Roy Miller's Blog, page 223
April 8, 2017
A Sick Mother Turns to Her Son’s Drop-Out Dad
This content was originally published by BENJAMIN ANASTAS on 7 April 2017 | 11:00 am.
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Gizem Vural
OUR SHORT HISTORY
By Lauren Grodstein
342 pp. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. $26.95.
When I was growing up, the gold standard for cancer-themed tear-jerkers was “Something for Joey,” a made-for-TV movie — based on a true story — about the bond between a big-time college football player and his fiercely loyal little brother who is dying of childhood leukemia. Now there is an entire literary genre for young readers known as “sick lit,” and the most sophisticated purveyors of this treacle, like John Green in “The Fault in Our Stars,” use self-awareness and multilayered narratives to defuse resistance to the Cancer Plot and make surrender all the more pleasurable. “It’s not a cancer book,” one character in “The Fault in Our Stars” claims about her favorite novel, “because cancer books suck.”
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Lauren Grodstein takes a different approach with her fourth novel, “Our Short History,” an unabashed tear duct rooter that should come with its own box of Kleenex Ultra Soft and a plush toy from the American Cancer Society. What sets Grodstein’s novel apart is that the cancer diagnosis switches places: Jacob Neulander, the 6-year-old boy at the center of the book, is cancer-free, while his mother, Karen, a hard-charging, 43-year-old political consultant who raised Jake on her own, has recently been found to have late-stage ovarian cancer and is facing a grim prognosis. With the time Karen has left, she undertakes to write her son a book and fill it with everything she wants him to know: a catalog of the things that have made her happy; the story of how he was named; a record of the final campaign she runs for Jimmy (Ace) Reynolds, a philandering City Council member from the Bronx; and an account of how, kicking and screaming, she allows Jake to start spending time with his biological father, a one-term congressman from New Jersey who broke Karen’s heart and lives with his new wife along the Palisades. If the conceit of having Karen write an entire book to Jake in direct address gets clunky in places, particularly after her remission gives way to recurrence and her condition deteriorates, it is consistent with “sick lit” as a genre and keeps the pages turning.
“I plan to be honest here,” Karen promises at the novel’s beginning. “I plan to be excruciatingly, extraordinarily honest. I will not edit out the truth; I will not try to make myself look better than I really was. Than I really am.” This ethic of honesty compels Karen to confess uncomfortable truths to Jake — “the night you were born was not the best night of my life,” she writes; “I was terrified, I was tired, I was sad” — and, especially, to give herself free rein to record the turmoil of feelings that erupt after Jake and his father meet for the first time and get along famously. They bond over Playmobil and Star Wars; she realizes, watching the two of them together, that Jake is “exactly like him.” Karen seethes and lets her paranoia run wild. She imagines Jake posing for a Christmas card with his new family after she’s gone; she yells at him when he suggests that his father’s wife (with her “Calista Gingrich hair”) would make him snacks on demand. This primal eruption of maternal jealousy and rage is the dramatic high point of the novel — “I am your only mother!” Karen howls in a $2,000 wig, a Wii controller clutched in her hand. The rest of “Our Short History,” unfortunately, is content to deliver the tamer pleasures of “sick lit” for adults.
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Children’s Institute Talks Diversity and Numbers
This content was originally published by on 7 April 2017 | 4:00 am.
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The board of the American Booksellers Association heeded the concerns booksellers expressed at the town hall at Winter Institute in Minneapolis earlier this year, and kicked off its educational programming at Children’s Institute, which is being held in Portland, Ore., from April 5–7, with a breakfast keynote on diversity.
“I want you to know that your board and your association have heard you. And we are fully committed to doing what we can to help make our industry more inclusive and diverse,” ABA CEO Oren Teicher noted in his opening remarks prior to the keynote. “We believe our work with We Need Diverse Books, the Children’s Book Council, and the Children’s Institute sponsors, whose event scholarships help broaden participation, is working toward the important goal of greater diversity.”
Ilsa Govan, a facilitator with Cultures Connecting and the author of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Strategies for Facilitating Conversations on Race, spoke on “Hiring and Retaining a Diverse Workforce,” even in a small store. Much of her talk centered on countering implicit bias, which can cause well-intentioned people to act in a way that is not aligned with their values. That bias can include name-based discrimination, she said, citing studies that a woman named Aisha is less likely to be called back for a job interview than one named Kristen.
"How closely do your 10 most trusted people resemble you?," Govan asked. “We really have to be aware of our desire to clone,” she said. “If there’s someone who worked in your bookstore who retired, you’re likely to hire somebody who reminds you of her.” Govan also encouraged booksellers to seek out counter narratives, and to create a "brave space" where people can talk, rather than a safe space. “It’s is going to be uncomfortable,” she warned.
By contrast, there was nothing uncomfortable about the other featured presentation of the day, a talk by Allison Risbridger at NPD (formerly Nielsen Book) on children’s book trends. Juvenile books, which includes YA, along with adult nonfiction, are driving the comeback of print, she said.
Children’s growth has outpaced the general book market, with CAGR (compound annual growth rate) increasing 3.4% between 2010 and 2016; 5.3% between 2013 (the year that Wal-Mart began reporting to Nielsen) and 2016. Risbridger attributed much of the increase in the number of units sold in 2016 over 2015 to J.K. Rowling, whose book sales accounted for 6.5 million units in 2016.
The only worrisome statistic Risbridger presented was attributed it to “the Amazon effect,” or price consciousness on the part of consumers. Between 2015 and 2016 independents lost market share for children’s books, dropping from 6.6% in 2015 to 5.1% in 2016.
Among the positive children's trends that Risbridger singled out were the growth in comics and graphic novels, which were up 24% in 2016. Books in the computer category, which includes Pokémon and coding titles, rose even higher, up 164%. Nonfiction technology, which includes books like Robots and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, grew 23%. Technology books geared to teens in particular, while still very small, rose 700%, with an assist from The Way Things Work Now. In terms of science, Risbridger pointed to the slime phenomenon of making a slimy concoction with Elmer's Glue (which saw its sales double in the last four weeks of 2016), cornstarch, and other ingredients, using instructions found on YouTube. She regards it as part of a broader trend where kids enjoy science as entertainment. Mindfulness books for children, like What Does It Mean to Be Present?, have also grown due to digital fatigue on the part of millennial parents.
Other sessions included panels on social media, connecting with middle grade and YA readers, and careers in bookselling. The day ended with a reception featuring 54 authors and illustrators, followed by the Scholastic Meet & Treat Party.
For many booksellers, though, the Govan and Risbridger sessions stood out. Judith Lafitte, children’s buyer and co-owner of Octavia Books in New Orleans, called the session on diversity “invigorating and thought-provoking.” For Suzanne Droppert, owner of Liberty Bay Books in Poulsbo and Bremerton, Wash., the Govan talk “gave you something to ponder. [The NPD one] confirmed what we all feel."
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Amazon’s Stock Price Soars in Q1 2017
This content was originally published by on 7 April 2017 | 4:00 am.
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With a few notable exceptions, the first quarter of 2017 was not a particularly good period for the Publishers Weekly Stock Index. The share prices of seven of the 10 companies listed on the PWSI saw their stock prices fall between Dec. 30, 2016, and Mar. 31, 2017, but the three companies that posted gains were able to offset those losses. Amazon was the big winner, with its share price rising by more than $136, an increase of 18.3%, in the quarter. Investors continued to appear confident that the e-commerce giant will be able to boost its earnings while also posting large revenue gains.
Excluding Amazon, the PWSI declined 4%. Educational Development Corp. and Barnes & Noble had the largest declines in the quarter. (The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 4.6% in the quarter.) The 17% decline in B&N’s share price was due in part to disappointing results for the quarter ended January 31, in which revenue was 8% lower and comparable store sales were 8.3% lower than in the third quarter the year before. B&N CEO Len Riggio said the company continues to look for ways to reverse the sales slide.
EDC’s stock price fell 32.2% in the quarter; the company is still struggling to overcome the failed installation of a new software system that led to shipping delays over the 2016 holidays. Its stock price also took a big hit late in March after an analyst posted an extremely negative report on the company’s prospects. The share price recovered somewhat in early April, helped by EDC’s report that March sales were 31% higher than in March 2016.
Stock Watch, First Quarter 2017
Company
Dec. 30, 2016
Mar. 31, 2017
Change
Amazon
749.87
886.34
18.3%
News Corp
11.80
13.50
14.4%
CBS
63.62
69.36
9.0%
John Wiley
54.50
53.80
-1.3%
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10.85
10.15
-6.4%
Pearson
9.99
8.48
-7.3%
Scholastic
47.49
42.57
-10.4%
LSC
29.68
25.16
-14.1%
Barnes & Noble
11.15
9.25
-17.0%
Educational Dev. Corp.
9.95
6.75
-32.2%
Publishers Weekly Stock Index
998.90
1,125.36
12.7%
Dow Jones Average
19,762.60
20,663.22
4.6%
A version of this article appeared in the 04/10/2017 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: Amazon Is the Big First-Quarter Winner
The post Amazon’s Stock Price Soars in Q1 2017 appeared first on Art of Conversation.
2017 April PAD Challenge: Day 8
This content was originally published by Robert Lee Brewer on 8 April 2017 | 6:00 am.
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Wish me luck! I’m going to run a 10K later this morning in Austin, Texas (not affiliated with the Austin International Poetry Festival). If I go silent for Day 9, something went horribly wrong during the race.
For today’s prompt, write a panic poem. There are any number of things a person can panic about, including severe weather, military invasions, or what to wear to an event. And while some may be more life or death than others, that feeling of panic is just as real for a person who has to get up and speak in front of a crowd of smiling strangers as it is for a person hiding in the basement of their house as a tornado approaches.
*****
Learn how to write sestina, shadorma, haiku, monotetra, golden shovel, and more with The Writer’s Digest Guide to Poetic Forms, by Robert Lee Brewer.
This e-book covers more than 40 poetic forms and shares examples to illustrate how each form works. Discover a new universe of poetic possibilities and apply it to your poetry today!
*****
Here’s my attempt at a Panic Poem:
“never slowing down”
she says slow down
& to quit running around
like a chicken with his head cut off
but i can’t help it
there are times when i feel
deep down in the depths of my soul
that i am in fact
a chicken with his head cut off
& it does no good to say
everything will turn out fine
because panic is personal
& this panic is mine
*****
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of Solving the World’s Problems (Press 53). He has often been called a rock, someone who keeps his head, but he has his panic moments the same as all human beings.
Follow him on Twitter @RobertLeeBrewer.
*****
Find more poetic posts here:
37 Common Poetry Terms.
Cywydd Llosgyrnach: Poetic Form.
Jaswinder Bolina: Poet Interview.
The post 2017 April PAD Challenge: Day 8 appeared first on WritersDigest.com.
The post 2017 April PAD Challenge: Day 8 appeared first on Art of Conversation.
A Busy Children’s Book Character Gets Busier Still
This content was originally published by GREGORY COWLES on 7 April 2017 | 3:25 pm.
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From “Pete the Cat: Big Easter Adventure”
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HarperCollins Children's Books
COOL CAT: For a pretty chill dude, the children’s book character Pete the Cat keeps himself impressively busy. Since 2010 he has appeared in 10 best-selling picture books — the first, “Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes,” spent more than two years on the list and paved the way for Pete to admire the “four groovy buttons” on his favorite shirt, to wear magic sunglasses, to save Christmas and to offer groovy guides to life and love, among other things. (“Pete the Cat: Big Easter Adventure” is currently No. 2 in its third week on the picture book list.) And he’s about to get busier still: A puppet show based on the character just opened in Atlanta, a musical opened in Connecticut and an animated TV show is coming from Amazon. (Elvis Costello and Diana Krall will voice Pete’s parents — an inspired choice, given the character’s slightly louche vibe and his almost certain love of jazz standards and lounge rock.)
Behind all of this is the author and illustrator James Dean, who collaborated on the first few books with Eric Litwin and has since worked with his wife, Kimberly Dean. “I didn’t really want to be a cat artist,” Dean told The Atlanta Journal Constitution last month. But after selling landscapes at art fairs for a number of years, Dean painted a picture of his cat (yes, his name is Pete) and found that it struck a nerve. “I took it to a show, and this lady who saw it on a Saturday came back on Sunday saying: ‘I just have to have it. I couldn’t get this thing off my mind,’” Dean said. “I’ve never had somebody have that reaction to something I’d painted.” The move to children’s books came naturally, after Litwin approached Dean with the idea for “I Love My White Shoes.” “It’s about stepping in blueberries and strawberries, but all the adults know it was about stepping in crap,” Dean said. “I love that it’s edgy, and it just has everything for me.”
THE WORKSHOP: Jessica Shattuck’s historical novel “The Women in the Castle,” about Nazi wives and war widows, enters the hardcover fiction list at No. 6. A couple of years ago, juggling the demands of writing and raising kids (she has three), Shattuck formed a writers’ group with some other Boston-area novelist moms: Emily Franklin, Rachel Kadish, Tova Mirvis, Heidi Pitlor and Joanna Rakoff. “Publishing is such a solitary profession,” Shattuck told The Boston Globe last month, that meeting in a workshop atmosphere is a “relief valve” of sorts. “Writers can be competitive,” she said. “This group was formed to be in opposition to that.”
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Fast-Growing Independent Publishers, 2017
This content was originally published by on 7 April 2017 | 4:00 am.
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In the more than 20 years PW has been doing its fast-growing independent publishers feature, it is hard to find another year when publishers on the list reported such impressive growth rates. Five of the 11 publishers on this year’s list posted triple-digit revenue gains in 2016 compared to 2014, and two publishers saw their revenue shoot over the $10 million mark in the past year.
The company that had the biggest gain on this year’s list was founded in 2014, but it didn’t sell its first book until 2015. Cottage Door Press, which publishes children’s books, released 18 titles in 2015 and another 82 titles last year. It plans to publish 50 in 2017. Between 2014 and 2016, the press also doubled in personnel, from nine to 19 employees, and it is preparing to move from Barrington, Ill., to a larger facility in the Chicago suburb of Deerpark that will accommodate both its offices and a warehouse for its in-house distribution system.
Cottage Door’s 2016 revenue skyrocketed 558% from the previous year’s figure. The publisher’s debut list in 2015 focused on titles for babies and toddlers up to age three, but the publisher intends to expand its target audience to include four- and five-year-olds, beginning with a line of titles published in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution.
Though Cottage Door is a young company, its apparent overnight success might be due to the fact that most of its staff are children’s publishing industry veterans—most notably its founder, Richard Maddrell, who served until his retirement as president of Publications International. Cottage Door’s creative team conceives, designs, and produces the press’s list with the assistance of freelance illustrators. The emphasis, says marketing manager Melissa Tigges, is on high-quality books that are “on top of current trends”—such as STEM and STEAM—and “hot formats,” including padded board books, lift-a-flap, touch-and-feel, books that make sounds, and books made with engineered paper.
Every Cottage Door book has a removable sticker it calls the Early Bird Learning Guide: the sticker informs the buyer of the book’s appropriate age range and which skills the child is developing when that particular book is read. “We believe in educating and entertaining both children and their grown-ups,” Tigges said. “We choose artwork and language that interests, informs, and stretches their growing minds.”
Fast-Growing Independent Publishers 2014–2016
Publisher
Sales Growth 2016 v. 2014
Employees
Titles
2014
2016
2014
2016
Cottage Door Press
Barrington, Ill.
558%*
9
19
0
82
Callisto Media
Berkeley, Calif.
286%
24
34
36
122
Europa Editions
New York, N.Y.
277%
3
4
29
29
Greystone Books
Vancouver, Canada
253%
11
14
20
20
Page Street Publishing
Salem, Mass.
117%
6
12
21
54
Diversion Books
New York, N.Y.
84%
2
11
336
426
Haymarket Books
Chicago, Ill.
67%
11
14
60
79
Sasquatch Books
Seattle, Wash.
55%
16
19
36
27
Graywolf Press
Minneapolis, Minn.
49%
11
13
34
34
Nimbus Publishing
Halifax, Canada
31%
14
11
32
48
Shambhala
Boulder, Colo.
8%
33
36
78
86
*Sales growth is for 2016 v. 2015
Ever since it released its first list in 2012, Callisto Media has relied on the same formula for success: increasing title production, selling more copies per title, and broadening distribution. Those goals were achieved in 2016, according to v-p for marketing Holly Smith, and revenue jumped by 111% compared to 2015. Last year’s revenue soared 286% above the 2014 figure, and the company surpassed the $10 million sales level last year.
Smith says that in 2016, Callisto had some “extremely successful” frontlist releases, including Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker Cookbook, Kid Chef, and The Whole 9 Months. And, she adds, the publisher’s backlist, now at 383 titles, has become a “very strong component of our success as well.” New areas for Callisto, which continues to use data analytics to spot consumer trends, include parenting and kids, fitness, and self-help.
At Europa Editions, the popularity of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet has increased steadily over the past few years, propelling a sales gain of 156% in 2015 over 2014 and another 47% revenue rise in 2016. Editor-in-chief Michael Reynolds acknowledges the importance of Ferrante to the 12-year-old company’s success, but he notes that the balance of its list, focused on publishing authors from all over the world in the British and North American markets, has also contributed to its growth.
The company’s backlist has performed solidly, with two titles that Europa released in 2015, The Distant Marvels and The Pope’s Daughter, continuing to sell well into 2016. Frontlist books that did well last year included The Natural Way of Things, Shelter in Place, and The Life of Elves by Muriel Barbery, whose The Elegance of the Hedgehog was one of Europa’s first hits.
Reynolds thinks the success of Ferrante’s series has helped Europa’s entire list gain more visibility in the market, but he also believes the company is doing a more effective job marketing its books. Title output has remained around 29 per year, and its four-person American office shares staff (designer, financial officer, production manager, and typesetter) with Edizioni E/O, its sister company in Rome.
Canada’s Greystone Books has flourished since it was relaunched as an indie press in 2013, when former publisher Rob Sanders led a consortium that bought the imprint from its bankrupt parent company. With Sanders as publisher, the press, which is best known for its books on nature and the environment by authors from Canada and elsewhere, has grown its revenue. Its 2016 sales were more than double the 2015 figure, and were up 253% compared to 2014.
Greystone, which counts among its 14 employees a U.K.-based publicist to promote books and authors there, attributes its success to a focus on international sales. According to sales and marketing manager Jen Gauthier, “Publishing worldwide is a key strategy.”
A glance at Greystone’s top sellers also reveals a savviness about making acquisitions that appeal to a broad market. Almost every year, the publisher has released a bestseller, beginning with 2013’s pictorial chronicle of devastating floods in Alberta in partnership with the Calgary Herald. The Flood of 2013 has sold 55,000 copies to date. In 2015 Greystone acquired North American English-language rights to the German bestseller Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ by Giulia Enders, which has sold 90,000 print copies and 24,000 e-books to date.
But it was a 2016 release that caused Greystone’s sales to skyrocket this past year: The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, originally published in Germany, was translated into English and released simultaneously in North America and in the U.K. The Greystone edition has sold 240,000 copies worldwide (150,000 in the U.S.). The press hopes to keep up the momentum by releasing another book by Wohlleben, The Inner Life of Animals, in November.
Page Street Publishing has continued its rapid sales growth since it was launched in 2013 by Will Kiester. The press’s revenue was 31% higher in 2016 than in 2015 and up 117% from 2014. Page Street’s early success has helped to propel more success, as Kiester says he feels confident reinvesting in the company by continuing to add new employees and titles.
In fact, Page Street expects more increases in the next few years and is upping its title count to around 70 for 2017. Earlier this year, the company hired Kristen Nobles to head its effort to establish a new children’s book list. Kiester hopes the list “will serve as a significant growth engine starting in late 2018 and hitting its stride in 2019.”
In 2016, Page Street expanded beyond cookbooks, its core focus, to other lifestyle subjects. Kiester says A Touch of Farmhouse: Easy DIY Projects to Add a Warm and Rustic Feel to Any Room was a good example of a book “outside of our comfort area” that performed very well, even selling out shortly after its release in December. He notes that he is prepared to slow Page Street’s growth if he believes the quality of its products is starting to decline, but adds that “that hasn’t been the case to date.”
Diversion Books has undergone quite a metamorphosis since Scott Waxman launched the company as the e-book publishing arm of his literary agency in 2010. Diversion was spun off as its own company several years ago and signed with Ingram Publisher Services in late 2014, and the addition of print publishing and distribution components sparked a 84% increase in revenue in 2016 compared to 2014.
The lack of quality backlist e-book rights to acquire, combined with the resurgence in print sales and the decline in digital sales, convinced Waxman that more changes were needed. So in late 2015 he hired Jaime Levine as Diversion’s publishing director, and Levine began a program to put out 50–60 frontlist books annually in both print and digital formats. Waxman says the change in strategy yielded immediate dividends last year, with a doubling of print sales compared to 2015 offsetting a 30% decline in e-book sales.
Last year also saw the launch of two new divisions of Diversion: EverAfter Romance and Radius Book Group. EA is a print distribution service that offers bestselling indie authors the chance to reach more bookstores, Waxman explains. It works on a royalty-split model and requires authors to deliver ready-to-print book files and handle their own marketing.
According to Waxman, authors are joining EA due to “its flexible model—authors can retain digital rights—as well as the potential for significant bookstore distribution through IPS.” EA distributed close to 500 titles in 2016 (both new and backlist books) and plans to release roughly the same number in 2017. It accounted for about 40% of Diversion’s revenue last year, and Waxman is looking for a 50% increase in revenue in 2017.
Waxman describes RBG as a “high-end custom imprint serving entrepreneurial authors who want to self-publish by partnering with a top-tier publisher.” It offers full-service publishing but not à la carte services. He hired Mark Fretz in February as editorial director and is looking to increase sales in the unit more than 300% in 2017 over last year.
Haymarket Books is a nonprofit publisher of political and social justice titles that celebrated its 15th anniversary last year. In an October PW profile, marketing manager Jim Plank attributed Haymarket’s recent success to its commitment to “putting out books that speak to the current moment.” These include one of its all-time top-sellers, 2014’s Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit.
Since the election of Donald Trump as president in November, Haymarket’s sales have, Plank says, “shot through the stratosphere,” with such frontlist releases as Solnit’s The Mother of All Questions, which has already sold almost 20,000 copies in paper since its March release. Solnit’s earlier work, Hope in the Dark, which was originally published after the 2004 election, has sold 32,000 copies in paperback and 5,000 digital copies since November. (In addition, Haymarket gave away more than 31,000 Hope e-books as part of a promotion.)
The press finished 2016 with a 21% revenue increase over the previous year and a 67% gain compared to 2014. And Haymarket is off to a good start in 2017, with net revenue to date of almost $700,000.
Seattle-based Sasquatch Books followed up a 20% increase in sales in 2015 over 2014 with another solid year in 2016, when revenue was up 55% compared to 2014. Little Bigfoot, the company’s children’s imprint started in 2014, had another year of gains helped by its growing backlist.
The biggest sales driver last year, however, was Sasquatch’s 52 Lists journal series by Moorea Seal, who refers to herself as a creative entrepreneur. The series, which features The 52 Lists Project and 52 Lists for Happiness has more than 375,000 copies in print, according to senior publicity and marketing manager Corinna Scott. Other standout titles in 2016 included Dead Feminists and The Hidden Lives of Owls. The company has another Seal title coming this September, Make Yourself at Home: Design Your Space to Discover Your True Self.
For the second year in a row, Graywolf Press has been named one of PW’s fast-growing indie presses, as it held on to the large year-over-year revenue gain it posted in 2015 and finished 2016 up 49% from 2014. Its focus continues to be on literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Citizen by Claudia Rankine, which was published in October 2014 and accounted for a significant portion of Graywolf’s huge spike in revenues in 2015, is still the literary nonprofit’s bestselling release, with 200,000 print copies sold to date. In September, Citizen even popped back onto the New York Times’ bestsellers list when Rankine received a $625,000 MacArthur “genius” grant and announced she is using the money to study whiteness. Two newer titles have also made important contributions: David Szalay’s novel All That Man Is was a Booker Prize finalist, and Somaz Sharif’s collection Look was a finalist for the National Book Award in poetry—and the critical acclaim for these books translated into strong sales.
“We’re not really doing anything different,” notes sales and marketing manager Casey O’Neil, pointing out that Graywolf released 34 new titles and reissues in 2016, up from 30 in 2015. “Rankine’s out there in the media often, and our books across the board are simply performing at a stronger level than in previous years,” due in large part to academic course adoptions and support from indie bookstores.
Nine Graywolf books were named Indie Next titles in 2016, and six Graywolf releases are Indie Next titles this year through May. “Indies are doing better, and we’ve benefited from that,” O’Neil says. “Plus, more people seem to be reading poetry these days. We’re seeing an amazing surge in our poetry list.”
Canada’s Nimbus Publishing realized the benefits of stepping up its international marketing and promotion in the fiscal year that ended Mar. 31, 2017, which included a 31% increase in revenue compared to fiscal 2015. The press, which is based in Halifax and is approaching its 40th anniversary next year, releases adult and children’s books primarily about the Atlantic Canadian provinces.
General manager Terrilee Bulger attributes much of Nimbus’s growth to a tenfold increase in funding from the Nova Scotia provincial government, which allowed the company to invest in production, marketing, and innovation, and to grow its staff. The press has added new editors to increase output and, for the first time, hired an international rights editor, a publicist who focuses on export, and a digital marketing specialist. Nimbus is also expanding its marketing reach to the rest of Canada by hiring freelance publicists in major cities to better promote its titles to their local contacts.
Although exports to the U.S. have accounted for 5% of the company’s business and international rights 2%, Nimbus expects, with the added resources, to grow these areas to each account for 10% of its revenue. “Increased investment from our provincial government has allowed us to take our marketing initiatives to a higher level, which in turn, drives sales and profit,” Bulger explains. “Increased investment has also allowed for increased production. The more books we sell, the higher the sales and the higher our capacity to do more.”
Shambhala Publications may have only posted an 8% growth in sales in 2016 compared to 2014, but after seven years of steady gains, the company will not be eligible for next year’s list of fast-growing indie publishers, since participation is capped at annual sales of $10 million. Shambhala president Nikko Odiseos says the company’s growth is due to “a multiplicity of causes”: new imprints, acquisitions, readership building, and export editions.
Shambhala started its lifestyle imprint, Roost Books, in 2012, and the unit has become a bigger part of its business. Roost sales were boosted by the fact that its books won James Beard awards in each of the past two years. Snow Lion Publications was acquired in 2012, which cemented Shambhala’s position as the largest publisher of Buddhist books in English in the U.S. And in May 2015, Shambhala acquired Rodmell Press, which not only buttressed its Buddhist list but doubled its line of yoga books.
Shambhala has also increased its overseas business by partnering with several publishers and distributors in Asia to print books in English that are priced for the Asian market. To better market its growing list (it will release 100 books this year), Shambhala sends out between 1.5 million and two million targeted emails per month to specific segments on its email list.
A version of this article appeared in the 04/10/2017 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: Fast-Growing Independent Publishers, 2017
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April 7, 2017
Lives on the Line – The New York Times
This content was originally published by on 7 April 2017 | 4:20 pm.
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In The New York Times Book Review, Jacob S. Hacker reviews Elisabeth Rosenthal’s “An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back.” Hacker writes:
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As Rosenthal describes American health care, it’s not really a market; it’s more like a protection racket — tolerated only because so many different institutions are chipping in to cover the extortionary bill and because, ultimately, it’s our lives that are on the line.
Consider the epicenter of America’s cost crisis: the once humble hospital. Thanks in part to hit TV shows, we think of hospitals as public-spirited pillars of local communities. Yet while most are legally classified as nonprofits, they are also very big businesses, maximizing surpluses that can be plowed into rising salaries and relentless expansion even when they are not earning profits or remunerating shareholders. And they have grown much bigger and more businesslike over time.
On this week’s podcast, Rosenthal talks about “An American Sickness”; Jill Filipovic discusses “Unwanted Advances,” by Laura Kipnis, and “The Campus Rape Frenzy,” by KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor Jr.; Alexandra Alter has news from the publishing world; and Parul Sehgal, Gregory Cowles and John Williams on what people are reading. Pamela Paul is the host.
Here are the books (and the article) mentioned in this week’s “What We’re Reading”:
“Ghachar Ghochar” by Vivek Shanbhag
“Approaching Eye Level” by Vivian Gornick
“Ties” by Domenico Starnone
“Changing My Mind” by Zadie Smith
“The Belly of Paris” by Émile Zola
We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.
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4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, just click on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode.
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The post Lives on the Line – The New York Times appeared first on Art of Conversation.
Book Sales Get an Easter Bump: The Weekly Scorecard
This content was originally published by on 7 April 2017 | 4:00 am.
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Easter giveth and Easter taketh away. The holiday came early last year (March 27), leading to lower book sales in late March 2017 than a year ago. But with Easter now approaching—it is April 16–sales comparisons have turned around. At outlets that report to NPD BookScan, unit sales of print books were 14% higher in the week ended Apr. 2, 2017, than in the similar week in 2016. Both the juvenile fiction and juvenile nonfiction segments had large increases in the week, with fiction units up 27% and nonfiction up 22% from 2016. The increase in juvenile fiction was led by a mix of Dr. Seuss titles and Easter books, as well as the continued good performance of Too Many Carrots by Katy Hudson, which remained #1 on the category bestseller list, selling more than 19,000 copies. Four Easter-related titles cracked the top 10 bestsellers in the juvenile nonfiction category, led by The Story of Easter board book by Patricia Pingry and Rebecca Thornburgh, which sold almost 6,100 copies in the week, landing it in fourth place on the category bestseller list. Unit sales of adult nonfiction were 9% higher than in the week ended Apr. 3, 2016, boosted by new releases. Old School: Life in the Sane Lane by Bill O’Reilly and Bruce Feirstein landed at #1 on the category list, selling more than 67,000 copies in its first week. Also in its first week was Hashimoto’s Protocol by Izabella Wentz, which sold more than 18,000 copies, putting it in third place on the category list. Similarly, two new books from well-known authors helped adult fiction sales in the week end up 5% higher than in 2016. The Black Book by James Patterson and David Ellis was the #1 fiction title, selling almost 41,000 copies. Danielle Steel’s mass market paperback, Magic, sold more than 16,000 copies, putting it in fifth place on the category bestseller list.
Unit Sales of Print Books by Channel
(in thousands)
Apr. 3, 2016
Apr. 2, 2017
Chge Week
Chge YTD
Total
10,666
11,994
14%
0.1%
Retail & Club
8,807
10,264
17%
3%
Mass Merch./Others
1,759
1,730
-2%
-15%
Unit Sales of Print Books by Category
(in thousands)
Apr. 3, 2016
Apr. 2, 2017
Chge Week
Chge YTD
Adult Nonfiction
4,454
4,878
9%
2%
Adult Fiction
2,333
2,441
5%
3%
Juvenile Nonfiction
874
1,063
22%
-3%
Juvenile Fiction
2,592
3,292
27%
-3%
Unit Sales of Print Books by Format
(in thousands)
Apr. 3, 2016
Apr. 2, 2017
Chge Week
Chge YTD
Hardcover
2,579
3,203
24%
3%
Trade Paperback
6,106
6,674
9%
-0.4%
Mass Market Paperback
1,070
1,057
-1%
-5%
Board Books
566
775
37%
-4%
Audio
62
62
0%
-3%
A version of this article appeared in the 04/10/2017 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: The Weekly Scorecard
The post Book Sales Get an Easter Bump: The Weekly Scorecard appeared first on Art of Conversation.
Marvel Comics May Have Slumping Sales, but Don’t Blame Its Diverse Heroes
This content was originally published by GEORGE GENE GUSTINES on 7 April 2017 | 4:37 pm.
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Marvel doesn’t have “more than one or two comics selling 60,000 or 70,000 copies,” Mr. Hibbs said, adding that this trend has virtually nothing to do with “this diversity canard.”
Marvel’s slump began in October. The company’s average market share from that month through February was 37 percent, a drop of 4.8 percentage points when compared with October 2015 through February 2016. By comparison, the average market share for DC Comics for October through this February was about 29 percent, almost 4 percentage points higher than that same period the previous years.
The falloff for Marvel was one reason the company held a two-day meeting with retailers last week, which led to the diversity firestorm. Asked about the tastes of Marvel’s readership, David Gabriel, the company’s vice president for sales, said, “What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity.” The statement went viral, and though Mr. Gabriel tried to clarify his comments and signal Marvel’s commitment to diversity, coverage of his remarks ran in Entertainment Weekly, The Guardian, Breitbart and many other media outlets.
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Amadeus Cho, the Hulk, in The Totally Awesome Hulk, Issue No. 1.
Credit
Marvel Entertainment
The Telegraph of London said that the comments “remain a troubling example of the struggles facing storytelling that places nonwhite faces” at the forefront.
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The outcry is not a surprise. Diversity “is a hot topic in culture, pop culture and geek culture; it is understandable that there is a reaction,” said Milton Griepp, the chief executive of ICv2, an online trade publication that covers the comic book industry.
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Mr. Griepp attended the meeting, which included representatives of 14 retail organizations that are among Marvel’s top 300 comic book sellers. But only two of the representatives remarked that comics with nonwhite lead characters did not sell well for them, he said. A majority noted that those titles were bringing in new readers.
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Executives at Marvel Comics did not respond to requests for an interview this week.
It is difficult to judge the popularity of the newly conceived characters based on the sales figures alone because so many heroes make the leap to television and film.
In February, Ms. Marvel, about Kamala Khan, a teenage Muslim girl living in Jersey City, sold an estimated 19,870 copies. It landed at 109 out of the top 300 comics for the month. But the series is known to be doing well digitally and with collected editions. There are also other signs of prestige. This week, a collected edition of the series, “Ms. Marvel: Super Famous,” written by G. Willow Wilson and illustrated by Takeshi Miyazawa, was nominated for a Hugo Award, which is given to the best science-fiction or fantasy stories.
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Kamala Khan, Ms. Marvel, in Ms. Marvel, Issue No. 1.Credit
Marvel Entertainment
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Ms. Wilson had a lot to say about the Marvel diversity firestorm on her blog, including one critical point that complicates the situation for legacy characters like the female Thor. She noted that they might be better embraced if the original hero had not been humiliated in the process.
Case in point: It is hard right now to root for Steve Rogers, the original Captain America, thanks to cosmic shenanigans that have reimagined him as a longtime agent of Hydra, a Nazi-like organization.
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On the same day last May that Steve Rogers was revealed to be a villain — however long that will last — DC Comics went the opposite way. The company published Rebirth, in which many heroes who had been pushed aside during a 2011 reboot returned. The reboot focused on new versions of the company’s characters at the beginning of their careers. Since Rebirth, the DC universe has been more hopeful.
There is also a sense of optimism that runs through Ms. Marvel, but there is no clear formula that resulted in its success. It depicts heroics, teen angst and struggles for assimilation. Ms. Willow posits that the comic’s mix of traditionalist faith and social justice struck a chord with readers. What she is clear about, however, is the use of the “diversity” label.
“Let’s scrap the word diversity entirely and replace it with authenticity and realism,” she posted. “This is not a new world. This is the world.”
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PW Picks: Books of the Week, April 10, 2017
This content was originally published by on 7 April 2017 | 4:00 am.
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This week: the genius of the music of Prince, plus a madcap thriller full of hidden identities.
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The post PW Picks: Books of the Week, April 10, 2017 appeared first on Art of Conversation.
