A People's Guide to Publishing

Here is a a funny reader question that happens sometimes: your publisher pays you an advance but then cancels your book. Why? What do you do? What can you do? What should you do? 

Reader question this week is asking us to predict how the changes we've seen over the past year will take hold over the next five years and what that will mean for publishers. How should publishers prepare for this? How should publishers pivot? What can we do to set ourselves up for success?

Why do publishers make stickers, magnets, shirts, patches, buttons, and the like? What is gained? Where does this get you? This week on the pod, we jabber on about how we have leveraged these items to get our books into new and unlikely places! 

For many publishers, the bulk of income can come from licensing deals: the same book translated to Japanese, as an audiobook, or even a videogame or interactive version. An 80% share in Dark Horse Comics was sold to a videogame developer, for example. This week we look at these deals, how to do them, and why they are so important.

Generally unbeknownst to each us, we have a set of experiences that form how we see the world. These experiences form what we see as acceptable, unacceptable, normal, and marginal thoughts, ideas, values, and actions. For example, one person only wears Armani suits while another only wears second hand clothes. This point of view accepts our publishing, as it informs what kind of books appear interesting or relevant to us. 

Publishing news has been brewing over a story of a protest resignation from a board member from the American Booksellers Association (ABA) over "old" vs "new" definitions of "free speech." Personally, we hate that "free speech" has been codified to mean "hurtful speech," but this week we tackle these thorny issues and more! 

The book industry was shocked in April of 2016 when Baker & Taylor was purchased by their primary competitor in the library sales market, Follett. So imagine the surprise when they sold them off five years later. What does this mean? 

For this week's episode of the People's Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly are interviewing (live!) Sarah High from Bookshop, the new online book retailer that is pointing the way to  successful online bookselling that supports independent bookstores as well as authors and publishers. We'll talk about bookselling during the pandemic, the future of books, and positive ways to make connections between books and tech.

Find out more about the podcast here: https://microcosm.pub/podcast

Check out Bookshop here: https://bookshop.org/

Last week, the U.S. Federal Government sued to prevent Penguin Random House from purchasing one of their biggest competitors, Simon & Schuster. This is a stark change in federal policy after years of happily allowing Hachette, HarperCollins, and others to acquire their biggest competitors. As well, as six years ago when Penguin and Random House merged themselves. What does it mean?

After decades of U.S. manufacturing disinvestment coinciding with decades of rapid production investment in China, book publishers have largely moved to printing in China. So why have we seen a return to domestic printing this year? Spoiler alert: One Big Five publisher recently cited 18 week delays for reprints from China. This means that for smaller publishers, this delay is MUCH longer.