8 Fun Trends in Reading and Publishing

Our culture is changing, and it’s exciting and fascinating to watch.

In literature, what used to be taboo is now trending. According to Broadly, gay characters are gaining popularity in teen fiction. According to Broadly, it started in 2003 with David Levithan’s Boy Meets Boy novel, though in the beginning it was still considered controversial. Now, according to author Simon Curtis:

“[Teenagers] expect [that] the book better be fucking [diverse]. It shouldn’t be just straight white kids like how it has been for the past hundreds of years. They are hungry for other stuff.”

Another new development is how self-published books are getting more mainstream (not too surprising, since there were 727,000 ISBNs were registered for self-published works, according to Publishing Perspectives). Bustle wrote a list of 10 indie YA novels people should read, which includes Ice Massacre by Tiana Warner, a book about a woman warrior fighting mermaids (whose childhood friend is a mermaid), Awoken by Sarah Noffke, a book about time traveling in your sleep, and The Magic Shop by Justin Swapp, a book about a shop that’s a front for a magical community.

There’s also the “girl” trend. FiveThirtyEight explored how the word “girl” keeps appearing in bestseller titles, and about 1 percent of fiction titles will have the word “girl” in the title this year. It’s unclear why, though part of it may be due to the success of a few books with the word “girl” in the title, such as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl, and The Girl on the Train.

Fan fiction is also growing. According to Slate, “Harry Potter launched a phenomenon that’s seldom acknowledged and barely understood, but that’s as powerful and lasting as the books themselves: the first massive internet-born fandom.” People were able to connect internationally, and form large communities that in some cases have become associates of studios, such as Warner Bros.

Dystopian novels are considered evergreen, according to Publishing Perspectives. This could be because the real world seems bleak (though some good/interesting things have come out of bad news, such as a pop-up print newspaper finding success in Britain after Brexit, according to the New York Times).

The Internet is helping out print books, according to the New York Times. In Michigan, the independent bookstore Brilliant Books uses social media to deliver great customer service, and attracts a lot of book buyers.

On the flip side, ebooks are being tailored to people’s commutes. In New York, a platform called Subway Reads delivers shorts and excerpts to commuters for free and lets them choose what to read based on the length of their time on the subway, according to the New York Times.

Last, the publishing industry is getting more transparent. According to DBW, Inkitt has posted its author contract online to create a greater level of transparency in the publishing process for aspiring authors.”

What trends have you noticed? Please share in the comments!