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Post by andydecker on May 17, 2022 22:14:01 GMT
Just some random thoughts - Horror publishing seems to me to be very much on the up right now. I certainly see many more new horror books than I have the time or money to buy and read. Of course this says nothing about quality, just quantity. I have to say that I think people who claim they can't find any new horror to read aren't really looking for it. I wonder if horror's share of overall book sales is really any worse now than it was in whatever "golden age" you might want to claim existed in the past. A quick look at the stats available on the net would suggest that horror books make up about 10% of fiction sales. Romance, crime/thriller, SF/fantasy, and YA all have (much) bigger shares - but was it ever any different? Most people who read fiction don't read horror - I've known that since I was a kid. Does anyone know what sorts of numbers the likes of the Pan Horror anthologies sold in their heyday? I don't have current sales, but I think that they are much smaller today.
I don't believe that the likes of The Rats or Song of Kali wouldn't get published today. After all they do get republished, along with Lovecraft and whoever else. If concerns over "political correctness" is such a big force in publishing, why are they still in print? Controversy sells, and "extreme horror" is currently a thing if that's what you are in to. Horror films and TV series (on Netfix and the like) are very popular right now, and big money makers - and the people who watch these will surely also read horror books, if they read fiction at all. There is a lot of editing going on in reprints. Mostly it is nip and tuck, but it is done. Also you see a lot of those ridiculous disclaimers. But new fiction is a different beast. Movies used to give impulses to publishing. Just think of The Exorcist. But aside from a few comics I haven't seen a lot new novelizations of the countless horror series on tv. Maybe the next new big thing is just around the corner, the next zombie hype, I hope so. But the shelf-live of these popular tv-series seem to be ever shorter. Compared to Disney with its x Marvel Comics and even more Star Wars serials I guess Netflix is indeed innovative. But everything has become so fragmented.
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Post by Dr Strange on May 18, 2022 10:22:33 GMT
I don't have current sales, but I think that they are much smaller today. Seems nobody really knows, apart from the publishers and authors - and they're not telling. If you don't mind loads of stats (and an American slant) this is illuminating - linkMovies used to give impulses to publishing. Just think of The Exorcist. But aside from a few comics I haven't seen a lot new novelizations of the countless horror series on tv. I wasn't thinking about novelizations, but the two-way relationship between books and films where an already existing book is adapted into a film or TV show, which then boosts the sales of the book. The Exorcist is a good example, Jaws would be another. Maybe there is less of this happening now in the horror genre, but I am sure there are still some examples.
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Post by PeterC on May 18, 2022 10:43:10 GMT
Much latter-day horror - particularly cinema - has been politicised and sentimentalised to act as a vehicle for progessive causes like 'climate change'.
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Post by Dr Strange on May 18, 2022 10:48:45 GMT
Much latter-day horror - particularly cinema - has been politicised and sentimentalised to act as a vehicle for progessive causes like 'climate change'. Contemporary horror taps into current fears, as it always has.
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Post by humgoo on May 18, 2022 11:12:54 GMT
I wasn't thinking about novelizations, but the two-way relationship between books and films where an already existing book is adapted into a film or TV show, which then boosts the sales of the book. The Exorcist is a good example, Jaws would be another. Maybe there is less of this happening now in the horror genre, but I am sure there are still some examples. Behind Her Eyes and The Ritual come to mind ...
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Post by jamesdoig on May 18, 2022 21:36:20 GMT
I don't have current sales, but I think that they are much smaller today. Seems nobody really knows, apart from the publishers and authors - and they're not telling. If you don't mind loads of stats (and an American slant) this is illuminating - linkI don't know if Aus is at all representative of other countries, but the Australia Council ran a survey of reading habits last year: australiacouncil.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/australian-book-readers-24-05-592762e0c3ade-1.pdf Of course the categories don't make sense, like combining SF and fantasy, but it makes pretty depressing reading. Here's one table that leapt out: Adult Fiction Crime/mystery/thriller 32% Science fiction/fantasy 22% Contemporary/general fiction 14% Romance 7% Historical 6% Classics 6% Literary 3% Graphic novels, manga, comics 3% Horror 2% Erotica 2%
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Post by Dr Strange on May 18, 2022 22:43:25 GMT
Found some stats from an online survey carried out in the UK in March 2020 by Statista. Respondents (N = 67,367; all 16+ years old) were asked to identify all genres of fiction that they enjoyed reading:
Crime/Thrillers/Mystery = 33% Fantasy = 22% Action & Adventure = 20% Classic Novels = 19% Historical Fiction = 18% Comedy & Satire = 16% Science Fiction = 16% Contemporary Fiction = 16% Horror = 11% Modern Classics = 11% Romance = 11% Children's & YA Fiction = 7% Comics & Graphic Novels = 6% Westerns = 2% None (no fiction genre enjoyed) = 31%
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Post by andydecker on May 19, 2022 16:32:47 GMT
Adult Fiction Crime/mystery/thriller 32% Science fiction/fantasy 22% Contemporary/general fiction 14% Romance 7% Historical 6% Classics 6% Literary 3% Graphic novels, manga, comics 3% Horror 2% Erotica 2% Hm. Some of those numbers I believe, some not. Not that the whole thing is wrong, but that some people were not terribly honest or informed. Horror 2% : I think a lot of people who read horror think of it as sf/fantasy. Erotica 2% : I don't believe this for a second. 50 Shades of Grey, anybody?
Crime etc 32% ; this may be realistic. Considerung the virtual flood of new crimes novels every quarter, crime is read a lot.
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Post by helrunar on May 19, 2022 17:26:11 GMT
I know nothing about any of it, but I was surprised at Romance garnering only 11 percent of the reported statistics from two countries. I've heard from various people that "romance" is a huge market.
I loved the artwork of so many of the horror paperbacks of the 1960s and 1970s. That is really the only comment I have to make on this thread. And I loved the old "pocketbook" format of paperbacks in those years. They slip so easily into one's reticule or even, in some instances, into a coat pocket. When the larger sized pbs began to surface in the Eighties I really was less than thrilled because in this instance, more was less.
I agree with the comment from Andreas that the art of the cover design has gone out the window in the mass market, although the small press pubs (often going OP immediately upon issue; I still don't understand why anyone thinks this is a good idea) show that there are plenty of artists around who are more than able to provide beautiful, compelling work for horror and fantasy covers.
H.
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Post by Dr Strange on May 19, 2022 19:43:22 GMT
James's Australian stats show "genres ranked as no. 1 favourite", so each repondent could only pick one genre (and so the total adds up to 100%, allowing for rounding). The UK figures show responses to a question asking about all genres enjoyed, so people could pick as many as they liked. I think the latter probably gives a more accurate picture in terms of relative standing of the different genres (e.g. in the Australian survey "horror" might have been second favourite for a lot of people who put "crime" or "fantasy" first, but there was no way for them to indicate this).
I was also surprised that "romance" came out so low in the UK survey, but these numbers don't tell us how many books people are reading - e.g. it could be that the 11% of people who enjoy reading romance actually read (and buy) many more of their favourite genre than the people who prefer other genres. That put me in mind of all those Mills & Boons I have seen in charity shops that look like they could probably be read from start to finish in a few hours, compared to the brick-sized books often turned out SF and fantasy authors. Google turns up various writing blogs and websites that provide "typical" (or "expected" - by publishers and readers) word counts for novels in different genres, and these do show some pretty big differences - e.g. a typical romance novel seems to be about 65,000-80,000 words, whereas the typical thriller is 90,000 to 100,000 words, and the typical SF or fantasy novel is more like 100,000-120,000 words. (Presumably this is also reflected to some extent in cover prices.) So the average romance fan may be buying and reading twice as many books in their favourite genre than the average SF fan.
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Post by helrunar on May 19, 2022 19:56:36 GMT
Interesting analysis, Dr Strange. That makes those figures seem much more comprehensible.
H.
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