June 23, 2021

• Hot Shots
• From Podcast to Book Deal: What Agents and Editors Want
• The Future of Digital Events
• Running a Profitable Facebook Ad Campaign
• Trailblazes
• Links of Interest
• Old Flames
• Closing Image

Hot Shots

Recently in the headlines

From Podcast to Book Deal: What Agents and Editors Want

Podcasters who can elevate or transform their podcast concept or content into a unique book are best positioned to secure a publishing deal

By Rachel Kramer Bussel

Almost a quarter of the US population listens to multiple podcasts weekly, so it’s no surprise that publishers have turned to podcasters as ideal authors who have a ready platform and readership. Recent New York Times bestsellers based on podcasts include Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered by My Favorite Murder hosts Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark and Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor.

Editors and literary agents are actively reaching out to podcasters about potential book deals. Stephanie Hitchcock, senior editor at Atria Books (Simon & Schuster), saw the potential for a book when she listened to the first season of Jane Marie’s podcast The Dream, about multi-level marketing, and reached out to her. “It was so cinematically told and so interestingly plotted that I was completely hooked, but I got the sense that there were so many different and new ways of expanding the story,” says Hitchcock.

Jordana Hawkins, a senior editor at Running Press (Hachette), is an avid true crime fan who signed podcasters Suruthi Bala and Hannah Maguire for RedHanded: An Exploration of Criminals, Cannibals, Cults, and What Makes a Killer Tick, based on their podcast of the same name. The book will delve more fully into some cases that were discussed on the podcast and include some new cases. Having celebrity fans doesn’t hurt, either; the publisher’s blurb boasts that Anna Paquin named it her “all-time favorite true crime podcast.” Hawkins says what drew her to the project was “the authors’ sharp wit and sense of humor” and the extensive research they’d done on their subjects. Hawkins expects to see podcast-based books grow in popularity, since they’re “a terrific way for podcasters to bring new material to their fans and expand upon what they’re already doing in a new format.”

To break into the book market, podcasters should have a clear idea of what elevates their book from their podcast and how the two are interconnected. Hawkins says, “A good podcast-based book proposal should tell the podcast’s story, why it exists, and what it is trying to accomplish. The podcaster should have a strong grasp on how many listeners they have, how engaged fans are, and who their demographics are.” She’s eager to see more podcast-based book proposals, especially any that are “personality- or voice-driven, a little cheeky, and that enthusiastic fans will come to.” She’s also looking for what a podcaster-turned-author will do to set the material in their book apart from their podcast; in the case of RedHanded, they’ve included illustrations from mixed media artist Kavel Rafferty to complement the authors’ writing.

Brenda Knight, director of editorial acquisition at Mango, has also found success with podcasters such as The Story Behind podcast host Emily Prokop. Knight signed Prokop for the book The Story Behind: The Extraordinary History Behind Ordinary Objects. For Mango, the topic and category are as important as a podcaster’s metrics. “Even if they have just a few thousand subscribers, if they get a lot of shares, and the podcaster is a savvy social media marketer, that’s meaningful,” she says. That being said, she’s looking for podcasts with “legs,” meaning she wants the podcast to be in at least its second year or season and have at least 100,000 downloads. Knight is especially interested in topics related to history, science, and habits and would welcome podcaster book proposals that could lend themselves to a series.

Gail Ross, president of the Ross Yoon Agency and media lawyer with Trister, Ross, Schadler & Gold, PLLC, has sold books such as Big Friendship (Simon & Schuster, 2020) by Call Your Girlfriend hosts Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow and represents Crazy/Genius podcaster Derek Thompson, author of Hit Makers (Penguin Press) and the forthcoming The Committee to Save the World. Ross says that sometimes a podcast can inspire a book idea, even if the book isn’t directly based on the podcast. In the case of Big Friendship, she’d been discussing book ideas with Friedman prior to Call Your Girlfriend, but once the podcast took off, “it became clear” that the relationship between the hosts as best friends, co-workers, and podcast partners was a topic that warranted deeper examination.

While having a large number of listeners is helpful, it’s not the only measure of whether a podcast is book worthy. Ross says how your podcast is being received, whether that involves media attention or high-profile listeners who’ve been vocal about praising the podcast, can also help raise its profile. “If you don’t have numbers, you want to have influence,” says Ross.

Everyone emphasizes that the book can’t simply feel like an extended podcast episode, but must go deeper. According to Joy Fowlkes, podcast agent at The Gernert Company, “If it’s a limited narrative series, the book has to feel like it’s accomplishing something that the podcast wasn’t able to put together. Perhaps there were sources who were uncomfortable being taped that could be incorporated into the book format. Maybe the topic was so timely that the podcast was rushed, whereas the book can be a longer process.” Fowlkes says she’s been impressed by “podcasters that compensate for what’s been lost in audio storytelling,” citing Flash Forward by Rose Eveleth and The 99% Invisible City by Roman Mars, since both titles “brought in really talented artists to build out compelling visual companion work.”

Fowlkes says that fiction podcasters can look for characters who don’t have as large of a speaking role who might make for great protagonists of a novel. She noted, “Rich world building and interior characters don’t work as well in scripted fiction podcasts, but they could be perfect for the book adaptation.” Since a book version of a podcast has to “feel additive,” podcasters may want to “build out prequel universes or speak to alternate settings within the same podcast universe,” as others have done to draw in listeners-turned-readers.

Sometimes, it’s podcast listeners who make it very clear that there’s a market for a book by their favorite hosts. For Jolenta Greenberg and Kristen Meinzer, hosts of the By The Book podcast, in which they live by a different self-help book each episode, it was listeners who started clamoring for a book from them “almost immediately” after they launched in 2017. Publishers reached out too, and the podcasters wound up signing a deal with William Morrow. A jointly authored title, How to Be Fine, was published in March 2020, but the authors were clear they didn’t want to just rehash the format of the show. “That would have provided nothing new for By The Book listeners, and it also wouldn’t have been as user friendly for readers who’d never heard the show,” they say. Instead, they looked at old podcast scripts for ideas and categorized their wealth of self-help book knowledge for readers into what worked, what didn’t, and what they wished more self-help books would advise. They also incorporated listener feedback into the book, with letters they’d received preceding each chapter.

Podcasts also work very well as ongoing promotional tools before, during, and after a book’s release. Ross cited client Lisa Damour, PhD, who started a podcast in 2020 with Reena Ninan called Ask Lisa: The Psychology of Parenting to reach listeners during the pandemic more quickly than a new book could. Doing the podcast also gave her an opportunity to promote her prior books, Under Pressure and Untangled, to a new audience who may not have encountered them when they were first released.

Podcasts offer the appeal of a regular relationship with their listeners, giving authors numerous chances to promote their book and offer teasers of what to expect without being heavy handed. They can weave mentions of their book into relevant segments or just remind listeners that reading their book is another way to support them. If they do live events, whether in person or virtual, they can record them to air on the podcast. Greenberg and Meinzer discussed their book’s impending launch on the podcast and ran a contest asking people to post a photo of themselves on social media with their book to enter to win a signed copy of another book they’d lived by on the show.

Podcasts are also a way to preserve book launch events for those who can’t attend. Greenberg and Meinzer held a virtual book launch party hosted by Anne Bogel, host of the podcast What Should I Read Next, and released the full Q&A from the event as a standalone episode. Friedman and Sow hosted a Summer of Friendship series of episodes that included discussions of their book and related topics. In pre-pandemic times, podcasters with large followings, such as Kilgariff and Hardstark of My Favorite Murder, have done book tour events in theaters, recording them for the podcast. With many forthcoming podcast-based books in the works, podcast-to-book is a trend that seems poised to expand alongside podcast listening.

Bottom line: Hitchcock from Atria says, “A straight script from a podcast isn’t that interesting, but how a podcaster or writer decides to treat the material is what makes the difference.” She sees potential in podcasts not only because podcasters have to hone their storytelling craft but also because they have access to statistics about their listeners that can help a publisher market their book. “The beauty of a podcast is you have a pretty intimate demographic detailing that helps locate who the reader is,” she says. Hitchcock says good podcasters also have “a real dedication from the fans,” developed from the intimacy of the listening experience, that can help make a podcast-based book successful.

Rachel Kramer Bussel is a freelance writer specializing in books and culture. She also writes and edits erotica and teaches erotic writing workshops. Follow her on Twitter: @raquelita

The Future of Digital Events

The viability of virtual book events has been proven, but success still relies on compelling content

By Michael Seidlinger

As the pandemic expedited the publishing industry’s adoption of virtual events, everyone has learned that these events can be just as important as the in-person book launch. The ease of being able to deliver the event from the convenience and comfort of home remains a primary advantage, in addition to accessibility. “This year we truly learned so much more about accessibility,” says Jane Kulow, director of the Virginia Center of the Book and its festival, the Virginia Festival of the Book. “We learned what it means for someone to attend one of our programs outside the bounds of geography or time restrictions.”

Now, nearly halfway through 2021, we’re starting to accept that even after businesses fully reopen, the virtual event is a mainstay and an important part of the literary community. It’s important to assess what has worked and what the event landscape might look like in the near future.

While online events aren’t new, what did change is that digital events became legitimate. “A lot of people were anti–digital events before COVID,” says Jared Drake, founder and director of digital media at Wildbound PR. “We were all forced to go online and discovered there’s a real connection that can be made, that maybe expands on what you can do in a physical event. A virtual event can be a viable opportunity.”

Publishers and authors are changing how they run book tours. “Publishers, at least from the Big Five, figured out a metric,” says Brian Gresko, author and host of Pete’s Reading Series. “Less is more in the digital space.” As publishers release book tour plans, the online tours are often more limited in number than they might have been when an author was physically traveling to different cities. While this could pose a threat to bookstore sales—which depend on events for foot traffic and sales—the way books get sold has changed in a lasting way. In addition to the rise of Bookshop and all online sales, there’s now a resurgence of people taking special care in where they buy their books.

The best moment for book buys? When attendees have decided to give you their email address. “If your ticketing page is enticing enough, with a media teaser or something that’s selling the event and book, you can sell books right then and there, as people are putting in their email to register for your event,” says Drake. “They’re literally one click away.” It’s much harder, he says, to go back to people after the fact.

Today, there’s more flexibility in event timing and promotion than what used to be allowed for. It’s no longer true that events have to occur at 6 pm or 7 pm, or any specific time. A digital event can be recorded; it can outlast the one-time in-person experience. “Online participants don’t ‘arrive’ somewhere to stay around all day; they move in and out of the event all the time,” says Monique van Dusseldorp, an Amsterdam-based event curator who writes a Substack newsletter on the future of events.

“We used to do a lot of in-person events, and in terms of our promotion, we started about two months out,” says Julia Drake of Wildbound. “Now we start two weeks out. Otherwise nobody pays attention. Eighty percent of our registrations come in the last couple of days before the event.”

As competition and general fatigue have persisted, a desire to refresh and reimagine digital events has become a need. “I have seen the event take the form of a master class,” says Gresko. “Marie Helene Bertino’s paperback launch for Parakeet was more like a class about magical realism in literature, and she had this superstar lineup including Mitchell Jackson and Helen Phillips.” The event was pitched as more of a lecture with hands-on discussion among audience attendees. “It was amazing. I think the idea that you might actually get something out of attending, a kind of takeaway, makes it really enticing.”

In an enlightening series of newsletter installments (nearly a dozen), van Dusseldorp dismantles the digital event and askes big philosophical questions, like What exactly makes a digital event different? How can they work as unique experiences? In one newsletter, van Dusseldorp writes about a six-hour Shakespeare marathon performed by ITALive. Six hours of sitting and staring at your screen might sound undesirable to most of us. However, van Dusseldorp explains why it works: “Viewers at home could see everything that was happening: the camera crew following the actors, all the screens, the crew, actors during their breaks, and lots more. The live stream was full of layers of information, cultural references, a lot to see on all the screens. And not just that, you could see so much more than you could in any venue—a piece of chewing gum changing mouths, the faces of the actors with every emotion in extreme detail, or a sudden move of camera viewpoint: the recently dead were seen from above, for instance.”

In the future, organizers will need to prioritize the digital experience as much as the in-person version of the event. That is: the virtual version can’t become a secondary or lesser experience. “Live video streams with a camera at a distance doesn’t work,” van Dusseldorp explains. “What works much better, of course, is having your speakers in extreme closeup, seeing their faces and expressions like never before.” Production values matter for event enjoyment and satisfaction.

Drake says, “There’s no question that hybrid events are going to be a thing.” The real question then is, how does one produce a physical event for an audience in person while also making it excel for the digital audience? One way to do so that is simple yet effective is to have book giveaways during the event, or an interactive element that makes it feel as though anything could happen at any moment. People should not only attend, but also leave the event with something gained. And that’s never changed, be it in person or digital.

More alternatives to Zoom are hitting the market, so expect better quality and more creativity in the future. The technological landscape is diverse. Though 70 percent of events are run on Zoom, with Crowdcast being a distant second, there are all kinds of new platforms within arm’s reach, including Discord, Run the World, and Clubhouse. “Clubhouse is really well done,” says Lydia Laurenson, founder and editor in chief of The New Modality. The new app aims to recreate the feeling of being in an intimate gathering, be it a club or meeting; people can raise their digital hand and speak up. The informality of the conversation opens up possibilities for how literary events can adapt to the uniqueness of the platform.

“Think about the platform as your exhibition space, not your production source,” Drake advises. “It’s really wise for content creators to think about, okay, how am I first going to produce this? And then where’s the right place to stream it out of? And those are two very different things, those are two very different questions.” He suggests experimenting with pre-recorded segments. Though the play-through may be live, its components can and should be given the production value of a pre-recorded and scripted event. From Brandlive to Socialive, StreamYard to Looped, the platform may change, but the production value should be top notch and adaptive.

Bottom line: Now is a time for change, experimentation, and continued adaptation. “We have to start over, we have to think about how to accommodate our traditional attendees and continue to offer programming to virtual audiences,” Kulow says. “It sounds like it needs two entirely separate staffs—one team working on the virtual, one team working on the in person.” Dynamic virtual events and increased production value can be incredibly labor intensive, but, Kulow adds, “It’s almost riskier not to try something.” Laurenson says, no matter what she does, she thinks about what she herself thinks is cool. “If you wouldn’t go, you can’t expect other people to go.”

Michael J. Seidlinger is a Filipino American author of Runaways: A Writer’s Dilemma (Future Tense Books, forthcoming in 2021) and other books. He lives in Brooklyn.

Running a Profitable Facebook Ad Campaign

Testing your ad creative and pushing past your first few ideas is key to a successful and cost-effective Facebook ad campaign

Trailblazes

Opportunities, launches, and startups

Links of Interest

• Did bookstore closures hurt frontlist sales? You’ll hear most Big Five publishers say yes. But Mark Williams questions that conclusion. (Also note that in the UK, sales of the top 10 debut novels in 2020 outpaced the sales of those in 2019, a stat rarely mentioned in any discussion.) Read The New Publishing Standard.

• Everyone’s publishing for kids these days. Media outlets as varied as The New York Times, The Week, and America’s Test Kitchen are doing very well with kids’ content verticals. Read Kayleigh Barber at Digiday.

• Historical fiction is no longer fusty, proclaims The New York Times. The article notes Jonathan Franzen’s resistance to historical fiction (we’re not sure why), alongside some terrible stereotypes of the genre. Still, the piece reflects on what is in fact happening: renewed interest in the genre. Read Jonathan Lee.

• TikTok drives sales of lots of things, not just books. In essence, it has become a recommendation engine for Gen Z. Read Emily Johnson at The Drum.

• The number of people subscribing to audio services has doubled since 2015. That’s according to the latest research from Edison. As of 2021, 47 percent of Americans subscribe to some kind of audio streaming service (Spotify, Audible, Apple Music, etc.). Read Larry Rosin at Edison Research.

Amazon

• Amazon blames fake reviews partly on social media companies. Sites like Facebook are used to solicit fake reviews; when Amazon reports the abuse, it can take several days before accounts or groups are removed. Read Alex Hern at The Guardian.

Traditional Publishing

• McGraw Hill is sold to another private equity firm. With the prior owner, McGraw Hill carried about $2.23 billion in debt; with the new owner—who borrowed money to make the acquisition—the publisher now carries a further $2.25 billion in debt. In its most recent fiscal year, the company had an operating loss. Read Jim Milliot in Publishers Weekly.

• Meanwhile, textbook publishers like McGraw Hill had a legal win. Lawsuits were dismissed that accused the company (and others) of conspiring to raise textbook prices through subscription deals they strike with publishers (known as “inclusive access”). Read Lilah Burke at Inside Higher Ed.

Creator Economy

• The Royal Road to riches (or exhaustion)? Novelist Elle Griffin explores the most likely ways for self-published authors to find an audience, including the site Royal Road. Read The Novelleist. Related: Griffin also has an interview with a successful writer of LitRPG who monetizes his activity through Patreon.

• If you’d like to get excited about the potential for NFTs and authorship: Joanna Penn has an interview with John Fox on the latest episode of The Creative Penn. Listen, or read the transcript. Fox says, “A lot of people live online. They value online things or digital things almost more than physical objects. It’s this really strange, like generational divide. NFTs are a way to sell digital objects,” he explains. Strange indeed. Most of the principles expressed here aren’t that different from selling limited runs or digital exclusives, but the execution is enhanced by blockchain technology, which allows for resale and for a portion of the proceeds to go back to the author.

• Substack gets into comics. Some argue that if the site is to grow, it needs to attract authors beyond nonfiction/journalism. So they’ve hired a known comics writer to help them sign advance payment deals to other comic book writers. Read Emily Zogbi at CBR.

Startup Money

• BookClub rakes in another $20 million. That makes a total of $26 million raised since last year; funders include the co-founder of MasterClass and the co-founder of Goodreads. The service remains in private beta. Read Natasha Mascarenhas at TechCrunch.

Libraries

• Libraries see surging interest in graphic novels. Digital lending for children’s graphic novels was up between 400 and 500 percent at one library. Read Heidi MacDonald at Publishers Weekly.

• Lyrasis acquires BiblioLabs. BiblioLabs is the creator of the BiblioBoard platform, which in part supports distribution of self-published ebooks to libraries. BiblioLabs will continue to operate as before, but as a for-profit division of nonprofit Lyrasis. Lyrasis has supported the development of the SimplyE ebook platform used by the New York Public Library, among other projects. Read Andrew Albanese at Publishers Weekly.

Marketing Toolbox

• When to use CPC versus CPM ads. Should you pay per click or based on number of impressions? BookBub advises. Read Carlyn Robertson.

Politics & Culture

• Today’s readers seem to have trouble distinguishing between fictional characters’ beliefs and authors’ beliefs. Authors Elin Hilderbrand and Casey McQuiston have changed lines in their published novels after readers conflated the characters’ speech with the authors’ speech and called them out on social media. Critic Laura Miller says, “Complaining about other, more successful writers is one of the most popular activities on Twitter, as is devising elaborately exacting standards of correct speech and vigorously, if informally, prosecuting those who violate them.” Read at Slate. For more commentary, see Lincoln Michel’s newsletter, where he writes, “The ideal that a book must signal so clearly [to] delineate its author’s politics to a degree that no reader anywhere could possibly take away the ‘wrong’ message is quite literally an impossibility.”

• A rift between two Nigerian authors erupts into the open. And, no surprise, it’s partly about the toxicity of social media. Apparently referring to another author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote on her website, “There are many social-media savvy people who are choking on sanctimony and lacking compassion, who can fluidly pontificate on Twitter about kindness but are unable to actually show kindness.” Read Alexandra Alter at The New York Times.

• HarperCollins buys Jared Kushner’s book. It will be published under the conservative Broadside imprint and was acquired by Eric Nelson. Read the brief at Publishers Weekly.

• Trump has given a lot of interviews for other people’s books. Sources say Trump makes each author feel they’re getting something special. Read Mike Allen at Axios.

• The audiobook industry continues to struggle with representation and casting. Most narrators find themselves getting asked to voice marginalized characters from backgrounds that bear no resemblance to theirs, and they fear backlash. Read Laura Miller at Slate.

• Does it make sense to group novels by geographic region? Some authors don’t like it when their books are categorized narrowly, as in the case of “Asian fantasy,” because it could indicate a niche audience. Read Kalyani Saxena at NPR.

Old Flames

• 1 year ago: Publishing during a Time of Crisis
• 3 years ago: The Appearance of Morality Clauses in Book Contracts
• 5 years ago: Audiobooks for Indies: Beyond ACX

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