Foreign trends often come to us a year, two, or even five years late. Employees of major publishers know this, and in order to get ahead of the competition, they regularly monitor book markets abroad and track publishing trends in Europe and America. In this article we collected trends in the foreign book market. Perhaps some of these will be useful to you!
Autofiction
True stories from the lives of real people, written in the form of novels, novellas and short stories. According to The Guardian, the genre is popular because of universal fatigue with fakes and the growing popularity of the #MeToo movement: people now want to read true, not fictional stories. The top autofiction novel this year is Ayad Akhtar’s Homeland Elegies, in which the American-born author with Pakistani roots tries to make sense of his identity.
Audiobooks
Over the past year, audiobook sales in the U.S. have grown 17.3%. The market is growing at breakneck speed, and publishers are looking for new ways to dub books. For example, Google in the near future plans to voice English and American publishers’ e-books using artificial intelligence
Collaborations between independent authors
Authors join together to write books together. This way they manage to reach more readers and work faster. According to Brian Cohen, host of the Sell More Books Show podcast, it all started with love novels, and now the trend has made its way to science fiction and fantasy. Even more collaborations are noted by experts at the book promotion stage. Independent authors create joint drawings, combine mailing lists, everything to reach as many readers as possible.
The New Ethic
A major book scandal this year was Joan Rowling’s careless tweet about how only women can menstruate. Transgender and non-binary people were outraged. Calls to burn the writer’s books began to spread on the Internet, and many began to take apart Harry Potter for homophobia, judeophobia, fat-shaming, and other scary things. The case of Rowling showed: the author’s public stance in 2020 matters to the reader and can affect sales and contracts with major publishers.
Nonfiction
Nonfiction sales are overtaking fiction. A report from Penguin Random House Publishing says so. Over the past 5 years, non-fiction revenue has grown nearly 30%, with it outpacing fiction by 35%. If you go through this year’s bestsellers on Amazon, the following topics stand out: coronavirus, social science, psychology, gastronomy, and sex. Well, what else would one be interested in in self-isolation?
Online Events
This year’s major book events – from the Frankfurt Book Fair to the presentation of the Nobel Prize for Literature – took place online. And we’re no exception – the Electronic Letter Prize finale was held online and drew viewers from all over the world. The pandemic gave the book world even more online formats: debates with critics, live book readings, meetings with readers online, webinars, and many more interesting things that gave samizdat authors a chance to be heard.
Diversity
Diversity and inclusivity are probably the big words of the year. The reader is tired of books written by white rich men (especially if those men are already dead). The reader wants authors and characters who look like themselves. He demands books written by black women, LGBT authors, migrants, people who grew up in poor neighborhoods. If we look at the winners of major book awards, we see that all the books are about that.
Samizdat
In the Amazon era, authors are abandoning traditional book publishing models and turning to self-publishing. According to a Report Buyer report, samizdat is the fastest-growing segment of the print book market, with an average annual growth rate of 17% for independent authors. “Independent authors have more opportunities than ever before, especially those who are willing to be flexible and experiment and learn new skills and new technologies,” says the Independent Authors Alliance report.
Social Media Fiction.
Novels whose action unfolds entirely or partially on the Internet. The heroine of Alisha Ray’s novel “Girl Gone Viral” is forced to hire a bodyguard after a stranger tweets about her and the thread gains a bunch of reposts. “Followers” by Megan Angelo is a dystopia about three popular bloggers.
E-books.
The bookstore closures this year have affected print sales, so publishers have shifted their focus to e-book sales. E-book sales in America are up 16.5% for the year