Trends

Don’t Ask Me About Trends

We’ve talked a lot on this blog about trends in publishing, what’s hot and what’s not, and the fact that agents and publishers are always basing acquisitions for the future on what has sold in the past. Because of this, people are always asking me: So what’s hot? What are the trends? But I’m admitting…
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What’s In, What’s Out

Many of my blog readers have expressed frustration about current trends in publishing. Memoir is out unless you’re famous.Chick lit is dead.Literary fiction doesn’t sell.Nobody wants books over 100k words. Yep, these are all trends. And if you send me a query for a book in any of these categories, I’ll probably send a pass…
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Should You Try to Write What’s HOT?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the difference between good projects and hot projects; and I followed it up with a post about why your project can sell even if it’s not “hot.” So that begs the question (which many of you asked): Should you try to write what’s hot? Should you be…
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Are Newcomers Welcome?

by Greg JohnsonPresident, WordServe Literary People ask me all the time if today’s tough publishing climate is a good time for newcomers to get noticed and get published. Let’s start with some obvious negatives: → Publishers are cutting their lists and delaying books until the economy turns (and they may stay lean thereafter… this may…
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Is It the Economy?

Yesterday I was chatting with my friend, literary agent Sandra Bishop, and we found ourselves pondering whether it was our imaginations, or have the number of incoming queries really skyrocketed over the last couple of months? We’re both receiving incredible numbers, and as my post yesterday illustrated, most of them are simply not ready for…
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Chicken Little, Go Home!

The publishing sky isn’t falling! At least not as far as I can tell. Last week there was some good news from the publishing world: Amazon’s revenue beat forecasts and jumped 18% in the third quarter of 2008 compared to the year before. (Read the article.) Fiction reading apparently had a significant increase from 2002…
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Responding to the Difficult Economy

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.Charles Swindoll The biggest news in our world today is the economy, and many are suffering the effects. Last week we were bombarded with news of difficult realities in the publishing industry. What should our response be? I…
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