THE TOP PUBLISHING TRENDS OF 2024

What to Look Out for in 2024

The growth of eBooks and digital marketplaces had already taken many readers into the digital age, and with self-publishing and hybrid publishing, much of the publishing process had increasingly moved into cyberspace as well, long before the pandemic. So you might expect that the publishing industry was better prepared than others to deal with its effects—and in some ways at least, that’s been true. These shifts tell us a few things about what to expect in 2024.

Beyond the pandemic, other large-scale changes to the publishing industry are also still underway, and those shifts are expected to continue into 2024. As we discussed last year, self-publishing authors are increasingly struggling to stand out in a crowded marketplace. New technologies like AI, machine learning, and cross-promotional marketing, as well as collaborative approaches and platform-building, are key trends for authors working to stand out.

The Current State
of Self-Publishing

• Self-publishing will continue to benefit from the focus on the digital marketplace, where authors face a much more level playing field competing with traditional publishers and their distribution networks.


• Don’t mistake this for the end of print books, which have been eclipsed by eBooks. Print sales remain key, and in fact, were higher in 2020 than during the same period of 2019. People are still reading in print, and now more than ever, they can get their hands on books without going to a bookstore.


• In this online context, publishers are increasingly finding success selling directly to consumers, and in doing so, avoiding the hefty fees taken by retailers—these fees total at least 40 percent, and often more. These direct-to-consumer sales are adding to the pressure on bookstores, and opening new doors for authors and publishers.


• As a result, prices for digital ads have skyrocketed, as competition to reach readers heats up. It’s yet another reason to build an effective platform—your followers can buy your book directly from you or your publisher’s website.

The Importance of Promotion

• It’s important to keep platform building in mind, because the cost of ads will almost always exceed the amount of money an author will earn from book sales stemming directly from the ad. You won’t, for example, earn three dollars for every dollar spent on ads. Instead, ads are a longer-term investment in building your platform as an author—which, once established, will benefit sales of this book as well as future projects.


• If you’re starting from scratch and think you’ve written something with a lot of potential, it’s often worth it to seek out an experienced public relations firm to launch a campaign. Ultimately, promotion and marketing are about connections—connections to audiences and connections to the right media outlets and platforms for those audiences. Instead of building this network from scratch, authors can benefit from working with an established PR firm. However, these firms often only take on books they believe are marketable—so keep this in mind from the earliest stages of writing and editing.

• AI can also detect writing style, and indicate what other authors and books a manuscript’s writing style most closely resembles—this goes deeper than genre—to help determine that readers of another author’s style may enjoy this book as well, allowing much more precise audience targeting. Finding these “comparable titles” early in the publishing process allows authors to understand who their audience is, and in turn, how to reach them. Readers often gravitate more toward a certain writing style rather than specific categories or content, and this can be harder for a human editor to quantify.


• AI can also detect language use, including whether UK, US, or Australian English is used, and then compare the book to others in that language and subject. Izzard’s AI will also soon be able to recommend optimal pricing and predict sales.


• AI even has the potential to create audio narration for audiobooks. It may not offer the quality of working with a seasoned narrator, but for many authors the substantially lower cost will open the door to creating an audiobook when it may not have been an option otherwise.


• AI analysis can track writing quality itself, with metrics such as readability; how easy a text is to read, ranging from “difficult” on one end of the spectrum, such as a Harvard Law Review article, to the kind of simple language expected in a children’s book for the youngest age groups. This readability can be tracked and charted throughout the text of a manuscript, flagging problem areas for an editor to focus on, and ensuring that readability is consistently on target for a book’s intended audience.


• Before investing in your book, it’s always wise to get initial feedback on whether it’s ready for the investment. AI analysis is quick, objective, and provides a great supplement for assessments by experienced editors. Automation in publishing goes beyond manuscript analysis; it is also being used in areas like royalty tracking, which provides much more detailed information on where sales are strongest—for example, showing which formats and retailers are selling most effectively. Working with a self-publishing company that takes advantage of, and even innovates, this growing technology space will really help authors stand out in the crowded marketplace.

Be on Alert for Plagiarism

• More and more self-publishing authors have found their work plagiarized in recent years, and there’s no question this trend will continue into 2023. With anyone able to publish a book on platforms like Amazon, plagiarists will either copy a book word for word or tweak it just enough to make the plagiarism harder to detect, and then publish it under their name—often marketing it in a particularly profitable category.

• There are many steps you can take to protect your book, and in 2023 you’ll most likely want to do everything possible.

• Register your copyright, use copyright notices, look into Digital Rights Management for your eBook.

• Use tools like Google Alerts to get notifications of where your text is showing up online—this will also help you track down piracy.

• You can search for short, unique phrases from your book—try picking something toward the end of your book, since many plagiarists will work harder making changes to the beginning portion of a book. You can also use these passages to set up your Google Alerts.

• Returning to the theme of automation, a good collaborative publisher will use technology behind the scenes in ways that help the author create a quality book and market it to the right audience. You may not always know that the technology is there, streamlining the publishing process—but it’s worth asking ahead of time how a publisher uses technology to provide solutions.


• Authors can’t do everything; even a perfectly written manuscript needs a second pair of eyes for an edit. A few weeks of Google research by authors can’t compare to decades of experience working on bestsellers, and AI adds an additional layer of precise and objective analysis. This external, expert perspective is how traditional publishers consistently get results. Self-publishing authors are realizing they can walk those same well-traveled paths to success, but without having to jump through hoops to have a small chance at a traditional publishing deal.