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:
- The Cellist by Daniel Silva
- The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
- It’s Better This Way by Debbie Macomber
- People We Met on Vacation by Emily Henry
- The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
Adult print and e-book nonfiction:
- American Marxism by Mark R. Levin
- Landslide by Michael Wolff
- Frankly, We Did Win This Election by Michael C. Bender
- How I Saved the World by Jesse Watters
- The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
Young adult hardcover:
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus
- Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
- Lore by Alexandra Bracken
- Realm Breaker by Victoria Aveyard
Middle grade hardcover:
- Wonder by R.J. Palacio
- Refugee by Alan Gratz
- Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston
- Ali Cross: Like Father, Like Son by James Patterson
- The Ickabog by J.K. Rowling
This week on the blog
In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:
Don’t forget that you can nominate your first page and query for a free critique on the blog:
And keep up with the discussion in all the places!
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…
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.
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So much to see and read. So little time, even for someone like me who has a lot of time. Thanks, Nathan!