A couple of things to note about these two deals they mention. First, they’re both thrillers. Seems GONE GIRL and GIRL ON THE TRAIN’s remarkable successes have paved the way for publishers to be really excited about new thrillers. This isn’t new news, and despite an overly crowded marketplace, the books with the right combination of elements are still working. We’re reading one now for book club, THE WOMAN IN CABIN 10 by Ruth Ware, which has already sold almost 100,000 copies in hardcover, according to Bookscan, since its publication in July. Clearly, having woman or girl in your title is a sure way to the bestseller list!

Another thing that appeals to me personally is the motherhood angle of the first book Publisher’s Weekly mentions – Gin Phillip’s BEAUTIFUL THINGS, which reportedly sold for close to a million dollars. It’s a thriller which takes place over just 3 hours about a young mom who gets trapped in a zoo with her young son and an armed gunman. I love the premise. It’s simple, but scary and high-concept, and feels original and fresh.

Something else that strikes me about the recent Frankfurt deals is that the second one they talk about, Caz Tudor’s 2-book deal with Crown here in the US, is a debut author from the UK who won a contest for the first book, sponsored by Bonnier and called Twenty7, which offers aspiring writers professional feedback on their unpublished manuscripts. It’s really amazing to see that this freelance copyeditor is now going to be a major internationally published author with sales already in 25 territories.

For now at least, thrillers are still working in the market so polish up those thrillers and send them our way; we’d love to take a look.

It stands to reason that people would want to get to know the people of this amazing country that has become so popular, and what better way than through literature?

After taking a course in grad school covering translated literature, I’ve made it a point to read more translated works. I learned through the class how little I know about other cultures, and that the bulk of the books I was reading focused on American culture. Books are supposed to broaden your horizon, and yet, I was being fed the same stories over and over again, learning very little in comparison to when I read about different cultures. I found that through these completely foreign books, I could travel to another country from the comfort of my own home (and without the ridiculous flight costs). I developed a broader love for foreign rituals and traditions, discovered wars and conflicts I never knew existed, experienced new landscapes following characters that know them best, and most importantly, I became a better writer. Maybe even a better person.

So knowing that more Icelandic books will be translated thrills me. Reading an Icelandic book will take me one step closer to my dream vacation! Or at the very least, I may finally understand why Iceland is so cherished.

Nugget #1

A cover reveal! Because I know that’s a popular request, and I absolutely love this cover.

FATHER LINCOLN by Alan Manning

Nugget #2

Cause for concern?

I’m referring to an upcoming Authors Guild study on author income coming out this week that everyone in the industry should read, as it affects not only the livelihood of authors, but the wellbeing of the publishing industry as a whole. It’s hard not to wince at the idea of 56% of authors earning below the poverty line in 2014, and the always-contentious standard 25% e-book royalty rate and Amazon’s marketplace dominance are widely believed to be the cause of such an ugly statistic. BUT I would also like to stress that it’s too soon to jump to conclusions without seeing the whole report and being able to identify larger earnings trends. Do things need to change in order for midlist authors to be able to earn a decent living? Yes, almost definitely. And luckily technological innovation is giving us ever more inventive means of distribution, marketing, publicity, etc. Now we just need some sort of study to reveal some jarring statistics that shock us into a conversation about change. Oh wait…

Nugget #3

Gotta love the short fiction on Twitter! Something I alluded to in an earlier blog post.

I absolutely loved Jennifer Maloney’s piece in The Wall Street Journal, and in my opinion, I think she is right: the phone will drive future book sales—not the e-reader. With our increasingly mobile lifestyle, convenience and the ability to multitask are king, and our phones afford us both. I bought the iPhone 6 Plus, in part, so I could take advantage of the huge screen and read whenever I had a moment, which is exactly what I’ve done. My Kindle has been useless ever since (and to be honest, I think I lost it but don’t really care). Carrying around a phone and an e-reader seems counterproductive when just one can easily accomplish the task.

I’m very curious to see how publishers take advantage of this burgeoning trend to package books for the mobile phone. Amazon’s dominance in the book and e-book marketplace began, in part, because of the Kindle and the necessity for a complete book buying ecosystem to accompany the e-reader. Amazon’s Fire phone was a bust, so what does it mean for the retail giant as Apple, Google, and other players continue to flesh out their bookstores and build up lively reader communities for phone readers?

How do you read e-books? An e-reader? Tablet? Smartphone? Over someone else’s shoulder? Oh, and this drinkable book is amazing. Just another reason why print books are best.

Thrillers have always sold, but Gillian Flynn’s GONE GIRL hit the big screen last year and demand for the genre grew. THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN by Paula Hawkins enjoyed some serious pre-publication buzz and came out of the gates at a full sprint this January. It’s been at, or near, the top of all bestseller lists since. Renee Knight’s debut, DISCLAIMER, comes out in a week, and it has drawn comparisons to both GONE GIRL and THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN. And on the eve of the London Book Fair this year, a professor at Oberlin College saw his debut thriller go for 7 figures in a two-book deal!

So clearly thrillers are hot. But what makes them great? What differentiates a top tier thriller from an average one? What do you think? Sound off in the comments.

Oh, and if you think you’ve written a top tier thriller, do send it my way. I wouldn’t hate reading it…

But how long will the film industry feel the ripples of this splash? The book was/is an absolute phenomenon. James’s Fifty Shades series has sold an absurd amount of copies—both when it was self-published and after Random House picked it up. Imitators and parodies of the books soon appeared on shelves and e-bookstores. It’s paved the way for other fan fiction and other self-published authors to have a chance to land with a big publisher and/or movie studio.

So will we begin to see more erotica made into films? Given the success of Fifty Shades on opening weekend, it’d be easy to definitively answer yes. However, reading is an intrinsically private experience, which lends itself to fantasy. Watching explicit scenes on a big screen in a room full of people is a different matter entirely. Could Fifty Shades be an exception?

Your guess is as good as mine: What do you think?

P.S. Saw American Sniper this weekend. The movie ended, and everyone walked out silently, somberly. No one said a word. A completely full theater, and not one sound was made. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. What did you think of this movie/book? I’d like to hear your thoughts on this one, too.

Last Thursday, during an interview I was giving, I was asked about new trends in our business.  It is always so difficult to predict these but it does seem to me that there is definitely an increased interest in thrillers and mysteries lately.

Just look at the enormous success of GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn, IN THE WOODS by Tana French, Chelsea Cain’s HEART SICK and its sequels,  and our own MURDER AS A FINE ART.  What I’m looking for in this category is “fresh” and “new,” character driven material featuring strong writing and plenty of twists.  Definitely not “old fashioned” as so many of the scripts I see are.

So, this is a call for that kind of fiction.   I would be excited to consider what you have to offer, especially if you have already had success in the category even in the self-published arena.

With so much analysis aimed at those of us adults who read YA, we needed a hero, someone to stand up and say nay, it’s not weird. And then I came across this game changer from John Green. (Who else?) And now I’m not hesitant to admit it. I love reading YA. I want to shout it from a mountaintop.

Do you qualify as a YA addict? Gotta love the shout-outs to Richelle Mead and James Dashner…but don’t stop your YA reading list there! Many of our clients are doing awesome things in YA!

Now, to get to the point of this post, I’ve been searching for a series that can live up to the recent ending of, what is scientifically speaking, the best YA series of all time: The Wheel of Time. Any suggestions? Anyone? Bueller?

Lately, I’ve handed down some pretty harsh judgments. Not many covers have really called to me in recent months. In fact, the covers that catch my eye tend to be the least obnoxious, the ones with the simplest designs and quietest colors.

For instance, check out Boris Kachka’s HOTHOUSE.

I mean, c’mon. That’s a pretty cool cover. Nice color contrast and some fancy text. This book has absolutely everything going for it. Check out Jane’s post, and you’ll see what I mean.

What about this one?

Chad Harbach’s THE ART OF FIELDING has a pretty similar style to Kachka’s HOTHOUSE, and again, I love it. When in doubt, you can’t go wrong designing a book cover with some nice colors, and flowing script.

Once again, less is more:

One of my all-time favorite reads, too. But I’ll get to that in another blog.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: this guy just doesn’t like book covers with pictures. Wrong!

One chair leaning against another chair: that’s some real stuff. Simple yet beautiful.

And the minimalist cover to end all minimalist covers:

In case you missed it:

Who wouldn’t want to pick this book up and see what it’s about? ONE RED PAPERCLIP by Kyle MacDonald may just have the best cover of them all.

So I guess I’m a minimalist. (What would my parents think?) How about you guys? What are some of your favorite book covers?

There’s a really thought-provoking piece published this week in The Atlantic about books that are focused on women finding or yearning for love in fiction rather than other things in life like career or themselves. I think teens and younger adults are so focused on boys and love that it’s obvious to look to a love interest for drama, and I think there is a perception that most books need a “love interest” to work in the market.

I think the expansion of the children’s market, YA in particular, over the last few years have produced a great number of smart, thoughtful books with female protagonists grappling with real emotional issues other than love, including my own Brianna on the Brink by Nicole McInnes, which begins with a sexual liaison but evolves into so much more.  The author of The Atlantic piece, Kelsey McKinney, also points to a coming-of-age family drama with no love story that sounds terrific called Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. It was published decades ago.

Cheryl Klein over at Scholastic tweeted the piece and said that she too is looking for this kind of material. In her words: “I would LOVE more YA about young women finding careers, or their life’s work & own worth, exclusive of love interest. Tho I love love too. I was obsessed with my future as a teenager: what college to attend, what career would suit me. Not things I see a lot in mss.” It’s rare to find that kind of direct feedback from an editor who reads for a living and sees a lot of submissions. The message is that there is room in the market, which is the opposite of what agents and editors  are usually saying!

And I agree that there is room for growth here. As McKinney says in her smart piece: “I wanted to drive On the Road and stop off in small towns and drink more than was probably appropriate. I wanted to question who I was and be my own Catcher in the Rye. There are no Jack Kerouacs or Holden Caulfields for girls. Literary girls don’t take road-trips to find themselves; they take trips to find men.” What about a modern female-driven version of On the Road? I’d love to read that, and I’d love to sell it too and pass it down to my four daughters.

So, if any of you aspiring authors have books with strong female protagonists contemplating their futures in a unique and independent way, please send them along.