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After a boom time for nonfiction books during the pandemic, sales have been flat or down for multiple years running. Even veteran nonfiction authors are having trouble landing book deals, and those who do are getting less money. For ambitious journalists, that’s bad news; writing a book has historically been one of the best ways to level up one’s career and supplement low newsroom salaries.
Anna Sproul-Latimer—a veteran agent who represents me, among many other journalists, and writes a terrific newsletter about the publishing industry—doesn’t dispute that things are rough out there. But nor does she buy the narrative, popularized by a viral Wall Street Journal article in May, that the industry is in an irreversible death spiral. There’s still an appetite for reported nonfiction books, she says; the problem is that too many people misunderstand who’s buying them and what that means for what writers should pitch.
I interviewed Sproul-Latimer about the reality of the publishing industry, how she’s seen things change over the course of her nearly twenty years as an agent, and how journalists should think about making book-writing part of their careers. Listen below, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Show notes:
Anna Sproul-Latimer, “Is Nonfiction Dead?” How to Glow in the Dark.
Anna Sproul-Latimer, “How I Evaluate Submissions,” How to Glow in the Dark.
Anna Sproul-Latimer, “A Note on Our Daddy Issues,” How to Glow in the Dark.
James B. Stewart, Follow the Story.
OK Go, “This Too Shall Pass.”
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