IP Picks🔎 James Bond as a WWII-era Teenage French Aristocrat
➕ Sapphic vampires, mysterious dollhouses and some encouraging post-Frankfurt numbers
Welcome to The Optionist. Thanks for reading along.
Coming on the heels of the Frankfurt Book Fair, which wrapped on Sunday, there's an interesting — and very encouraging — report (paywalled) on the current state of book deals from Publishers Marketplace, which tracks this stuff better than just about anyone in the business.
For me, the main takeaway is that the overall number of book deals for the third quarter of 2024 was up a solid 8.7 percent over last year. In fiction, the big winners were adult, thrillers, sci-fi/fantasy and debuts of any kind. It's also interesting to note that the gains were skewed toward big deals (six figures and up). Meanwhile, nonfiction deals were up more than 22 percent, though the big gainers there were in memoir, self-help, parenting and lifestyle (less adaptable stuff).
In terms of already-published books, sales were up only slightly — adult fiction and YA saw the biggest boosts — but revenue grew 6.25 percent due to higher prices (sound familiar, Hollywood peeps?). Also worth noting: Audiobook revenue has been a robust growth area. There's a generational shift going on here, I think. Books remain important to people, but reading as a way of consuming them may be less so.
Book deals are a leading indicator of the state of the publishing business. They suggest that book execs are looking a couple years down the road and are feeling bullish about the health of publishing (and to some extent the overall economy). I suspect this bodes well for Hollywood. I know there are big differences between these industries (and their economics) right now. Still, at their core, they’re both consumer entertainment businesses — and legacy ones to boot. So if you're looking for signs that we've turned a corner from the toughest times in the business, this is a positive one.
Also, the fact that six-figure deals and debuts made big gains underscores something that I’ve written about before: There are opportunities for new writers, and the rewards for established authors are strong. Yet it’s harder than ever to get into that latter group — or even carve out the kind of career that used to be referred to as being a “midlist author,” which is to say someone with steady-but-not-superstar sales. To me, a vibrant midlist is crucial for publishing, important for authors who need time to grow their audiences and, by extension, important for Hollywood in terms of having a decent supply of IP.
A couple of other fun nuggets worth reading:
An amateur historian discovered the forgotten Bram Stoker ghost story “Gibbet Hill,” which was first published in 1890, the year he started work on Dracula. It’s pretty good! It’s in the public domain if anyone is curious about the rights . . . and if you’re looking for classic gothic horror in the PD, consider the book that came out the same year as Dracula — and outsold it!
Kailyn Lowry first gained attention on MTV’s Teen Mom 2. Now she’s one of the biggest book influencers on social media and her Barely Famous podcast is an important stop for authors on the promotion circuit, per this WSJ profile. Fascinating. (Paywalled)
Now, on to this week’s picks, which include a vampire tale to go along with that recent Bram Stoker find. The full lineup:
A comedy of errors set at a destination wedding on a private island in Maine
A mystery about a woman’s search for the secret behind a pair of elaborate dollhouses
A fact-based drama about the forgotten killing of five civil rights activists by white supremacists — and one city’s cover-up of its involvement
A Gothic vampire horror story that leans into its sapphic themes
A true-life thriller about a teenage French count’s exploits as a WWII commando behind enemy lines
