To piggy back off the prediction of full cast audiobooks— A trend I’ve noticed recently is duet narration audiobooks (where the female/male narrators narrate all of a character’s dialogue throughout the book instead of switching chapters with the POV switch). Problematic Summer Romance and Say You’ll Remember Me are the two I’ve noticed this year.
Problematic Summer Romance being notable because the MMC didn’t have his own POV chapters- the whole book is from the FMC POV but we got to hear an Irish male voice narrate all his dialogue (a real treat).
As someone who does 95% of my reading via audiobook, this is a very exciting trend for me.
This was such an informative piece. I’m so glad I found your newsletter!
Confession: I didn’t even know BookThreads was a thing. I just knew BookTok and Insta felt wildly beyond me, and I’ve been feeling this crushing pressure to figure them out as a debut author and newer writer.
But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if I should just ignore the noise and focus on what I am good at—writing spicy romance for midlife readers—and trust that the right people (who do understand TikTok, etc.) will eventually find me.
Thanks for the mention! I admit that one reason I skipped the book show was that I didn't want to hear depressing talk about publishing. Agree about the 3-5k followers. This is also true of podcasts — you can't just look at the big ones. I book a ton of smaller ones.
Great post as usual! I’ve read Kathleen’s piece (actually I listened to it after discovering Substack has an audio feature!) and it definitely captured what I’ve been feeling about Threads as well. There are a few bright spots of Canadiana and nostalgia on there for me, but generally the book content has been getting way more negative and toxic.
I’m very curious about the next romance sport—my research shows hockey, football, and baseball are the most popular right now. There’s been several F1/race car books recently, I’ve heard mention of a few tennis books too (maybe the Challengers effect?).
Vancouver just got a Din Tai Fung and I’m so excited to try it!! (I’ve been to a location in Seattle once).
To piggy back off the prediction of full cast audiobooks— A trend I’ve noticed recently is duet narration audiobooks (where the female/male narrators narrate all of a character’s dialogue throughout the book instead of switching chapters with the POV switch). Problematic Summer Romance and Say You’ll Remember Me are the two I’ve noticed this year.
Problematic Summer Romance being notable because the MMC didn’t have his own POV chapters- the whole book is from the FMC POV but we got to hear an Irish male voice narrate all his dialogue (a real treat).
As someone who does 95% of my reading via audiobook, this is a very exciting trend for me.
I was at the Bindery party on Tues night—let me know if you’d like to be connected to my contact there!
yes please, thanks Leigh!
This was such an informative piece. I’m so glad I found your newsletter!
Confession: I didn’t even know BookThreads was a thing. I just knew BookTok and Insta felt wildly beyond me, and I’ve been feeling this crushing pressure to figure them out as a debut author and newer writer.
But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if I should just ignore the noise and focus on what I am good at—writing spicy romance for midlife readers—and trust that the right people (who do understand TikTok, etc.) will eventually find me.
Thanks for the mention! I admit that one reason I skipped the book show was that I didn't want to hear depressing talk about publishing. Agree about the 3-5k followers. This is also true of podcasts — you can't just look at the big ones. I book a ton of smaller ones.
Great post as usual! I’ve read Kathleen’s piece (actually I listened to it after discovering Substack has an audio feature!) and it definitely captured what I’ve been feeling about Threads as well. There are a few bright spots of Canadiana and nostalgia on there for me, but generally the book content has been getting way more negative and toxic.
I’m very curious about the next romance sport—my research shows hockey, football, and baseball are the most popular right now. There’s been several F1/race car books recently, I’ve heard mention of a few tennis books too (maybe the Challengers effect?).
Vancouver just got a Din Tai Fung and I’m so excited to try it!! (I’ve been to a location in Seattle once).