Pop stars and Nobel Prize winners attract a lot of attention in the latter months of 2024. The publishing world also celebrates industry and sales figure successes, the end of the Wall Street Journal bestseller list era, and the Texas Book Festival.
To catch up on notable events from late summer, read Major Book Industry News for August & September 2024.
- Bloomsbury Sales Soar Thanks Mostly to Romantasy
- RELX Tops the List of the World’s Largest Publishers
- The 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature Goes to Han Kang
- Texas Book Festival Attracts Readers and Celebrities
- Taylor Swift Self-Publishes Her Bestselling Book
- The 2024 National Book Awards Was Held in November
Bloomsbury Sales Soar Thanks Mostly to Romantasy
The numbers released for the beginning of fiscal year 2025 show an extreme growth period for Bloomsbury Publishing, one of the world’s most prominent independent houses. While their continued control over the Harry Potter franchise and other great titles helps, the surge of interest in the romantasy genre and Sarah J. Maas books, in particular, really boosted their numbers.
Earnings rose 50% or £8.9 million over the same time period last year. Other things that fuel their continued success include sales of a Netflix adaptation release of The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu and their acquisition of Rowman & Littlefield academic group, an educational and scholarly publisher, earlier this year.
RELX Tops the List of the World’s Largest Publishers
Every year, Publisher’s Weekly and Rudigar Wischebart release a Top 10 and beyond ranking of international publishers based on sales figures for the year before. It came as no surprise to people in the industry that RELX Group maintained its top spot for 2024 with its $6.3 billion in sales. For those who are not deep into the sector’s business specifics, the name may be unrecognizable. They do not publish the hottest fiction or educational materials. Instead, this UK firm focuses on information-based and analytical data publications for business.
Indeed, most of the top 10 have very little influence on the book-buying public. However, there are some popular and recognizable names like Hachette and the eternally popular Harper Collins. Simon & Schuster comes in at 20 and Bloomsbury at 39.
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature Goes to Han Kang
Joining the ranks of only 18 women ever to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Han Kang also becomes the first South Korean to ever receive this high honor for writing. Her literary novel The Vegetarian has been lauded as a stunning example of poetic prose, conveying meaningful and deep emotion and confronting the human condition. She has published six other novels that received English translations and international attention.
Nobel Committee chairman Anders Olsson speaks of her obvious empathy for lives, especially those of vulnerable women who have had to endure historical traumatic experiences and personal issues at the same time.
This 50-year-old South Korean woman hails from an impressive writerly parentage. Her father, Han Seung-won, is also a prestigious novelist with several awards on his shelf, and her brothers follow a writerly path. Han Kang’s metaphors, unique perspective, and experimental style caught the attention of the Nobel Committee and led her to this impressive and historic win.
Texas Book Festival Attracts Readers and Celebrities
On November 16 and 17 in Austin, TX, The Texas Book Festival celebrated authors, the book industry at large, writing and reading in all its forms. It attracted around 40,000 guests interested in the 200+ authors and industry experts who gave presentations, held booths, or otherwise interacted with readers and hopefuls alike.
Popular authors included Mathew McConaughey, a true celebrity draw; Malcolm Gladwell, author of five bestsellers on the New York Times list; and Ernest Cline, who wrote Ready Player One and other popular novels and related screenplays.
One of the most interesting aspects of this year’s Texas festival was a new focus on bilingual programs for Spanish speakers, a huge population in the state and across the southwest, and a dedicated poetry tent, which offered a dozen sessions on everything from Texas itself to environmental concerns to war and more. Diversity grew along with the festival’s physical footprint as it spread over several streets along Congress Avenue.
Taylor Swift Self-Publishes Her Bestselling Book
The sales figures for pop star Taylor Swift’s new book, The Eras Tour Book, are as impressive as those for her many albums and songs. On the first two days of its November 29th release, it sold over 800,000 copies. Anyone could expect the book’s popularity, which offers 250+ pages of Taylor’s personal reflections and photos from the tour. However, the release is more interesting because she self-published it under “Taylor Swift Publications” instead of going with one of the big houses, as many celebrities have done before her.
Her business model throughout her storied career as a singer reflects the same can-do attitude and choices. She’s not interested in paying out or giving control to middlemen outside her own control. It’s a savvy business choice reflecting the growing acceptance and preference for self-published works. The book is only released through Target.
The 2024 National Book Awards Was Held in November
To round out a busy two months in the book and publishing world, the 75th annual National Book Awards took place in New York City. Hosted by bestselling author and actor Kate McKinnon, guests to this exclusive event were also entertained by Grammy Award winner Jon Batiste. However, the awards garner the most interest from those in the book world. There are five categories of main prizes and two special categories for publications from the past year.
Percival Everett won the fiction category for his novel James, a retold tale of Huckleberry Finn told from the escaped slave Jim’s perspective. Jason De Leon won the non-fiction category for Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling.
Other winners include Lena Khalaf Tuffaha for poetry, Yang Shuang-zi for translated literature, and Shifa Saltagi Safadi for young people’s literature. Barbara Kingsolver and W. Paul Coates were awarded lifetime achievement awards for their various contributions to literature and publishing.
