A new acronym, possums. Current Economic Climate. You read it here first.
According to The Bookseller, literary agents are struggling to sell début and literary fiction as a result of the ongoing ‘credit crunch’, with novels taking longer to sell to publishers and more failing to find a buyer at all. Tough times were ‘undoubtedly affecting confidence about acquisitions’ warned one agent who wished to remain anonymous. An anonymous publishing director added that ‘nobody wants to buy anything’. Peter Straus of Rogers, Coleridge & White said: ‘Everybody will be tightening their belts - the big books will still be bought, but publishers are having to be realistic about sales potential.’ Simon Trewin of United Agents has predicted that brand names with the feel-good factor or ‘comfort zone’ will flourish in coming months as credit-crunched book-buyers turn to trusted names. He said everyone in the trade is now actively hunting for these brands. Straus agrees and has suggested Bill Bryson, P G Wodehouse and Ian Fleming as examples of ‘recession-proof’ books. Major series’, such as Mills & Boon novels and the like, should also remain fairly strong throughout the recession.
Firings at HMH. Layoffs at Simon & Schuster yesterday, layoffs at Scholastic a month or so ago, huge structural changes at Random House announced yesterday, HarperCollins delaying pay raises until next summer, and Macmillan CEO outlining that not everyone might have a job going forward.
So if you're aiming at the market, try comfort reads and escapism.
The general message is that now is not the best time to be a struggling author.
But you knew that, didn't you?
6 comments:
And even less hope for the poetry end of things... oh well!
Why does the word verification say crizababy? Is it trying to tell me something?
yes barbara, it is. But it's only telling you that. It's telling me youzab. I'm off for a lemsip
Yikes. Pretty tough out there then... Twas always tough though, wasn't it? I mean there's still hope ? My verification word is fookin - there's definitely someone having a laugh out there,
I know it's CRAP isn't it, I mean the acronym for Current Rejection of Authors and Poets.
Gawd. What a desperate time to be a hopeful first-time literary author. What a great time to be Cecelia Ahern. :(
Do we even care about all of this negative stuff? We right regardless, don't we? If there was no publishing industry, we'd write on walls!
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