I just read an article full of predictions for the next year. The author states that the pandemic has been good for book sales over the last nearly two years. I’d say that’s my experience as well. Then the article goes on to talk about publishing trends. Nothing too surprising, I thought, but I didn’t know the Simon & Schuster sale has stalled.

I would have liked to see more on profit sharing, something I’d never heard of until this past year. Now I’m in four anthologies from four different publishers using that structure. My personal opinion is I think it’s a positive trend.

Authors need to be published and publishing costs money. On top of that, there is no guarantee a publisher will recoup the cost of producing a book. A royalty split may seem like a poor deal at first, but if the book does well the author stands to make much more over the lifetime of sales. Another benefit is the authors have more of a stake to see the book do well. Multiple authors pushing one book means everyone involved gets more exposure from cross pollinating. It also takes some of the financial burden off the publisher so they can publish more. And… back to where we started: Authors need to be published and publishing costs money.

My prediction for 2022 is that we will see many more publishers adopt the royalty share structure. Companies like Pubshare (formerly RabbitBundle) even take care of the book keeping and payments for a share. But we will find out if I’m right in 2023… and hopefully by then the pandemic will be a memory.

Read more of what’s predicted in the publishing industry for 2022 with “Book Publishing Predictions & Trends For 2022” by BookMarketingBuzzBlog.

See that article here.

By Angela Yuriko Smith

Angela Yuriko Smith is a third-generation Ryukyuan-American, award-winning poet, author, and publisher with 20+ years in newspapers. Publisher of Space & Time magazine (est. 1966), two-time Bram Stoker Awards® Winner, and HWA Mentor of the Year, she shares Authortunities, a free weekly calendar of author opportunities at authortunities.substack.com.

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