. But I double check the address and, seconds later, there is the proprietor, ushering me in.
Two hours later, I've discovered that there's more to the history of the Hungarian tobacco industry than meets the eye, that Harkaway tracks the shipping traffic in the Danube corridor via an app and that, despite not being a horsey person, he has a surprisingly detailed knowledge of how the late Queen's horses were trained. And I've also got a little nearer to understanding how he came to take on one of the most daunting literary challenges imaginable: continuing the legacy of his father, John le Carré.
Freedom to read is imperiled in a world that is ill at ease with the idea of freedom...of thought, of feeling, of difference. No one knows this better than Elif Shafak, the Turkish author of 20 books translated into 50 languages. More than a decade ago, she moved from Turkey to the U.K. to find a home where she could write and think freely.
"It's a very strange time to be alive. It's a strange time to be a writer," Shafak said, in the opening press conference of this year's Fair. "In a world that remains deeply polarized and bitterly politicized and torn apart by inequality and wars and the cruelty that we are capable of inflicting upon each other... one might ask: ‘What can writers and poets even hope to achieve?'"
The author, whose works often explore themes of human rights, freedom of expression, and identity, emphasized the distinction between information, knowledge, and wisdom in the digital age. "We live in a world in which we have way too much information, but little knowledge and even less wisdom," Shafak observed. "And I think we need to change that ratio."
Many readers of Alan Moore-the prolific and influential author of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Jerusalem, and, most recently, The Great When-are enchanted by the magic of his creative vision. For his next trick, The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic, Moore would like you to come away with a respect for, and perhaps even a belief in, magic itself.
The 400+ page grimoire, coauthored with the late Steve Moore (no relation) and published by IDW's Top Shelf Productions imprint, combines a lively and accessible history of ritual magic, practical guidance on how and why to use such techniques as tantra and Tarot, and amusing summaries of the lives of magical practitioners through the years-from Hermes Trismegistus to Alistair Crowley-done as single-page comics. Moore spoke with PW via email about the Bumper Book, magic, superheroes, and more.
You've spent much of your career embroidering the mythology of superheroes in a medium that wondrously combines words and pictures, while also taking a serious and scholarly interest in ritual magic. Do you see those interests as related? If so, how?
My association with superheroes, after starting my career with a few years of humor and science fiction, is largely born of working in the American comics field of the early 1980s, where such characters seemed mandatory; of having a useful prior knowledge of American superhero comics from the age of around five or six to the age of around sixteen; and of it turning out that, arguably, I wrote that genre with more force and purpose than anyone else. In actuality, I have no special affinity for superheroes and, indeed, over the last fifteen or so years, have come to see them as a kind of spandex blight afflicting our culture, our societies, and even our politics. So, no, I don't think there's any meaningful connection between Dr. Strange and Dr. Dee.
Salman Rushdie has claimed today that it would be more dangerous to publish The Satanic Verses in today's cultural climate than in 1988.
The initial publication of his famous novel resulted in a fatwa from Iran calling for the British author's execution. His Japanese translator was murdered in 1991, while several other figures associated with the book's publication were attacked in the following years. Most recently, in 2022, an assailant stabbed Rushdie multiple times, blinding him in one eye.
During today's speech at Vanderbilt University's Global Free Speech Summit in Nashville, Rushdie - who was appearing remotely - said social media and changing attitudes about censorship among young people make the current climate more hostile to free speech. While he believed the publication process would have been similar now, he said the consequences of publication would be more grave.
The author and publisher contributes to our Q&A series
Describe your job
I wear a few hats! I'm an author and usually on a book deadline or doing school visits or panels. I co-run Hashtag Press, which is a tiny publishing house. This includes editing books, working on cover concepts, social media, reading submissions. Then I have the Diverse Book Awards, but I mainly do social media and check in with judges if they have all the books. The DBA is pretty low maintenance. I recently co-started the Ink Book Prize, which is for self-published authors. I have other projects, but my roles are quite small so I don't have to get too involved - which is nice!
What do you think might be the next big thing?
I think fiction for younger readers that explore deeper issues like climate change, family dynamics. That age group has lots of humour but I think there will be a bit more depth. Also more books for teen boys are very much needed.
The Hobbit star turned crime writer and Audible bestseller stars alongside Nicola Walker in his Audible original Geneva
Richard Armitage is a connoisseur of storytelling. Not only is the actor a beloved fixture of the British dramatic arts landscape, but he has lent his voice to 61 audiobooks, including two of his own crime novels. Attending Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two. for the first time, Armitage is appearing today with long-standing associates at Audible to discuss what is next for audiobooks.
It is no surprise that the man who embodied the taciturn and brooding exiled dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Hobbit credits J R R Tolkien as having a "massive impact" on him as an "imaginative person". As a child, Armitage read The Lord of the Rings "two or three times". He adds: "I couldn't stop reading... I would get to the end of the book, and I would almost grieve for the characters, so I [would] go all the way back to the beginning to read it again because I'd lost my friends." There is a Tolkien "easter egg" for eager listeners in Armitage's most recent audiobook, The Cut.
The volume of hardback books sold in the first week of publication by some of the bestselling authors is down compared to their previous titles, despite the fact that in some cases revenues have either remained flat or gone up marginally, analysis of Bookscan data reveals. Some within the publishing industry have put this trend down to the rising prices of hardbacks, leaving customers "wincing" at the tills.
The hotly anticipated fourth novel by Sally Rooney Intermezzo (Faber) was published in September, shifting 41,607 copies in its first week of publication; down 10% on the 46,065 hardbacks of the Irish author's 2021 novel Beautiful World Where Are You (Faber). Despite this dip in volume, the revenue brought in by Rooney's early hardback sales remained roughly the same across both titles, having edged up 0.3% for Intermezzo.
Similarly, Jamie Oliver's latest cookery book, Simply Jamie (Penguin Michael Joseph), brought in 1.2% more revenue than 2023's 5 Ingredients Mediterranean (PMJ), despite having shifted 5% fewer copies. While bestselling children's author Rick Riordan's latest Percy Jackson novel, Wrath of the Triple Goddess (Puffin), sold 9% fewer hardback copies in its first week than his last instalment of the teenage demi-god's adventures.
A new survey suggests that young people are shunning AI algorithms and online retailers to experience the joy of visiting bookshops
Gen Z's cultural tastes are heralded, maligned and mythologised in almost equal measure. But one stereotype persists above all: that young people are addicted to their phones, keen to live their lives primarily through a screen.
But is this the whole picture? A survey commissioned by the Booksellers Association ahead of Bookshop Day tomorrow has found that gen Z and millennials are more likely to buy a book based on a bookseller's recommendation - in person, in a bookshop - than older age groups: 49% and 56% respectively, compared with 37% of gen X and 31% of baby boomers. Booksellers from around the UK told me this wasn't surprising - that, in the last few years, they've noticed a sharp rise in young readers coming into their shops seeking out human guidance, eager to be in a physical store rather than filtering through AI and influencer-recommended titles online.
"I love the whole atmosphere in bookstores and can spend hours browsing - I think that's a big part of it," Emily, 26, from Northampton explains. "You can take hours without feeling rushed or like you're imposing."
This year, Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two. will include a space dedicated to the boom in New Adult publishing. In the fair's own words, the 8,000 sq metre area will offer "an additional home to the successful New Adult genre and its subgenres Romantasy and Dark College [known in the UK as Dark Academia], along with many queer publishing houses". The move reflects a growing recognition of a category that had previously been underserved by mainstream publishing.
Definitions of New Adult vary, however it is widely considered to sit between Young Adult (YA) and adult publishing, predominantly centred on and catering to people in their early 20s. As Daphne Tonge, founder and m.d. of subscription box retailer Illumicrate and publisher Daphne Press, puts it: "They are books that feature the coming-of-age themes, pacier plot and strong voices found in YA publishing, but with characters aged up with issues relevant to over-18s." Soraya Bouazzaoui, senior commissioning editor at Headline Eternal, expands: "I call New Adult the ‘second coming-of-age', where readers are on the cusp of redefining who they are, their boundaries and what they want to be after entering the workforce."
This is echoed by Anissa de Gomery, founder of book subscription box Fairyloot: "While YA is about coming-of-age, New Adult delves into what happens after-the phase where you're expected to have it all figured out but often don't. The themes are more mature than YA, but it's not quite the same as adult fiction, where characters are generally more settled. It's this transitional space that feels both relatable and aspirational."
Literature in translation has long been reliant on indie presses to bring work such as the South Korean author's to wider audiences
The announcement of the South Korean writer Han Kang as the 2024 Nobel Literature laureate is a triumph not only for Korean literature but also a reminder of the huge reach and influence of small press publishing, which takes on so much of the heavy work of introducing literature in translation to a wider audience.
Though Han's most recent work has been published in the UK by Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Random House, her first novel, The Vegetarian, published in South Korea in 2007, was published by the now defunct independent Portobello Books in 2015. It won the International Booker prize the following year.
Now Han's entire output has been honoured: works of spare, fierce prose, seemingly ethereal in transmission yet brutal in impact. While often abstract, they nevertheless powerfully wrestle with traditional Korean society and history.
Keira Knightley is latest star to publish a children's book, but some say trend pushes aside genuine writers and makes it harder to find great children's fiction
"A modern classic by Keira Knightley" reads the provisional cover of the actor's debut children's book, I Love You Just the Same. Set to be published next October, the 80-page volume, written and illustrated by Knightley, is about a girl navigating the changing dynamics that come with the arrival of a sibling.
The Pirates of the Caribbean star is the latest in a long list of celebrities to have turned to writing children's books. McFly's Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter have been hovering at the top of the bestseller chart since the publication last month of their latest book The Dinosaur that Pooped Halloween!. Earlier in the year, David Walliams dominated with his newest book Astrochimp. The entertainer has sold 25m copies of his children's titles in the UK alone, according to Nielsen BookData.
The celeb-to-author pipeline is nothing new: Julie Andrews' children's novel Mandy was published in 1974, while Madonna's picture book The English Roses came out in 2003. What has changed in recent years is that the non-celeb side of the playing field has been hollowed out, with author incomes in decline.
Author Helen Fielding says Bridget Jones has found a new audience with Gen Z, who have more problems than young women did 30 years ago but take comfort in the character's trials and tribulations.
"What's good now is that there's a new audience for Bridget that's young, that's Gen Z," Fielding said at the Cheltenham Literature Festival.
"I'm really happy when 18-year-olds and 20-year-olds come with their books and talk to me about it and say that they find it comforting to laugh at these things."
Bridget Jones went straight to many women's hearts in the 1990s, but some think the floundering and flawed heroine, who's fixated with her weight and relationship status, is not the best role model.
Bridget Jones's Diary became a best-seller in 1996 and the character has featured in three more books and three film adaptations, with a fourth film due to be released early next year.
Fielding, 66, said she sees similarities between Bridget and some friends of her 18-year-old daughter.
"I spent the last two years surrounded by teenage girls, because they all came to my house, and I can see what they've got in common with Bridget," she said, speaking to BBC Radio 4's Martha Kearney at the event.
"They're the first generation who have gone through seeing the world fall apart [with the pandemic]. So they're quite fragile, and they're quite open about their emotions. They sort of cry in the bathroom and put it on TikTok.
With earnings having dropped by 60%, it is harder than ever to keep going as a writer - even if your work gets rave reviews
The 2022 publication of A Hunger, Ross Raisin's fourth novel, was his "lowest moment", the 45-year-old author says. "It was a deflating experience."
The book received positive reviews, but then Raisin found out it wouldn't be stocked in a large high-street book chain, and literary festivals claimed they "didn't have space" to programme him. "I had to work hard not to succumb to a negativity that in turn thwarts creativity," he says. It made him consider giving up writing altogether.
Raisin received "a really sizable advance" for his 2008 debut God's Own Country, which won him the Sunday Times young writer of the year award in 2009 and earned him a spot on Granta magazine's 2013 list of best young British novelists. It was an "experience I'd normalised - and then the rest of my career has not been like that", Raisin says. "I think my books have got better, but the noise around anything I write has diminished."
A new study of current trends and consumer attitudes to buying and reading books has found the UK to be among the nations with the biggest reading public.
The European International Booksellers Federation's (EIBF) Study on Consumer Behaviour (book-buying trends, reading habits and customer needs) was commissioned through its three-year EU co-funded project RISE Bookselling. According to the study, 92% of UK respondents were heavy readers. Overall, 92% of UK respondents reported having read a book in the past 12 months, compared to 94% in Italy, 91% in Ireland, 81% in the US, 88% in France and 87% in Germany.
Tags in Links Topics
Amazon
Authors
Bestselling authors
Book sales
Children's authors
Children's books
Children's publishing
Crime-writing
Crime fiction
Crime writer
e-books
Indie authors
Poems
Poetry
Poets
Prizes
Publishers
Publishing
Publishing houses
Publishing industry
Publishing world
Readers
Reading
Self-published writers
Self-publishers
Self-publishing
Writers
Writers' careers
Writers' craft
Writers' stories
Writing
Writing habits
