Someone shared this blog to an author group, and whilst it saddened me, it struck me how true these truths are (duh). Read the original blog first for data-based context, then come back for a more personal touch!
The number of books being published every year has exploded.
Whilst the writer of that blog looks at the various figures connected to this question, I want to look at the picture from a different perspective. People are always writing new books, which adds to the ever-growing number of books published—ever. A hundred years ago, fewer people could read, and fewer people could write, so there was less demand for books. Today, reading and writing are among the earliest skills we teach our children; they form the base of communication (it’s not the only way, or even the best way, but it is mighty important). So, it makes more sense that more people are using reading and writing to communicate their emotions, experiences, and ideas to everyone else. And the more options there are, the less likely a reader is to choose your book. The book marketplace has become oversaturated. The phrase “nothing is original” comes to mind here.
I’ve always looked at the wide variety of genres we know today as adjustments of the three Greek genres: tragedies, comedies, and satire. And if they’ve been creating stories since 700 BC, imagine how overdone the same tropes can feel, even when they’re altered and changed. The only saving grace is subversion—changing already established tropes to have an alternative or opposite effect. Surprising the reader with an outcome they were not expecting is almost guaranteed to get a positive response and spread readership. Like the first point, an oversaturated market means new publishers like us have a difficult time entering into the market in the first place.
The book marketplace has hardly grown at all in the past 20 years, despite the explosion of books published.
The blog author talks here about how overall revenue hasn’t increased at the same rate as other things like printing and distribution costs, and this is because of the Big 5. For those who aren’t aware of who the Big 5 are, they are the biggest five publishers in the world—Penguin Random House (Penguin Group and Random House merged in 2013), Simon and Schuster, Macmillan Publishers, Hachette Livre, and Harper Collins. These five publishing houses alone are responsible for 10-20% of all new books published every year; whilst that may not sound like a lot, consider that there are over 20,000 publishers in the world who are publishing multiple books per year, and this doesn’t even cover the number of self-published books put into the market. Here’s a little quote to put it into more perspective: “The Big Five publishing houses control over 80% of the trade book market in the United States as of 2022.” With the Big 5 eating up all the revenue, it is near impossible for smaller companies to make their own way, and that is why so many smaller publishers become imprints of the larger ones. An imprint is a smaller publisher that may fill a niche that the larger publisher does not fill. For example, Little, Brown is an imprint of Hachette Livre, and Penguin Random House has Puffin Books, Pelican Books, and a variety of other bird-based imprints. We’re getting off topic. Smaller independent publishers struggle to gain and maintain revenue because of how the Big 5 dominate the market, assuming they haven’t been absorbed by one of them. It is this absorption that has led to the stunted growth of other publishing houses, which has in turn prevented the development of the market.
Average book sales are shockingly small—and falling fast.
As you can imagine, this is especially the case for smaller publishers. The nature of bookselling differs from most product sales because they aren’t transitive (you don’t rebuy them), so without constant marketing to extend your reach (which is expensive and time-consuming), the sales will stay small. This also means that the audience for the book is small—often an author and publisher can’t reach further than their family and friends, so without additional aid from bookshops, the sales will remain limited.
A book has far less than a 1 percent chance of being stocked in a particular bookshop.
Again, calling back to an earlier point, how does a bookshop choose which books to stock when there are so many to choose from? There must be an additional incentive for the bookseller to sell your books, such as lowering the retail or sales price to make it more affordable for independent booksellers or providing extra content, for example. Whilst it is important to support indie bookshops, especially if they are local to you, it may not always be possible, so selling from your own website (like we do!) is often the best way to go.
It is getting harder and harder every year to sell new titles. Much like several of the previous points, the more books that are in the market, the more difficult it is to sell the books you publish. Marketing a book when there are hundreds of others like it out there, written by authors who already have a repertoire and published by one of the Big 5—why bother, right? This is something that we are still pushing for, and we are slowly making progress in increasing the sales of each new publication we release.
Most books today are selling only to the authors’ and publishers’ communities.
Reaching an audience wider than your Facebook friends list is difficult without considerable finances and connections. For all four books I’ve published, every single one has reached the family and friends of the authors, and no more. Perhaps that’s due to the lack of economic stability or presence in the industry (all of which will come with time and effort), but we are trying to make headway into new areas of the industry. If you have any suggestions of people or companies that we could invest in, we would love to hear it!
Most book marketing today is done by authors, not by publishers.
I can’t speak for larger publishers, but I struggle to balance every aspect of publishing and running a business—there’s a lot to handle when it’s just yourself. So I do rely on the authors to assist with the marketing. There’s more to it than that, though, and it brings in the previous point. Authors already have an audience, even if it’s just family and friends, and it’s the authors who know their audience best. I apply the same logic to the target customer—the author wrote the content and knows who they want to read it. Even if they don’t realise it, the author knows the details of the target customer that can help with providing marketing material. The authors are key to successful marketing campaigns.
No other industry has so many new-product introductions.
Apple releases a new iPhone on an approximate yearly basis. We achieve triple that. Imagine what a larger publisher can achieve in the same amount of time. This is why the book market is so flooded with new content. A book can be produced at such a quick rate that it quickly gets overwhelming. Link this back to many of the other reasons that the market is oversaturated.
The book publishing world is in a never-ending state of change. Trends come and go quicker than a burning page; it is impossible to keep up with the ever-changing public opinion. So don’t worry about it. As long as you know how to reach the people who want to read your stuff, go on to create what you love. You’ll be happier in the long run.
I hope this insight into the industry is helpful for publishing hopefuls, authors, and anyone else who may find it useful! If there is another truth, trope, or rumour about publishing you’d like me to debunk, comment below!