This week! Books!
You may have noticed that Colleen Hoover is dominating the top of the adult fiction bestseller list, often with three titles in the top 5. Lily Herman profiles her rise from her bestselling self-published debut to becoming the third most followed author on Goodreads.
RIP to the prolific author and illustrator Ashley Bryan, who had one of his greatest successes late in life with Beautiful Blackbird, which was published when he was 81.
Speaking of prolific, Andy Hunter has had a hand in Electric Literature, Literary Hub, and Soft Skull Press, among other ventures. Porter Anderson caught up with him on the second anniversary of Bookshop.org, the online bookseller that diverts part of its revenue to independent bookstores.
Big news in the world of self-publishing distribution, as Draft 2 Digital is acquiring Smashwords in an all-stock deal. Smashwords founder Mark Coker will stay on with Draft 2 Digital as a Chief Strategy Officer.
Jules Verne is best known for his smash hits 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days, but his 1863 novel Paris in the Twentieth Century had some of his best predictions, including gas-powered cars, fax machines, the internet, and electronic music. The manuscript wasn’t published during Verne’s lifetime but was discovered by his great-grandson and published in 1994.
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:
- It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover
- Verity by Colleen Hoover
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover
- The Maid by Nita Prose
Adult print and e-book nonfiction:
- Red-Handed by Peter Schweizer
- The 1619 Project edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman and Jake Silverstein
- The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
- The Power of Regret by Daniel H. Pink
- How to Be Perfect by Michael Schur
Young adult hardcover:
- I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys
- Anatomy by Dana Schwartz
- This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi
- One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Middle grade hardcover:
- Little Leaders by Vashti Harrison
- Little Legends by Vashti Harrison
- Wonder by R.J. Palacio
- Refugee by Alan Gratz
- Daughter of the Deep by Rick Riordan
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, biologists in California are embarking on an exciting new pilot program to release salmon directly into California rice fields in order to help replenish the wildlife in what used to be the Sacramento River flood plain.
Have a great weekend!
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No, I’d never heard of Coleen Hoover, but now have. Her numbers are impressive, but obviously there are quite a few who are not impressed with her writing, if commenters to ELLE are to be believed, I would be one of those and yet… John Wayne said of his critics, “The only people who like me are my fans.” And that was enough for him, although I did like a few of his movies.
Which brings me to a quandary. I was about to say something derogatory about Ms. Hoover in that self-published is the only way she could have gotten her style of writing out there, and then read that Big Name publishers are wooing her. I guess her numbers are all they need. In the end, isn’t that their real bottom line? And the same for many of us. So, coming full circle, if sensationalist writing and penning the same thing over and over again is what works…hey, do it. It’s worked for many. TV, movies, etc.: copy success.
I had to get in another comment about Colleen Hoover (Got her name spelled right this time). I’ve had a chance to read some of her work…you know, the cheap way on Amazon’s sale page. Her style is almost like stream of consciousness, and yet coherent somehow. I wonder, though, if she’d be able to write a 250 word query and that might be why she chose self-publishing. Not to seem critical because query crafting, as we all know, is TOUGH. Maybe ignoring most of the rules of writing we’ve been taught is the road to success after all. Are all these writing classes and seminars in jeopardy? Time will tell.