The New York Times is adding 12 new charts to their usual bestselling chart lineup. The new lists include travel, humor, family, relationships, animals, politics, Manga, graphic novels, food, fitness, humor, business, celebrities, science, sports, and religion, spirituality and faith.

The new layouts will appear in different formats and on different publication schedules in print and digital. The amount of space for print editorial content including reviews, essays and features will be expanded as part of the move.

This is great news for readers, authors and publishers. After such a long and severe protraction in the amount of space given to books of all kinds, the Times is leading the way with a new Renaissance in publishing.

Ten titles classified as YA and middle grade books have been shortlisted for the National Book Award.

This blog has discussed the movement among adults to read YA literature even when they don’t have young adults in the household. That has made the category very popular, and one of the strongest in children’s publishing.

Recently, though, a new trend has developed with middle grade works, those targeting preteens. Adults are reading middle grade books for their own pleasure, whether they have kids of that age in their household or not.

All of this means that middle grade is poised to be the next big breakout category in publishing. It already ranks strongly in terms of profitability but is behind both YA and children’s picture books in terms of annual finances. That’s about to change. If you have been working on middle grade books or have an idea for one, now’s the time to start sending it out.

I was provided with an ARC by the publisher, and have been captivated ever since.

Will Starling is set in London in 1816, a city supercharged on the one hand by scientific advances yet hammered by the recently ended Napoleonic War. Will, an ex-soldier, moves in the seedy neighborhoods trying to make a living working for a surgeon and educating himself through his experiences and any book he can lay his hands on.

The story is one of a love that was lost because it was never truly given, the Doomsday Men who rob graves to feed the rapacious needs of the surgical colleges for cadavers, and a woman sacrificed to one surgeon’s desire for fame.

You won’t find much of the pretty parlors and ladies that populate so many other books. This takes readers into the filthy streets and derelict houses for an unflinching study of the realities most people lived at that time. The language is accurate to the times without becoming overwhelming for modern readers, and everything about the settings enhances the dark intentions of so many people…not the least of which reside in the heart of a surgeon who reaps other people’s pain for his own gain.

Once you read Will Starling, you’ll look for other books by Ian Weir. I certainly will.

Polis Books is a digital-first company that blends traditional publishing experience and media techniques. When it launched, it focused on crime, SF/fantasy, and romance/erotica digital editions. The company is adding children’s and young adult to its offerings, and is expanding into print editions for all categories. This is a great opportunity to submit to a publisher that is moving into new areas with your YA or children’s books.

Because the publishing industry took two big hits over the past decade, the discussion of advances has included historical data. The same is true for a full understanding of advances for nonfiction books.

In 2010, during the economic downturn and digital disruption, advances for nonfiction books were about $40,000 to $100,000 for established authors. Those offered digital-only deals saw advances around $5,000, and debut nonfiction authors saw averages from all publishers (not just the Big Five) between $10,000 and $50,000 as an average.

In 2013, only 6% of nonfiction books received advances higher than $100,000. In 2012, the average was less than $80,000.

Why such low numbers? Nonfiction is bought in much higher numbers than fiction because the number of books sold is generally higher. However, most titles don’t sell very well. You could say the same about fiction but the idea here is that readers generally are more open to trying out nonfiction because it offers advice and insight into topics of interest. Fiction is more esoteric, and therefore a bigger risk for readers….and publishers. So there’s a numbers game at play: publish many nonfiction titles and see what sticks. That translates to lower advances in general.

As noted in earlier posts in this series on author advances, in 2008 the publishing industry was impacted by the general economic downturn. At that time, advances for adult novels were averaging $120,000 for first-time authors. By 2011, the average had dropped to $60,000.

The industry began to rebound that same year. These days, advances are generally higher. Across all categories, the average is about $75,000 to $100,000.

General fiction tends to be the strongest. This average ranges from $50,000 to $120,000 for debut authors.

For genres, it’s a bit different. The sci-fi/fantasy, romance, and crime (mystery) segments see about $40,000 to $80,000 on average. Thrillers perform better and net about $75,000 to $175,000 to $250,000 for a first book.

Digital-only deals perform the worst, with most coming in below $50,000 and right around $20,000 to $25,000.

Ah, New Adult. The category that has been something of a lost soul yet is finding readers from YA through adult.

Since it’s still such a foundling in the U.S. publishing market, information is scarce. But generally you can consider the typical range to be between $20,000 and $100,000…as good as YA and standard adult novels across the industry (that is, not solely from the Big Five, which tend to pay more).

See Friday’s post about advances for YA authors and tomorrow’s post on adult authors to better understand where New Adult fits and its average advance.

This is part of a series on advances for authors. Today we’ll look at YA or young adult books.

The average advance for an author of a YA title in 2011 was $120,000. The averages were derived from information gathered on books released by the then Big Six, now the Big Five, the top publishers in the U.S. and the world.

This trend is very interesting considering the history of publishing in general. In 2003, the industry hit a strong downturn. In 2008, there was another downturn due to the general economic deterioration in the U.S. in general. The 2008 advances in this category were at $120,000 then and held steady through the worst of the economic troubles. In most other categories, advances dropped.

In 2013, advances had not seen much movement from this figure. However, when you add in advances for YA authors from a variety of publishers (not just the Big Five), the average is about $75,000. Still a healthy and respectable advance for most authors.

These figures are for single-book deals, where the work is not part of a series. Multi-book deals industry wide garner advances of about $64,000 per book…so if two books are bought, the average is about $126,000; for three books, it is $190,000.

Typical royalty rates match those seen for adult projects, ranging between 7% and 12.5% depending on whether the offering is a first book, previous sales record, and how the break points are manipulated (the rise in royalties paid as the number of books sold rises).

Fully transformed website for my novels and nonfiction books here. Watch videos, listen to radio shows, and get the all-important FREE SAMPLE CHAPTERS!!

Remember that I can set up a website just like this for your books. We can keep it simple, expand beyond what this one offers, or find the exact balance to present your books in an appealing way. Connect with readers by laying out what you write, why you write, and how you approach the creative process. Websites work for authors!

The Laine Cunningham Long Form Fiction contest selected the winners for first, second and third place as well as honorable mention. Then came the big surprise: two of the entries that won were submitted without contact information for the authors. One doesn’t even have a name!

We now have two winners, for second and third place, who remain unknown. An email address for one has not received a response. The other entry is the nameless one…no name, no email, no phone number or address.

The titles of the winning entries are, for third place, Good Enough Mother by Lora Hilty and, for second place, Rosa. The name on this entry was handwritten in very cramped writing. Our best guess at the author’s name is either Barbara de la Cuesta or Barbara de la Cueta.

The prizes that await are $250 for third place and $500 for second place. That’s a total of $750 that any writer would be glad to receive for pens, printer paper, computer devices, or more contest entries. The $1,000 first place award went to Love’s Wilderness by Enid Harlow, who unfortunately hung up on the administrator when he called to tell her she had won because she thought he was trying to sell her a magazine subscription. Honorable Mention went to The Rummy Club by Anoop Ahuja Judge, who received the news with much more joy than the first place winner.

We are asking for your help finding these two unknown authors. Reblog this, tweet it, post it on Facebook, and talk to your writer’s groups. If you know the authors (or are one of the unknowns), please contact The Blotter Literary Magazine at BlotterRag.com.

Also note that this will be the last year of the contest unless we can find another sponsor. Interested individuals can connect with Garrison Somers of The Blotter for more information.

I just had to share this, especially for the stunning final photos:

Dear Publishers, Dear Booksellers: A Mohawk Indian Explains Why You Shouldn’t Work with Amazon.

An open letter to Amazon.

Dear Amazon:

Not too long ago, you sent a “white paper” to the Justice Department about potential price-fixing among publishers. The term white paper is in quotes here because, well, it wasn’t really a white paper, it was an accusation intended to cause trouble. And it did. The ability of publishers to stand against your profit-grubbing, market-destroying tactics was prevented by law, which means that folks like me, regular authors who have already been struggling to eek some kind of living out of our passion, this thing called writing, was further degraded all so readers in theory could spend a few pennies less on books. But as any stock trader can tell you, pennies add up and, well, seeing as how margins are often cut by cutting the salaries of content providers, authors, I am now less able to buy food or pay rent. Oh, but you’re commanding an even bigger market share. Excuse me for wanting to buy pasta over Ramen noodles a few times a week. Glad you’re able to afford dead snails and big globs of fish eggs in your shiny corporate suites. So sorry.

But wait. See, there’s something else now. You just sent another “white paper” to the Justice Department, which has stirred officials to approach three of the Big Five publishers and ask about pricing discussions that might have happened recently. Not that I think it has anything to do with the recent blow-up between you and Hachette wherein you are not only taking even more money away from authors by refusing to sell Hachette’s books (so Ramen apparently will now become a luxury leaving writers with, well, let’s see, maybe grass clippings to eat? Would that be cheap enough?), you have also taken away readers’ ability to find and buy books.

Oh, you say it’s for the customer’s own good? Let’s look at that, shall we? Hmmm. A single company that already commands 60% of the retail market for print and electronic books claims that it wants to make books even cheaper. So let’s say that happens, and in the meantime market share for Amazon rises to 70%. (Or, in your dreams, a whopping 85%. Whatever you want, OK? Let’s keep it civil, shall we?)

Then what? What prevents you from raising the price of books again…because of course at that point Barnes & Noble will no longer be viable and their stores will litter the American landscape with echoing, gargantuan empty storefronts that mirror the echoing, gargantuan empty storefronts that used to be Borders’ locations. And don’t forget all the tiny, echoing empty storefronts of indie bookstores. Broken dreams, all.

Oh, sorry. Dreams don’t apply to your algorithms, nor do they make a dent in the yawing hunger that drives these underhanded notes (see “white paper” above) passed like high-school gossip slips under the desk from a snickering Amazon to the Justice Department. So the dreams of authors who only want to pay their rent so they can continue, against all odds, to carve out a few hours a day to put their dreamlike stories down on paper and feed them to readers who, similarly passionate about dreams, engage in the books for a few precious hours of release from their lives, to learn through the process of connecting with characters about who they really are and who they want to become, to expand their minds and their souls in ways that they wouldn’t be able to achieve in life yet who find a pathway through literature high and low. So sorry, I forgot that the only dreams that count are those that involve market domination and future profit.

So, let’s put all that aside and return to this second “white paper.” It’s a joke, right? You’re joking? You don’t really think that what’s happening here is the preservation of American culture and preservation of pathways into the cultures of other nations through literature? You don’t really think that eliminating the cost of two lattes a week in order to buy a book is cheap enough (assuming that you are not an author and therefore only rarely able to afford a single latte a month)?

Are you seriously comparing books to adult diapers and sticky tape? Most diapers, after all, absorb at the same rate. Most sticky tape sticks well enough. They are interchangeable.

Books are not. Neither are the authors who write them. Nor are the readers who engage with them.

Wake up, Amazon. You’ve been snickering into your sleeve for far too long. The publishers, the authors, and the public that is your client base don’t share your sense of humor. Be happy with the dead snails and heaps of fish eggs you already own, and keep your hands off my Ramen. Please.

Thanks for listening.