Hi, everyone, welcome to Go Publish Yourself, an IngramSpark podcast.
Hi, I'm Robin Cutler, the Director of IngramSpark.
And I'm Justine Bylo and I manage our Author Acquisitions Program.
Well, hi Justine.
As we are wrapping up 2017, I thought it would be a really good idea to talk about the year,
what were some of the highlights, and then look towards 2018 and beyond.
What are trends that we're looking for these next couple of years.
Do we want to just jump right in?
Yeah, it's been a really interesting year.
What do think has been this past year, in 2017, what were things that stood out for
you?
There was a lot.
The genres really had some interesting changes this year.
On the road at all the conferences, I was hearing all of these interesting shifts, especially
in the world of genre fiction.
The biggest thing this year was that people don't want political thrillers anymore.
Nobody wants politics.
Everybody is so burned out at the end of 2017.
They really are.
And non-fiction too.
I mean, nobody wants to read politics in any way, shape, or form.
No.
Just stay away from it at this point I think is the solid advice.
Because of that too, there's some really big shifts in romance, which I found really fascinating.
Because that's been all over the place for the last few years, right?
There's constantly shifts within the romance industry because it moves so quickly.
But we saw this really interesting change back to people wanting chick lit books.
Like the Bridget Jones' Diary days, Diary of a Shopaholic, all those.
People wanted books like that because it was these characters that we recognized, a world
that we recognized, but with a happily ever after.
And everyone loves a good happily ever after.
Oh, yeah.
I wonder why that is?
You think it's the MeToo movement?
Is that part of it?
This happened before, but I think that there was a change in women's solidarity.
It started with the Women's March this year.
Oh that's right.
Yeah, that set the tone for the romance world this year.
Quite frankly, I love those books, so I'm not mad that they're back
In romance, are women still waiting for the man to appear?
Oh, god no!
It's such an old cliche now.
No, instead of the damsel in distress it's the duke in distress, which I love.
Yeah, I like that too.
It's this guy who needs the saving, and it's up to the woman to save him, which is great.
That's interesting because this weekend I just saw the new Star Wars movie, and it's
the girl that's the new Jedi, right.
Exactly.
I'm really thrilled by that.
I think that's really fantastic.
They're kicking some butt.
It's great.
That also goes along, maybe this is as we move into trends into 2018, I also see empowerment
of young girls in some of the literature that we're seeing.
Yes, and that even started earlier this year as well, that we are seeing a lot of children's
books with girls as the female protagonist, who are doing great things.
And they weren't dependent on other people.
They were fighting themselves, and it was a really awesome trend that I don't see stopping
anytime soon.
Yeah, I don't either.
You mentioned earlier, when we were talking on a break, about the unreliable girl narrator.
What is that?
The unreliable female narrator.
She is your Gone Girl.
She is your Girl On the Train.
She is your book title with any girl in the title.
She's the opposite of empowered women?
Yeah, she's this unreliable woman where you get the whole story from her perspective,
but she's got some problems.
That's going to be evergreen, but I think people want something a little bit different
now.
That is weird that we went through that trend in this past year and the year before.
Because those were the big books.
Yeah, and this year The Woman In Cabin 10 is really big.
Again, it was that unreliable female narrator who sees a murder happen, and I think we need
to move past that trend a little bit.
I don't want to read about that.
Although, I did love Gone Girl.
That's a great book.
They're good page turners.
Yeah, they really are.
One of the things that we've seen at IngramSpark is, and this is looking towards 2018 as well,
is the rise of poetry, which is kind of surprising, isn't it?
Yeah, and it's kind of been on the rise for the past few years.
This year it really had a moment.
I don't think that it's going to stop anytime soon.
We have an author at IngramSpark, named Robert Drake, who writes wonderful poetry and his
books have been doing incredibly well for the past few years.
Then the number two book in book sales this year was Milk and Honey, which was another
big success in the poetry world.
The thing that I find is a common denominator between those hits are that they're targeting
a younger audience who is reading in print and they're a little angsty, which I find
fun, that teenage angst getting written out in poems in a really beautiful way.
It's pretty great.
The other thing you talked about is, because you're more up to speed on this than I am,
about zombies and vampires and the weirdos that I don't like really particularly to read
about.
But you think there--
You're not a paranormal person.
But you think those are over.
What's going to replace that in the paranormal in 2018?
I honestly think that witches are going to be on the rise.
And one of my agent friends and I agree that we think ghosts are coming back in some way.
Oh, yeah, like that movie Ghost with Patrick Swayze.
Oh, I would read that romance novel.
Oh my gosh, yeah.
I can see that, right.
I love that.
I love witches.
It's time for a Harry Potter-like thing to come back.
Yeah, I agree.
It's been 20 years.
What about superheroes?
Are we done with superheroes?
I'm so tired of superheroes.
I'm so tired of superheroes too.
But there's one exception this year, and that exception was Wonder Woman.
Oh, that's right.
And that kind of ties back to what we were talking about with the year of the woman this
year.
Totally, yeah.
And she's not going away anytime soon.
No, she's here to stay.
Yeah, absolutely.
Let's turn our focus away from genre and talk a little bit about self-publishing as far
as it relates to the entire publishing industry.
What do we see there?
I know we've talked in other podcasts about booksellers and how we're happy at Ingram
to see more booksellers starting new businesses rather than booksellers that are going under.
We're seeing more bookstores.
Yeah, the independent bookstores had a really good year.
That's in part due to the fact that readers know what they want to read and they trust
recommendations from their local booksellers, so they will go to their local bookstore and
say, "I really want a book about this."
Those people can recommend a book to them.
It's the niche market.
It's targeting a niche market.
Plus, when you visit a bookstore, you always find a book that you didn't know about, right.
You always find that there.
I was at The Ripped Bodice out in Culver City and, a romance fan myself, I went there saying,
"I want a really great swashbuckling historical."
And they were able to recommend three to me.
It was fantastic.
Was it the damsel rescuing the duke?
Oh yes, oh yes.
That's great.
Then in terms of other things we've seen here at IngramSpark we continue, which is a very
wonderful thing, we continue to see print books are not going away anytime soon.
Readers still prefer print as far as a reading medium.
Yeah, and even though we had a bump in print last year and the year before because of adult
coloring books, we're still seeing print books on the rise.
Especially amongst younger people.
The teenagers associate e-readers and iPads and all that with homework and want nothing
to do with that when it comes to reading for pleasure.
They absolutely pick up a print book.
And it's a generation that grew up on Harry Potter in the printed book, waiting for that
midnight release.
You remember that?
Those are my favorite.
I know, I love that.
I always dressed up like a complete dork, but it was the best.
It was so fantastic.
We still, at IngramSpark believe in and encourage all of our customers to make their books available
in multiple formats.
I always say you don't know what your reader prefers, what sort of format, so make it available
as an e-book, make it available as a print book.
The other thing we're seeing as a rise is hard cover books.
Oh, yeah.
What do you think about that?
I think it's durability.
Having a nice, hard cover in your hand.
What do you think?
It just looks better on a shelf.
Oh, that's true.
"Shelfies" are a thing now.
If I'm going to invest in a book, I want it to look good on my shelf.
Oh, yeah, have some bragging rights.
And also, if I've met the author, or it's one of my favorite authors, I want that book
for all time, because I'll likely go back and re-read it.
It's not that much more expensive for a hardcover book.
Yeah, my mom does the same thing.
It's a real thing.
What haven't we covered here?
Another big trend is publishing this year was the hybrid author.
Traditionally published authors taking their passion projects and going indie, which was
a really great thing.
And we got a new term out of it too: hybrid author; it's pretty great.
That was another interesting thing that we've seen that authors can jump the lines much
more easily.
Or some authors that have published previously and those rights have been returned back to
them, and then they could republish them under their own imprint, which I think is fantastic.
Yep, that's keeping those books alive.
Yes, forever.
I just love that.
We predict a really wonderful year in 2018.
There's no end to self-publishing, self-publishers, to indie bookstores rising up.
This is going to be the best year ever for indie authors and indie publishers.
I think so too.
If the movies are any indication of how 2018 is going, this year most of the movies nominated
for major awards were indie films, and I think that the book industry is going to clue in
closely to that in 2018.
We're going to see some real indie hits, which is going to be fun to see.
There's never been a better time for an author to have the possibility of their work being
transformed into other media like film or audiobook I think is also another format that's
something that authors should think about as well.
Absolutely, and in terms of genre predictions for 2018, women, women, women.
That's all I can say.
Yeah, even if you're a man and you're writing your book, you should probably include some
strong women characters in there, don't you think?
Oh, absolutely.
But I do want to say to our listeners that if you are writing a book and it is not one
of the trends we have discussed today, that is fine.
Do not write to trend.
Write what you want to write.
Because then you're going to make the best book that you can possibly make and it's going
to find its market.
The best-selling books are usually the ones that have had the most passion in the author,
because not only is it a better written book, but the author also promotes the book better,
because they love it so much.
Oh yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
Passion sparks passion.
Well, I think that's the best way to end this, Justine.
These are our predictions for 2018, and we look forward to you signing on to IngramSpark.com
following us on our blog, and just staying close in touch with us.
We love you all.
We'll see you out on the road in 2018.
Bye bye.
Bye.
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