Genre Sales 2: Fantasy (Part 3 of 8)

Fantasy is a complicated genre, cats & kittens. You've got your Tolkien-style epic fantasy, your hip urban fantasy, your fantasy with sci-fi elements, and your romantic fantasy (which is completely different from your paranormal romance!), just to name a few. There are vampires and demons (sometimes daemons!), witches and wizards, fairies, faeries, and phaeyries (I made that last one up), and all varieties of magic(k)s.

Simply put: summarizing fantasy title sales is hard.

That said, it looks like (once again) the genre is doing well, either flat or a little up to last year. Although the effects of the recession are wearing off, there are a few key reasons (à mon avis) why fantasy sales are still doing well. Again, all the usual caveats (see parts 1 and 2) apply:

Escapism. Who doesn't want to live in an enchanted land where you can wield arcane magic(k)s against a host of undeniably evil foes? (Especially when the alternative is looking at your year-to-date return on your 401(k).) While I don't expect fantasy sales to suddenly tank when the economy truly turns bullish again, I do think our lingering economic woes contribute to our desires to seek out escapist fantasy, which in turn convert to sales.

The mass market format. The fantasy genre in particular lends itself to the mass market format, and frankly, you can't beat $5 – $9 for a book. Almost every other form of entertainment is more expensive, and while I do expect e-sales to eat away at the mass market's dominance over the next couple of years (we're already starting to see it), the low price point attracts a lot of consumers. (See below for more notes on the fantasy genre and e-books.)

The series effect. Fantasy books also lend themselves well to serialization, and once you hook a reader on a series, you're golden. Who's going to read the first book in the EverMagicks War Chronicles and not read the subsequent eight books, assuming they liked the first? Especially if those subsequent books are, say, $6.99 apiece? That's what I thought.

Now, unlike children's fantasy (see yesterday's post), adult trade fantasy titles are far from immune to the specter (or, worse yet, spectre) of e-books. If you're writing in this genre, be prepared to discuss e-book rights with your agent, as well as blog, tweet, and participate in all varieties of social media. The Kindle, nook, and iPad are now your friends.

Numbers-wise, it looks like fantasy title sales are more or less in line with the rest of the market in terms of the ratio of e-books to physical books sold (e-books probably comprise about 10% of sales in terms of units). Depending on the average price of e-books, this could be a little higher or lower in terms of dollars. My guess is it's not that different, though this may change if and when e-book prices come way down.

So, mes auteurs, for your bullet-reading pleasure:

• Fantasy is doing well as a genre. Hooray!

• The nature of the content, preferred format, and predisposition toward series probably contribute to its continued good health. Crossover between children's/YA and adult (Deathly Hallows, anyone?) also probably helps. I can't think of another genre in which adult and kids' literature sees so much overlap.

• Adult trade fantasy sales are, like the rest of adult trade fiction, favoring the electronic formats more and more. It is, in fact, entirely possible that your book will only be sold as an e-book by the time you find representation.

That's all the news that's fit to blog, meine Autoren. Tomorrow: mysteries! Thrillers!

On A Lighter Note

Yesterday's post generated a lot of reactions and opinions (which I appreciate!), but I feel that one comment above all others requires a post-length response: Dan Krokos' question, "Who do you guys think will be the villain in the new Batman?" (As you might have read, the Batman is my very favorite hero.)

As much as I enjoyed the Michael Keaton Batman films and the mid-90s' super campy Batman Forever and Batman & Robin (1995 and 1997, respectively), I think the new dark, (more) realistic, gritty Batman reboot would benefit from revisiting some of the over-the-top villains from these films. So, mes auteurs, I offer you the following: my choices for the next set of Batman (wo)mantagonists, along with the actors I'd love to see play them.

· Mister Freeze. He's frosty, he's tortured, he's got a mega sweet freeze ray. I think he's got a ton of backstory/developmental potential that weren't fully explored via Arnold Schwarzenegger's relentless ice/snow puns, so I hope they bring him back and give him a fair shake. My pick for the actor: Adrien Brody.

· Poison Ivy. I don't think Uma Thurman did a bad job at all in Batman & Robin, but I'd like to see a new actress take on the role. I'd have to go with Gwyneth Paltrow, whom I loved in Iron Man. Who else could pull off a supervillainess who's also a scientist?

· The Riddler. Jim Carrey played the enigmatic Edward Nigma a little (read: very much) on the crazy/wacky side. I'd like to see a cooler, more controlled Riddler, one more interested in panache and execution than in simply driving Batman up the wall (sort of how Heath played The Joker). My pick is Neil Patrick Harris, hands down.

· Catwoman. I liked Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman in Batman Returns; the movie Catwoman (starring Halle Berry, whom I otherwise really like) was so dreadful that it ruined me on the character for years. Who can fix that? Another Aussie, Emilie de Ravin (Claire from lost).

· Two-Face. I'm not going to beat around the bush: Aaron Eckhart did a phenomenal job in the last movie, and yeah, while they sort of closed off Two-Face's potential role in any direct sequels, they didn't make it impossible for him to return. And I really hope he does.

· Clayface. This character hasn't seen a lot of action outside the comic books and animated TV shows, so I'd love to witness his silver screen début. It could just be an extension of my post-lost heartache, but I'd be beyond amped if they could get Terry O'Quinn (a.k.a. John Locke).

And those are my picks! Feel free to post yours in the comments.

The Dad Lunch Round-Up: Redux

Laura is unavailable this fine morning, ladies and gents, so I will be in charge of the frivolity and general broings-on today. What does that mean? Well, a round-up, but one that is less informative and more ridiculous than my last one (since it wasn't "fun" enough, according to some people).

Tallyho!

While having a drink with an industry professional or two last night, the subjects of (surprise!) literature and poetry came up. So, in the spirit of including you all in my after-hours life, I ask you: what do you think of bad poetry jokes? (Answer: all of McSweeney's lists are pretty great.) Twitter now sports the longest poem in the world, and (because I actually can't help but be informative), an NEA survey (warning: long .pdf) says that poetry reading is on the decline. O, fie! O most wicked speed!

In more mash-up news, the quirky folks who brought you Pride and Prejudice and Zombies will be releasing Android Karenina in June. (Do you hear that? That's Tolstoy hitting 1,000 RPM in his grave.) I am delighted to report, however, that the Internet (hallowed be Thy name) has recently gifted me with a brilliant non-mash-up parody, The Two Gentlemen of Lebowski, which is what The Big Lebowski would look like if Shakespeare had written it. Pure comic genius.

In case you missed The Rejectionist's posts on what not to write about, Vice Magazine has a few more ideas. Caveat: I guess you could write about these things if you were to do it in a new and interesting way, but since almost nobody does, best to steer clear.

Finally, in the miscellaneous-and-mildly-soul-crushing category, the slush pile is dead (so get an agent!), the French are trying to socialize e-books (that ain't ne'er gon' happen here in 'MERICA), and some poets are murderers.

Have a great weekend!

Genrification

It's been awhile since I've run a poll, and since 1.) I've noticed several new followers as of late, and 2.) I'm gearing up for another round of genre-specific sales smackdowns, I figured I'd offer you, gentle readers, the following poll:



Have at it!

You Can't Spell "MWA HA HAAA" Without "MWA"

We all know how I feel about self-publishing, so it likely comes as no surprise to you that my reaction to Dellarte Press (originally known as "Harlequin Horizons") is largely negative. I'm not the only one crying foul, though, mes auteurs: the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, and Romance Writers of America have objected to the project, with the latter two de-listing Harlequin as an acceptable publisher due to their violation of both organizations' "no vanity press"-type rules. (These reactions, as well as others like them, are what lead to Harlequin Horizon's changing its name in the first place.) Edit: I've been informed that the SFWA has also de-listed Harlequin as an eligible publisher for the same reasons as the MWA and RWA, but books published by Harlequin are still eligible for the Nebula award because no prohibition exists against granting it to self-published works.

The source of the brouhaha (at least, as near as I can tell) was that Harlequin was talking out of both sides of their collective mouth: on the one hand, they were saying that your manuscript wasn't good enough to be published by Harlequin Harlequin, but—but!—for the low, low price of $599.00 (packages run from $599.00 to $1,599.00), Harlequin Horizons would make you into a Real Live Author™! (Tragic character flaw not included.) The solution to this contradiction? Change "Harlequin Horizons" to "Dellarte Press." Et voilà! You no longer have a traditional book publisher playing a weird joke on you by asking you to pay them to publish your book because they didn't think it was good enough for them to pay you.

So yes, I applaud you, MWA (to whom I ascribed the mysterious laugh in this post's title), as well as the RWA, SFWA, and the countless other members of the industry who voiced concerns over this less-than-honest move by Harlequin. Yes, I think self-publishing produces absolute bilge 99.999% of the time. Yes, I think authors who self-publish are more often than not shooting themselves in the foot (feet?) if they want to ever make money doing what they do. BUT. I also think that those self-publishing companies have the right to do what they do so long as they're being honest about it, and most of them are: they're not offering book deals or literary stardom, they're offering to bind your book for you. When a traditional trade book publisher, however—you know, the fancy advance-and-royalty kind—starts getting in on the game, it's no longer clear where traditional publishing ends and self-publishing—dare I say "vanity publishing"—begins.

Sure, Harlequin can take their name off the press to prevent confusion, but if they've got to take their brand off a product in order to sell it, what is that really saying about them and their enterprise?

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

After looking at the results of yesterday's poll and some of the comments you all had re: the evil that is e-ink, I (as usual) have formed some opinions and generated a few thoughts in response. (I have lots of thoughts and opinions, most which have to do with books and/or cookies.)

First, the problem of eye strain. As mentioned in the comments and in Nathan's Jedi mind-reading mirror poll, most e-reader screens are made with e-ink, meaning they reflect light like a book page does, rather than generating light like a computer screen. Though I'm still warming up to my Sony reader, I have to say that eye strain isn't an issue for me, and I'm curious as to whether the problem of eye strain is generally related to personal experience or is merely assumed to be true based on a perceived analogy between backlit computer screens and e-reader screens.

Second, the price. True, e-readers these days will cost you a bundle, but much like the VCR (remember those?), DVD player, and pretty much any other media device, the price is going to drop precipitously once multiple generations of the machine are available and market penetration reaches a certain point. I voted in Nathan's poll, indicating I'd spend $100 on an e-reader, though to be fair I might drop $150 if I really, really liked it. At $100 for a reader and $10 (roughly) per book, it would only take 15 "hardcovers" to pull a full copy ahead of the p-book game. Observe:

$18 per print hardcover x 14 hardcovers = $252.
$100 e-reader + $10 per book x 15 "hardcovers" = $250.

And I'd recoup my initial investment on the 13th copy ($18 x 13 = $234; $100 + $10 x 13 = $230). True, readers aren't retailing for $100—yet. But eventually they'll get there. Will you buy one then? (I'm starting to feel a little like Sam-I-Am here.)

Third, there's the problem of having your entire library in one place. Admittedly, yes, if you drop your reader in the toilet, you'll lose all your books. Unless, of course, the future is graced by a magical yet strangely ominous entity that ties your virtual library to an on-line account, not an individual reader, so if you order a new reader from them and access your account on it... all your books will be back.

This does not happen if your house burns down with all your print books in it (heaven forbid).

Fourth, resale and lending. Barnes & Noble's newfangled nook (no capitalization allowed, apparently) has a rudimentary lending feature, and there's no reason to think better lending applications won't be integerated into future models. True, resale will probably be forever beyond the ability of the e-book (or, more accurately, retailers will prevent this capability in order to maintain profits... unless they decide to take a cut of whatever profits you make on the resale), but why would you need to resell an e-book? Is it taking up too much space on your e-shelf or in your e-garage? Personally, I don't find this a serious problem.

Agreed, you can't get an e-book autographed—yet. But the first completely wireless, slim, full-color, touch-screen-with-stylus (for my personal annotations and Michael Chabon's signature) reader that comes out for under $200 will have my hard-earned cash faster than you can say "nook." Yes. That fast.

Tip O' the Week: Chasing Trends

Steampunk is the new vampire! Wait, no, it's apocalypse! Or is it Christian vampires? Perhaps zombies?

If you're currently penning a fantasy novel centering on a pious zombie vampire from an alternate 19th century in which science/alchemy/the Bible has predicted the earth's impending doom, uh, please send it to me, because that could be awesome. More importantly, though, stop doing it.

Everyone wants to be The Next Big Thing™, and no one's going to fault you for that. It's important to remember, however, that what's big now isn't necessarily what's going to be big in one to five years, which is probably the earliest any book you're currently writing/shopping to agents/editors is going to be published. I don't know about you, but I don't think vampires are still going to be cool in five years (at least, not as cool as they are now). Zombies will probably suffer a similar fate.

If you've got representation now and your novel seems to be along the same lines as other novels that are just starting to become big, that's great news, and you'll probably luck out and catch part of the wave of whatever craze is coming next. If not, then you may not. Luck is a big factor, friends. Talent and hard work are necessary, but can only get you so far.

The moral of today's post: write the best book you can, do everything you can for it if/when it's acquired, and don't worry about what the other kids are writing. Just like with stocks, trying to time the market is probably only going to get you burned.

Next week: Monday Mailbag, featuring responses to your questions!

P&L 4 of 4: The Future

In Tuesday's comments, PatriciaW asked about the role e-books currently/will play in the acquisition P&L. A felicitous question indeed, as we are now about to once more explore... THE WORLD OF TOMORROW™. (You'd think I'd make a lot more money with all the trademarks I apparently own.)

Currently, the ratio of e-books sold to printed books is around 5%, meaning it'll probably be a few years before e-books come to dominate the book market (which, admittedly, may never happen, but I expect it will). For this reason, e-book sales don't really figure into the acquisition P&L yet (at least, not as far as I've seen). The sales numbers just aren't significant enough.

But let's imagine the ratio were much higher—say, for every three printed books sold, two e-books were sold—which would mean a print run of 15,000 would also have to take into account an additional 10,000 e-book sales (instead of today's 750). That's a significant difference, and I imagine P&L analyses in THE WORLD OF TOMORROW™ will contain an additional field used to calculate projected e-book sales (based on historical data for that author/genre/&c).

As time goes by, however, I imagine another force will affect the e-book P&L, and that will be consumer demand to lower price point. Since many of the costs associated with traditional book publishing—printing/paper/binding, typesetting, returns, freight—don't apply to e-books, I think the average price publishers will be able to charge per book will drop significantly once the e-book reading market has reached critical mass. It'll eventually creep back up due to inflation, but if e-piracy becomes a major issue, people will be faced with either buying an e-book or simply taking it. As I've said before, I think we humans are decent to a point: we'll pay for something if we think it's worth it, otherwise, we'll either forgo the purchase or take whatever it is we want for free. With the presumed widespread availability of pirated books on the Internet in THE WORLD OF TOMORROW™, I imagine taking books will be sorely tempting unless you could skip the guilt and get said books legitimately for a reasonable price.

These are just my own speculations, but I foresee the P&L changing in the following ways over the next decade or so:

• The P&L will eventually principally consider e-book sales, taking POD sales into account for smaller titles and smaller (by today's standards) traditional print runs for books by major (i.e. bestselling, celebrity) authors.
• A shift from front-loaded advances and relatively small royalties to lower advances and higher royalties, as returns will no longer be as much of an issue.
• Costs not associated with e-books will be considered less and less, unless said costs (typesetting, printing, freight, &c) make a paper version of a book prohibitively expensive, in which case they will be important insofar as they determine whether or not a physical book is published at all.
• Profit margin will temporarily increase while costs decrease and price points stay high, but as price points are driven downward by consumer resistance, profit margin will normalize.

What do you think?

In the Year 2029

Full disclosure, mes amis: this post on THE FUTURE OF PUBLISHING (patent pending) is pure speculation on my part. Informed speculation, to be sure, but speculation nonetheless. So, now that you've taken your mandatory grains of salt, come with me on a journey to...

THE YEAR 2029

In the year 2029, the power of wireless Internet, Amazon, and Google (among newer and even more fantastic companies and services) will have taken connectivity to a new level. We could have search engines in our contact lenses, people! True, video or Matrix-style virtual reality may have largely replaced today's text-based Internet by then, but I'm betting there will still be text involved, and therefore (drumroll, please): reading!

Google's and Amazon's Sith-level grips on electronic books may well still be holding (fun activity: which is the master and which is the apprentice?), meaning that between them, a huge and continuously growing volume of e-books will be available on-line. Mix that with paper-thin, flexible, full-color e-readers (or those mega sweet contact lenses I just mentioned) and you've got almost any book you could ever hope to read wirelessly available almost instantly.

Will piracy be a problem? Absolutely—in twenty years, I expect the publishing industry to be suffering the same issues as the music industry in terms of illegal downloads and pirated materials. Ninja DRM and lawsuits from publishers/copyright holders/author estates will hopefully be enough to deter some pirates, but certainly not all.

Now, as we have seen, there are always going to be early adopters, late adopters, and non-adopters of new technologies, meaning that there will probably still be folks reading paper books in the far-flung year of 2029. I'm pretty sure that's going to be those of us who are college-age or older now, since we have a significant attachment to print books. But those three-year-olds you see running around now? They'll be fresh college graduates with almost no knowledge of The World Before E-Books. They saw us using e-readers when they were tots and thought they were cool. They probably got their own e-readers in middle school. Heck, they might not have ever even touched a physical book in all four years of college. Sure, a few young fogeys might think "p-books" are cool and retro or whatever, but most will view them as archaic and hard to use. (There's no search function on a paperback.)

I think hardcover books will swiftly become novelties, so only a few very small publishers will continue to produce them. For those of us who actually want to read physical books, POD will likely have become the norm, since dwindling demand will long since have forced houses and booksellers to abandon the current mega-print-run-and-returns model. If you want a physical book, you order it, it gets printed just for you, and that's that.

The good news for publishers and agents: I still think we'll need you in the astoundingly distant year of 2029! Roles will have changed drastically, though. Agents will be needed to negotiate royalties & contracts, filter out the detritus, and scout out the self-published stuff that's actually good; publishers will be needed to provide editing, marketing, and publicity services (viral media blitzes and e-co-op, if you will). The industry will be generally more compact, but will still exist and, hopefully, be thriving.

Oh, and I almost forgot the best part: in 2029, all you author folk will be making six-figure advances! Hooray for inflation!

Self-Publishing II: Attack of the POD People

Happy deforestation day! I'm sitting here with crossed fingers hoping the creation of five million copies of THE LOST SYMBOL (and therefore the subsequent loss of trees) doesn't cause a noticeable decrease in my breathable oxygen.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about self-publishing, and it ignited a small firestorm in the comments section. The majority of it was great, lively discussion and I was really interested in a lot of what you all had to say. Some of it, though not strictly disrespectful/incorrect/&c, was a little heated, and I'd like to revisit the subject to clear up a few things. (Apologies in advance for the rant, but it's in the air this week.)

First (as I've said before), I, too, have been known to write things—primarily poetry, although I also write some weird sci-fi-ish literary-ish fiction. The point being: I am very well aware that what I am writing is not really salable. I am not some sales-obsessed Big Publishing Corporation nut who insists that there is no virtue at all in POD, (fre)e-book dissemination, guerrilla Facebook marketing tactics, &c—on the contrary, I am super in favor of those things. I'm not trying to keep you good folks down! However, what I am not in favor of are vanity presses and self-publishing companies that capitalize on writers' lack of knowledge, insecurities, &c. Which, as far as I can tell, is most of them.

Again, first caveat: if you really don't care about selling books, self-publishing is fine. Go nuts! If you only want to sell a couple copies of your Regional Guide to Edible Berries and Flowering-Type Plants, or you're a college professor who just wants to bind a bunch of notes and excerpts into a DIY anthology for a class, or you want to collect all those fun stories you made up for your children over the years into one neat package they can read and hand down to their children, I say: more power to you. Hooray for self-publishing.

Also, second caveat: this is not a hard and fast rule because there are no hard and fast rules in publishing, but it IS based on probabilities. If you really want to sell your book and you've tried everything and you can't get it published traditionally, you are probably better off shelving it and writing a new one. Here, cats and kittens, is why:

1.) Your book, as I've said, is probably either not something that will earn the publisher (and, by extension, you) much money, is not very good, or both. You have nothing to earn by paying your hard-earned cash to print a tiny run of your book that probably LOOKS self-published (although this can be avoided), doesn't cater to more than six people, and/or is not representative of your best work. (Or, worse yet, is representative of your best work and STILL doesn't pass the proverbial mustard.) Grey Poupon, please, with a dash of mondegreen.

2.) Would you want videos of your very first piano lesson on CNN? Or your first crème brûlée on Top Chef? No? That's what you're essentially asking for if you self-publish. This is not my kidding face. (This is my kidding face.)

Seriously, though, the odds of you getting any attention or money at all for a self-published book are ludicrously small—you'll have to get in line behind all the mid-list authors who are scrabbling for publicity/marketing/fame/fortune/&c and DO have big houses supporting them—but what you're essentially saying when you self-publish is "I want the entire world to read this novel that was declined by dozens, perhaps hundreds, of experts in the publishing field." Again, this is either because it's not considered salable in the existing market, not very good, or both. Again again, there are exceptions. Again again again, your novel is probably not one of them. Write a better one!

3.) If you go through the money and hassle of getting an ISBN and actually getting your self-pubbed book into stores, congratulations: you are now trackable on Nielsen BookScan. Publishers—whose attention I assume you're trying to get (see below)—will now be aware of Self-Published Boy Wizard and His Quest for Publication (as well as the fact it sold three copies in two years) and may likely want nothing to do with you for fear of catching your poor sales themselves. Self-publishing does not show publishing houses initiative. It shows publishing houses you don't have an idea they consider publishable and you're getting desperate.

4.) You're ostensibly self-publishing to avoid having to deal with the Big Cantankerous Publishing Monster... yet, paradoxically, you're also self-publishing to get enough attention from the Big Cantankerous Publishing Monster such that it'll give you a six-figure advance and tickets to the Super Bowl with Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer. Interesting.

5.) But John Grisham and Christopher Paolini were self-published! Oh, wait. No, they weren't. Yes, there are exceptions, but when you consider how many books are self-published every day, the odds of you being the next William P. Young are fractions of fractions of a percent. Your odds are still bad with a traditional publisher, but they're better.

So please, gentle readers, feel free to self-publish if it's not about national media attention, big advances, or triple-digit sales. If you want more than six fans and six dollars in net profit at the end of the day, though, I suggest you write a fantastic book, edit the hell out of it, get an agent, and get a publishing house behind you. E-books will change a lot. POD will change a lot. But we will always need experts to divide the salable from the non-, the well-written from the crap. And let us say: amen.

Tomorrow, our good friends at Nielsen (and everyone else on planet Earth) will have DB's sales figures. The results... when we come back!

Finally, the Fame & the Glory

After all the blood, ink, and tears I've put into this blog and my job as a sales assistant in the wild and crazy world of publishing, CBS has decided to air a show about my life. And by "air a show about my life" I mean "air a show about the world of book publishing":

The project, tentatively titled "Open Books," has received a pilot commitment from the network. It revolves around book editor June and her circle of friends.

"Books" is inspired by the time Lerner spent as a temp in the publishing world at the beginning of her career and by the experiences of her sister Betsy, who worked as a book editor for 15 years before becoming a literary agent.

I have no idea how accurate or entertaining this show will be, but I think it's worth seeing the pilot. No word on a date for said pilot, but I'll keep you posted. On the one hand, I'm hopeful that a really good show about the publishing world will not only make for great TV, but will also educate people about how the industry works and, to some extent, get people excited about reading. On the other hand, if it's mega boring, it might do more harm than good. Thoughts?

Genre-Specific Sales, Part 1 of 8: Fantasy

The results of last week’s informal genre poll are in. By my count, the top four most-requested categories are:

1. Fantasy
2. Children’s/MG/YA
3. Mystery/Thriller
4. Science Fiction

Followed closely by literary fiction, historical fiction, women’s fiction/chick lit, and romance. So, here’s the deal: I’ll do all top eight—the top four this Monday through Thursday plus a Friday round-up, courtesy of Laura, and then the second set of four next Monday through Thursday. I know, I know. I spoil you.

Now: to business!

First, the bad news: book sales are down. Due to the recession and the fact that nobody reads anymore anyway, the industry has suffered "modest" (read: depressed) sales, affecting retailers, publishing houses, agents, and authors alike. Dark times, gentle readers.

The good news, however is this: fantasy is actually doing all right, and in many instances, sales of fantasy books are up over last year's sales. Without quoting you exact BookScan numbers, I can tell you that fantasy book sales are up at my house by roughly 10%, which is the number currently being quoted for most of the major trade publishers. As for the retailers themselves, they're seeing a 4-5% increase in general sales, as described in author Kameron M. Franklin's post on the subject.

It occurred to me to check the hardcover vs. trade paperback numbers in BookScan, and again, without quoting specifics, I can tell you that hardcover sales are particularly depressed across the board and trade paperback numbers (both frontlist and backlist) are up (which was my hunch). The AAP's recent release on book sales for May of this year more or less confirms this. Then again, I've always been more of a big-picture guy, so I encourage you to check out the numbers for January, February, March, and April, too.

(Fun exercise: pay special attention to the numbers for audio books and e-books in those AAP releases. Then consider whether you'd like your fantasy novel sold as an audio book and/or e-book, in addition to the print version.)

Now, obviously I don't know what the economic climate will be like by the time your book is ready to be published, but if it's still not so great and you have the option of publishing as a TPO (trade paperback original—that is, your books hits the market as a trade paperback, rather than coming out as a hardcover and then as a paperback a year later), you might want to go with that. In some cases, your book might go straight to mass market, which also might not be a bad thing, as mass market edition sales are up, too. (Remember that TPs have a price range of about $10 – $20 and MMs, around $4 – $7; this beats the pants off the $20 – $40 you're expected to pay for a hardcover.) Then again, the lower prices on TPs and MMs means less revenue for publishers and for you on each book sold, so you need to move a lot more units.

Now, one or two of you mentioned you might like to have an idea of the median/average advances on different types of novels. I'm happy to report author and blogger Tobias S. Buckell has crunched the SF/fantasy numbers for us, and if you're writing a fantasy novel, you can expect an advance in the $0 - $40,000 range, with a median of $5,000 and an average of $6,494. Now, this post is a few years old, but if I were to adjust everything for inflation and then adjust it back down due the "recession effect," I'm pretty sure it would come out even. Also note that it's based on one hundred or so self-reported advances, so there's a certain margin of error there (roughly 12%, if you're interested).

And oh, yeah—in case you didn't notice, Tobias' numbers indicate much higher advances for agented deals over unagented ones. This is not a coincidence. Get yourself an agent. Then ask him or her for more details on average/median advances, &c, since (to be honest) it's not technically my specialty.

For daily deal news (and weekly summaries that often list ballparks on advances), I highly recommend you subscribe to Publisher's Lunch. This version is free; you can also subscribe to the deluxe edition for a nominal fee.

So, in summary:

• Overall sales are down against last year.
• Fantasy sales are up against last year (~10% or so). People love their escapist fiction!
• Hardcovers are way down, trade paperbacks and mass market paperbacks are up-ish.
• Median fantasy novel advance: $5,000; average: $6,494; range: $0 - $40,000.

Questions? Comments?