While the increase in print book sales is encouraging, it doesn’t necessarily correlate to less time spent on our phones. However, I’m encouraged by the fact that online platforms, while still inescapable, are being used less as a complete replacement for analog media and human connection and more as a way to discover new stories and build real-life communities around those stories.
On the marketing and publicity side, book subscriptions can increase book sales as well as visibility. Readers get to discover books and genres they normally wouldn’t pick up at the bookstore. In return, authors, especially new and up-and-coming authors, are able to get their books into the hands of their target audience.
A lot of kids love comics, even the ones who don’t think of themselves as readers. I’ve seen students absolutely inhale beat-up library copies of Bone, Smile, or Dragonball Z in their free time while they simultaneously struggled to even comprehend the texts I assigned in class, let alone be interested in or enjoy them. Stories told in visuals, with minimal written language, pull in readers who otherwise have a hard time reading.
Reading the classics seems like a great idea until you hit a passage that is particularly hard to decipher. Many classics are published using old translations, meaning that the writing can feel unfamiliar and almost foreign. Now, imagine that, like me, you’re dyslexic, or have a learning disability that makes reading more challenging.
Just how accurate would it be to claim that there are now more publishing opportunities for people of color and other marginalized persons if only one side of the coin is polished? The publishing industry doesn’t just need to diversify its writers, but the people who help and support those writers too.
With the rise of the internet and social media, combined with the ever-shifting digital landscape, it can be hard to sit down in the peace and quiet and actually get some reading done. Often, it feels like a chore to read, especially with the allure of content platforms like Instagram or TikTok singing a siren song, begging to steal you away from your books. But in recent years, an alternative way to read has come into the forefront of the public eye: audiobooks.
I am in a program where the classroom is an example of a trade press, and I assist in the book publishing process. Yet, when I get home, I can’t read the printed books. This is the reality of being visually impaired at Ooligan Press.
If you have ADHD, you’ve heard it before. Just use a timer. Make detailed lists. Try this app. As if the problem is not knowing these tools exist, rather than how to adapt them for ADHD. Building a sustainable editing practice isn’t about finding the right system. It’s about building one around how your brain actually works.
These days, the printed word faces a six-headed hydra. Artificial intelligence subsists off of human ingenuity and threatens education, entertainment, and the publishing sector.
Most readers don’t have a favorite imprint—most probably couldn’t even name more than a handful. But it’s possible you could have a favorite—or a few favorites—without even realizing it.