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 predictions that the big six publishers will change and consolidate (Bob Miller is just the latest to suggest “the big six could be the big three in five years), we find it rather striking when you realize that the list of the biggest US trade […]
Trends
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. Harlequin–which reported results over a month ago–is cited prominently. But North American sales, excluding the impact of foreign exchange, rose less than 1.5 percent for 2008. (The sharp drop in the Canadian dollar last fall increased the value of the company’s US sales, and as […]
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 behind closed doors it should never be swept under the carpet.” But the Guardian suggests that this will mark the permanent decline of the “misery memoir,” which has flourished in the UK even as it has faded in the US and elsewhere. “Despite Briscoe’s victory […]
Obama Book Club Selects: Tom Daschle
He’s the likely nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the latest Obama-backed author to crack the top 20 online, at No. 17 on Amazon’s list morning. (In this case, Senator Obama had already recommended the book, with his endorsement featured on the cover.)
Obama Book Club, Part Two
Doris Kearns Goodwin’s TEAM OF RIVALS continues to benefit the most from the Obama boost, but today’s papers focus on the president-elects additional interest in books about FDR. On 60 Minutes this Sunday–the most-watched episode of the program in “at least nine years” according to the Hollywood Reporter–Obama told Steve Kroft, “There’s a new book out about FDR’s first 100 days and what you see in FDR that I hope my team can – emulate, is not always getting it right, but projecting a sense of confidence, and a willingness to try things.” More than one publisher thought he meant […]
Obama Boosts Goodwin Book
Barack Obama mentioned his respect for Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book TEAM OF RIVALS: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln many times as a candidate, and now it looks as if the President-elect has promoted his first bestseller (by another author). With the title theme dominating media discussion of Obama’s potential Cabinet selections, Goodwin’s book has now cracked the top 20 at both Amazon (currently at No. 12, even though the paperback is out of stock there until November 23) and BN.com (now at No. 11). Our tracking shows the paperback broke through the top 100 on both sites right after […]