Book Publishing Trends 2024: 3 Predictions from a Professional Book Editor
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The book publishing industry has been on a roller coaster ride for the past few years. For any author who's interested in getting published in the near future, it helps to stay on top of what's going on in the publishing industry. This is doubly important if your intention is to traditionally publish, especially at a Big Five publishing house.
Now that we’re in the new year, I want to share some of my personal predictions for book publishing trends for 2024. These are my thoughts on where the industry can go in the next year and certain things that we should all be looking out for. What's on the top of everyone's minds in the publishing industry, and how is it going to impact authors?
1. We’ll See More Debates About AI
The first major prediction I have for book publishing trends in 2024 is that we're going to have more debates about AI. This comes as a shocker to no one. When it comes to the intersection of AI and book publishing, we still have way more questions than answers at this point. The US Copyright Office has said that for a work to be copyrighted, it has to have human authorship. But beyond that, there is still a lot of gray area and muddy waters that need to be figured out.
Publishers really need to get ahead of this and figure out what role, if any, AI has in the book publishing space. As a traditionally old-fashioned industry full of people who value human composition, many in the publishing industry reject the use of AI and claim that all books should be produced solely by human authors. There are some, however, who feel that it's inevitable that AI is going to become a part of every aspect of our lives, book publishing included. So, we need to figure out how and if AI models are going to contribute to our literary world and what that looks like.
Here are some specific questions that I've seen discussed among publishing and writing communities and predict will continue to be top of mind in 2024:
Will publishers ban authors from using generative AI to compose any parts of their book? If so, how would they enforce this?
If, on the other hand, they deem that generative AI is allowed to be used, is that going to be disclosed to readers?
There has been a big debate over AI models being trained on copyrighted material, including books. Will there be measures put in place to compensate authors if their work is used in training language models?
It's inevitable that AI is going to come up more and more in the intersection of publishing, and I've even seen a few literary agents add a question in their query forms asking if AI has been used to generate any part of the author's work. So, if you're looking to go the traditional publishing route, you are likely going to have a conversation about AI with your agent and/or publisher.
2. Agents Will Be More Selective Than Ever
My next prediction for publishing trends in 2024 is that literary agents will be even more selective. Traditional publishing has always been highly competitive, so that's not news. But the truth is that now might be the toughest time ever to query literary agents. That's because the book publishing industry has seen a lot of personnel shifts in the past three years, specifically that has resulted in both editors at publishing houses and literary agents being overworked and overwhelmed.
Many of the major publishing houses have gone through rounds of layoffs, and many of these impact the editorial teams. And with leaner teams means more work on everyone, and that situation can trickle down and affect how much work an editor can give a manuscript prior to publication. Now more than ever, literary agents are looking to sell manuscripts to publishing houses that are pretty close to being publishable. One that needs a ton of work and rounds and rounds of revision is likely going to be a harder sell.
So, in this landscape where publishing professionals are totally slammed on both sides of the industry, it's likely that we're going to see literary agents continue to be even more selective with the projects that they decide to take on. They're each going to have their own standard for what they're looking for, but above all else, it's likely that they're going to be looking for very high-quality manuscripts.
I anticipate that this competitive publishing landscape could have some downstream effects in authors looking to alternative publishing methods via small presses or indie presses that don't require agents to submit to. And we might see more and more hybrid authors who self-publish and traditionally publish or publish with a smaller press and then work with a Big Five house. In this landscape, though, I also am fearful that there may also be more scams specifically targeting authors who are querying and are looking for a publisher.
So, if you're a querying author, what should you do, knowing that the publishing industry seems to always be on the brink of its next crisis? I don't think the traditional publishing industry is going anywhere, and I do think the Big Five are going to continue to dominate the market and put out many of the most well-known best-selling books. And I do think, genuinely, that there is still room for debut authors to break in. If traditional publishing is your goal, my advice would be to do everything in your power to make sure that your manuscript is as strong as it can possibly be prior to sending it out to agents. That's going to give you the best shot.
3. Readers Will Engage with Books in New Ways
My final predicted book publishing trend for 2024 is that readers are going to find new ways to engage with books. In the past, readers would discover books either by browsing their local bookstore or by going to the library. And while that physical component is still certainly a part of the publishing industry, we're seeing more and more sales dominated by e-commerce.
I personally feel that some of the traditional advertising and publishing methods, like paid ads or reviews in publications, even best-seller lists, are maybe not as impactful as some other methods of getting a book in reader hands. They're not quite pulling the weight that they used to in the discoverability landscape. For example, this year we saw so many books rise to prominence, even best-seller status, via BookTok alone. And that goes for books published by Big Five houses and self-published books. Organized book clubs like Read with Jenna or Reese's Book Club are also driving tons of sales.
Authors are also exploring ways of connecting with their readers via content over the long term, not just when their new book is about to launch. They're starting newsletters and podcasts, many of which have a lot of success. I think what this trend all boils down to is readers getting book recommendations and making their book purchasing decisions based more on trust over sheer serendipity at a bookstore or clever ads. Readers want book recommendations from someone whose opinion matters to them, someone that they feel connected to, even if they've never met them.
So, if you are trying to engage with readers or figure out how to best publicize your book, I recommend thinking about how you can put yourself in front of your readers in this trustworthy way and establish this type of relationship.
I'm excited to see how everything shakes out and discover if these book publishing trend predictions for 2024 end up coming true or not.
Thanks so much for reading, and happy writing!