When Amazon’s CreateSpace helped power the self-published The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep to the top of the charts it was a sweet story, but self-published print success has taken on a different face this month, with a wave of “swear word” coloring books. One Swear Word Adult Coloring Book sold enough units to enter…
Trends
Scholastic Names Trends in Children’s Books for 2010
Drawing on their experience distributing books from all children’s publishers through their school book clubs and book fairs, Scholastic’s editors created a list of ten trends from the year in children’s books. President of Scholastic Book Clubs Judy Newman remarks in the release, “We’ve seen some exciting innovation in children’s publishing in 2010, including new…
Publish Film Sell?
The LAT claims that “a movie’s release often leads to only a small uptick in a tie-in book’s sales” while declaring the EAT, PRAY, LOVE tie-in “the big exception this year.” The interesting part is that the book returned to the top of the bestseller lists in late May, well in advance of the movie’s…
The Last Decade in Books: The Biggest Thing that Didn't Happen
The annual season of round-ups and predictions covered not just the years past and ahead, but a full decade. We’ll be sharing our own thoughts on the biggest trade developments of the past ten years but first we’re leading the most significant thing that didn’t change at all in the oughts. Though there are regular…
Focus on Romance Sales
First US News & World Report put “bodice rippers” at No. 3 on their list of 10 Recession Winners and now the NYT has a more detailed piece on continuing resilience in the market for romance novels and other genre fiction. Parsing the numbers, though, is a little less clear than the article might indicate….
UK Author Prevails, But Sour World May Finish Misery Lit
A British jury found in favor of author Constance Briscoe and her publisher Hodder & Stoughton in the odd case in which her mother Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell claimed the book UGLY was “a piece of fiction.” Briscoe said, “I can quite understand why my family went into collective denial but whilst child abuse may be committed…