Oct 15, 2024 8 min read

October Industry Update

Why religious authors should price below market, the genre that's exploding in declining regions, global book data, and more in this month's publishing industry update

Why religious authors should price below market, the genre that's exploding in declining regions, global book data, and more in this month's publishing industry update 📖⭐

⏩ Quick Surf:

💡Other Tidbits In Publishing:

Authors are still fighting the AI training data breach from 2023. Created by Humans, officially partnered with the Authors Guild, looking to promote the AI licensing platform that aims to protect authors from AI data training. Created by Humans Partners with the Authors Guild
LibraryTok is the next big thing. Libraries have often been considered the "unsexy" side of the book world. Without all the bells and whistles to keep up with the flashy publishers, they've often been underscored. Not anymore. ‘LibraryTok’ is building school-age nostalgia on the internet. Fans can’t get enough
Not so diverse diversity. While curious, I'm not surprised by this data. Failure to include a diverse cast of characters is a death sentence in modern publishing. For white fiction authors, the question remains: how do you write diverse characters that are better than the ones you're writing now? A study finds that more than half of the diverse main characters are written by white authors.
Are Comics and Graphic Novels the future? This article might suggest so. While Italy is in a declining market for book sales, comic sales are exploding. The Fast, Exuberant Rise of Comics in Italy

✝ Good time to be a religious author. Bad time to be a children's author.

The AAP released their 2023 publishing information earlier this year that all of us can glean from.

Looking at 2023 in particular, one notable trend is that sales did much better in terms of dollars than in terms of units. While dollar sales fell by only 0.8%, unit sales were down 5.7%, to 3.05 billion units sold—a result that points to higher net book prices in 2023. -Publisher's Weekly

Overall, children's books have suffered the most, while religious fiction has been soaring in sales numbers.

✝️ Religious authors should price their novels slightly below the average to expand their market reach. You'll notice that while religious novels are selling fewer units, sales are up. In the influencer era, it's no mistake. Cultivating a loyal following is easier for authors who already have a supportive community. In order to grow your reach, religious authors, I recommend staying put on TikTok and cutting the price a tad. Your competition's publisher will look at this data and increase their price to make a quick buck, giving you a leg up to snag new readers with lower budgets.

🚸 Children's book authors should pump the brakes on the publish button & focus on growth strategy. The children's market is down bad right now. Children's book authors should focus less on quantity and more on quality, taking extra care of connecting themselves to their local market. Creative ways to collide with the target market are imperative to your digital publishing strategy. Larger publishers are struggling to get in front of young readers. Don't struggle alongside them. Talk to libraries, get on lists, and think outside the box.

🌐 Global Data on the Book Market

You'll notice that the United States, the world's largest global market for books, is not included in these numbers. But that doesn't necessarily mean discarding the chart. While book sales are trending down, reading is getting more accessible in hotspot areas that have plenty of English readership.

🇮🇳🇲🇽Authors who want to expand their global reach will do their best to secure Indian and Mexican market channels. Authors who are investing in Spanish translations will typically access three more countries than a monolingual author, based on this data.

💭Overall Assessment

New sales release data helps us track industry changes this season, yet most genres and markets remain relatively stable.

With the upcoming holidays and gifts push, it's about to be a bad time to publish a novel, especially a debut. Hold your horses and take the holiday season to perfect your projects, ladies and gents. Indie publishing from now to 2025 is likely an under-developed idea.