The popularity of fanfiction has led to an increasing awareness of how fanfics are organized among a wide variety of readers, many of whom take their habits back and forth between fanwork sites and officially published books. The question for booksellers that follows is when and how to use fanfiction tags for marketing purposes.
In the spring of 2025, there was a gap in our publication schedule while a project team waited to acquire their next manuscript. We took this opportunity to prioritize backlist marketing. . . . Quickly we realized there was room to improve our overall backlist marketing system.
Design feedback can be tricky for the inexperienced. Even if you’ve been giving design feedback for years, it can be hard to express the feelings you have about a piece without discouraging your colleagues—or to put into words intuitive or feeling-based critique.
At Ooligan Press, we take branding seriously. We want everything we post to feel connected to the book, from the fonts we use to the colors that match the cover art. Having a consistent visual identity is key for helping readers easily recognize the book when they see it.
“In most of our lives, for most of our days—especially here in the rainy, gray Pacific Northwest—we are surrounded by neutral shades. These are important. They make up most of our color landscape. So why shouldn’t they make up more of our compositions as designers?”
It’s not always clear how manuscripts move between departments in the publishing industry. Who decides when they’re ready to go and what information gets exchanged? This process may vary from press to press depending on the size of the departments, but here at Ooligan, there’s a standardized process to transfer the manuscript from acquisitions to copyeditor and the project manager who will take the manuscript throughout the rest of the publishing process.
A well-crafted sales video doesn’t just tell potential readers what the story is about, it makes them feel the story before they’ve even turned the first page and helps them get established with the author on a personal level. This is a step-by-step guide on how to create a compelling video to capture readers early on.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been present in our lives for the past few years now. You can find it on social media, writing tools, and even in search engines. Its ever-looming presence begs the question: are we going to lose our jobs to AI?
One of the most important parts of the acquisitions process for a publisher is determining if a manuscript they are considering is likely to sell enough copies to make financial sense to publish. One of the ways publishers can determine audience interest is finding comparative titles, or comp titles. While a winning set of comp titles isn’t the secret to getting a book deal, understanding their function in publishing and having a few solid options will help any author seeking publication position their book effectively.
Tabling at an event comes with all sorts of factors to consider, many that you need to get a head start on. Working with a new venue, however, is a whole different ball game. In starting fresh somewhere new, there’s only so much you can figure out in advance.