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Watch my ComicCon panel! (This week in books)

July 23, 2021 by Nathan Bransford 1 Comment

This week! Books!

First up, I’m very excited to be participating in ComicCon @ Home again this year. A great panel I recorded with literary agents Kurestin Armada, Quressa Robinson, Bridget Smith, and literary manager Lars Theriot will go live on the SDCC YouTube page this evening at 8pm ET / 5pm PT. We talk about the state of the publishing industry, the book to film market, what agents are looking for, and more!

Streaming channels have led to an explosion of content, much of it from previously published novels. What effect is this having on culture and on novels themselves? Alexander Manshel, Laura B. McGrath, and J. D. Porter wrote an interesting article on the intersection of TV and contemporary fiction and the rise of literary adaptions with ensemble casts.

We Need Diverse Books announced that it would stop using the term #OwnVoices in June, and it’s part of a broader rethink of the term in the publishing industry ($ link). While some in the business remain committed to the original aim of connecting readers with books by and featuring authors/characters from underrepresented backgrounds, the term wasn’t always working well for authors, who sometimes felt pressured and pigeonholed to write certain types of books. In the words of literary agent Patrice Caldwell, founder of People of Color in Publishing, “What would support Black authors is if you’d say, ‘Because of the extreme dearth of Black people writing Black characters, we’re going to support our Black authors to write whatever the hell they want.’”

As the bestseller list below amply demonstrates, the publishing industry just can’t quit Donald Trump.

What makes a previously published author decide to stop writing? Agent Kristin Nelson surveys some authors who made this choice, which ranged from feeling like they only had one book in them to feeling uncomfortable in the spotlight.

Conflict is a crucial lifeblood of fiction, and Angie Hodapp talks about four key ways to create conflict between characters.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

  1. The Cellist by Daniel Silva
  2. The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
  3. It’s Better This Way by Debbie Macomber
  4. People We Met on Vacation by Emily Henry
  5. The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

  1. American Marxism by Mark R. Levin
  2. Landslide by Michael Wolff
  3. Frankly, We Did Win This Election by Michael C. Bender
  4. How I Saved the World by Jesse Watters
  5. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Young adult hardcover:

  1. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
  2. One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus
  3. Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
  4. Lore by Alexandra Bracken
  5. Realm Breaker by Victoria Aveyard

Middle grade hardcover:

  1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
  2. Refugee by Alan Gratz
  3. Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston
  4. Ali Cross: Like Father, Like Son by James Patterson
  5. The Ickabog by J.K. Rowling

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

  • Try to separate process and outcomes
  • Start with uniqueness (page critique)

Don’t forget that you can nominate your first page and query for a free critique on the blog:

  • Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog
  • Nominate Your Query for a Critique on the Blog

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

  • Follow me on Twitter
  • Follow my page on Facebook
  • Join the Facebook Group
  • Check out the Bransforums

And finally, the world’s richest online bookstore owner went to space, and some people on Twitter dot com noticed a certain familiarity to his spaceship…

pic.twitter.com/u6YWUE8yDU

— Andrew Joyce (@AndrewPaulJoyce) July 20, 2021

Have a great weekend!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Filed Under: This Week in Books Tagged With: #OwnVoices, Alexander Manshel, Angie Hodapp, ComicCon, Donald Trump, J.D. Porter, Jeff Bezos, Kristin Nelson, Laura B. McGrath, We Need Diverse Books

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Neil Larkins says

    July 26, 2021 at 2:44 pm

    So much to see and read. So little time, even for someone like me who has a lot of time. Thanks, Nathan!

    Reply

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Hi, I’m Nathan. I’m the author of How to Write a Novel and the Jacob Wonderbar series, which was published by Penguin. I used to be a literary agent at Curtis Brown Ltd. and I’m dedicated to helping authors achieve their dreams. Let me help you with your book!

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