The Times They Are A-Changin'

I recently attended a wonderfully informational writer's conference in Atlanta (Advanced Writers and Speakers Association), where Tamela Hancock Murray, a literary agent with the Steve Lauby agency delivered a State of the Industry address chockful of aspiring and veteran writer need-to-know nuggets.

I'll space them out over my next few posts so you don't feel like a tree fell on your head.

Feel free to contact me with questions or comments - I'd love to hear from you! Here goes:

• Quite a few mergers occurred within the inspirational publishing industry this year, which resulted in the loss of many good editors and jobs. These include the alliance formed by Tyndale and NavPress, closed fiction divisions by B & H, Summerside, and Moody, merger of Thomas Nelson and Zondervan, and Baker acquired Regal.  
• These changes, of course, shrink the market for Christian authors to shop their manuscripts. Yucko.
• Because of the evaporating larger house market, it behooves new authors to consider small presses more than ever. (Deb's note: I've been advocating small presses for years. It's where I got my start - many produce great quality books at no cost to the author, and most don't requite agents but will deal directly with the author.)
• Self-publishing is still ironing out its kinks. Self-pub books tend to get fewer than 10 reviews on Amazon and most successful self-pub books are by already big name authors with large platforms. The few exceptions who get big press with highly successful first e-books or print books make it look easier than it is.
• Hybrid authors (who do both self-publishing and traditional publishing) are on the rise; many are publishing their older traditionally published books after they're out of print and the rights revert to the author. (Note: rights reverting to the author MUST appear in the contract; check your fine print.)

More next post. Any thoughts you'd like to share about the above?