Emerging Trends In The Book Industry

First, let's take a look at emerging trends in publishing:

The religious and inspirational book market Patty Duke Show growing.

E-books are still accelerating and gaining acceptance, including digital textbooks and digital libraries. (In fact, when I took my children to register them homeowners insurance school, I was told their textbooks would be available online. Online textbooks lessen the amount of material the children have to carry home and negate the excuse, "I forgot my book.")

Borders is now publishing books to be sold exclusively in Borders and Waldenbooks stores and is currently holding a writing contest for store employees.

Audio book sales are on the rise.

Graphic novels are selling well, with two surprises to me: there is an increase in nonfiction sales, and more women are buying. For more on graphic novels, see http://news.bookweb.org/news/5333.html.

An August 3, 2007 AAP report revealed these statistics for June:

Adult Hardcover sales were up 11.1%

Adult Paperback sales were up 0.3%

Adult Mass Market sales were down 4.6%

Children's/YA Hardcover sales were up 22.2%

Children's/YA Paperback sales were up 7.1%

Audio Book sales were up 25.9%

E-book sales were up 13.5%

Religious book sales were up 19.4%

(Percentages compared to the same time last year.)

The EBM (espresso book machine), a print on demand system which allows a buyer to present a credit card and have a requested book print in approximately the amount of time necessary to make a latte, may be coming to a store or library near you in the not-so-distant future.

As far as book marketing goes, there is talk of third-party advertising in books becoming more prominent.

Margaret Atwood's invention, the LongPen, allowed authors to sign books for fans at BEA and conference calling companies London International Book Fair (among other locations) without leaving home. See http://www.longpen.com/lp-welcome.html for more information on this new technology.

Non-traditional outlets are doing a brisk business as well. Mike's Deli in the Bronx has sold more than 4,500 copies of Ann Volkwein's Arthur Avenue Cookbook at $25 each. That's something to think about when you're preparing your book marketing plan.

Larger companies such as Amazon and Simon & Schuster are promoting authors with video and podcasts; and Harper Collins will be offering book excerpts via iPhone.

One thing I've been taking into consideration lately is how to keep readers interested while my book is awaiting publication. Fortunately for me, I found some "widgets" to, hopefully, help keep people interested in my Web page. I now have a "Stress Relief" page on my Etch-A-Sketch containing a game, a slide show and an answering machine. It's really fun. If you'd like to see it, check out http://gayletrent.com/stressrelief.aspx.

If you aren't getting "Publishers Lunch," you can sign up for the free newsletter at http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/subscribe.html. Publishers Lunch is a short version of Publishers Marketplace's daily news. On Tuesdays, they send out "Deal Lunch" which is about 25% of the book deals reported the previous week. It's a good way to keep abreast of what books are selling.

Gayle Trent is a full-time freelance writer, editor and author. Visit her site at www.gayletrent.comwww.gayletrent.com If you're interested in becoming a writer yourself, visit gayle24202.tripod.com/teleseminarsandclasses/gayle24202.tripod.com/teleseminarsandclasses/