Writing a book with the goal of publishing has many facets and steps that can be intimidating to first-time authors. There’s no wrong way to publish, but different types and approaches can affect your book’s success. One of the best ways to increase your future book’s reach and chances of success is to learn what the publishing industry entails and what is recently popular regarding book format, genre, publishing style, and marketing.
With the popularity of smartphones, digital libraries, and e-readers, e-books are more popular than ever. E-books are digital versions of novels and books, typically in PDF or other e-reading formats. More readers enjoy customizing font style and size in their e-books for better readability and accessibility. While customization features vary per e-reader or app, e-books should have versatile formatting that allows easy image viewing, bookmarking, search, and definition features. Authors who want to reach more audiences should be aware of the popularity of e-books and format their works accordingly.
While romance and fantasy remain tried and true classics in literature, one genre has been making a huge comeback and remaining popular among all ages. True crime or nonfiction crime books are doing huge numbers with authors. Thanks to the popularity of true crime YouTube channels and podcasts, books centering around true stories of real-life crimes like murder are centering the shelves. If you’re interested in taking advantage of this market popularity, you’ll also need to learn how to stand out above the market saturation.
In the modern era, younger generations are tired of the same types of characters. Generation Z and millennials are embracing the unique and diverse parts of themselves, their backgrounds, and their families. Books embracing differences in culture, race, gender, and sexuality in their characters are regarded highly when selecting a new book. If you’re planning a novel, make sure your characters don’t look the same; if they do, they should all have distinct personalities, preferences, and backgrounds.
Podcasts have increased the popularity of audio media, and more readers are interested in listening to their entertainment while working, driving, or exercising. Authors should include audiobook options to increase their books’ audience reach. Many authors narrate their audiobooks, but narrators or voice actors are also commonly hired. Traditional publishing companies typically take care of audiobook narration on their authors’ behalf. It may be more work to feature an audiobook of your novel, especially if you’re self-publishing, but it just might boost your book’s chance at success.
Getting your manuscript accepted by a major publishing company can be incredibly difficult. Even the most prolific authors and iconic books have been rejected by a publishing company at least once. With the prevalence of self-promotion tools and social media, more authors are skipping traditional publishing companies altogether. They may still sign with a literary agent for marketing, but they do not submit manuscripts to publishers. Instead, they use self-publishing platforms to edit, format, and promote their book. While self-published books risk less success without traditional publishers’ marketing tactics and connections, authors have more control over their books’ reach, appearance, and content.
If you’ve never heard of book review platforms like GoodReads, Blinkist, or TikTok’s BookTok, you may want to brush up on what’s trending online. GoodReads and Blinkist allow more accessible, quick book summaries and recommendations from similar readers and authors. BookTok provides video discussions, reviews, and suggestions for many different types of books through the popular social media site TikTok. You can digitally promote your book on these platforms to become more popular. Find out what is trending on these websites for a better idea of what your book should or can include. You can also contact influencers on platforms like BookTok for book promotion purposes.
Independent bookstores are struggling more than ever due to the popularity and accessibility of shopping networks like Amazon. Digital public libraries also reduce the need for independent bookstores. However, indie bookstores may be making a comeback. While many indie bookstores face financial hardships, influencer marketing and reader circles like BookTok promote and romanticize the independent bookstore scene. Some grow tired of the unethical practices of large corporations and are looking for ways to support small businesses once more. Don’t underestimate small or independent bookstores when selling your book. You can create loyal readers and partners through smaller businesses.
Public libraries are looking to keep up with technological trends and reader demands. The public library is one of the most valuable tools society has given us, and now they’re taking their benefits online. In addition to online book search and reservation programs, many public libraries offer digital copies of books in e-book and audiobook format to help patrons access books and knowledge from their computers or smartphones.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a controversial and hot topic in all creative industries, particularly in writing. AI, or large language models (LLM), can be an asset and an enemy to the average writer. Some companies are replacing human writers and exchanging them for AI-generated writing. While these language models are trained off of internet data, some consider this theft of human writers. Other authors value large language models’ contributions; AI can provide story ideas, character name suggestions, and simple outlining tools. While specific usage of AI can be unethical and economically harmful, other types of AI usage can be beneficial to the writing community
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