Pandemic Effects on Publishing SF

[Elckerlyc]

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...

From the Dutch News server:
Ever since the start of the pandemic online sales have boomed, in nearly every sector of the market. Food (pizzas) not the least among them.
All these purchases and pizza deliveries need package material (read cartons + paper.) In increasing quantities.
Raw materials get scarcer and lead-times increase.
It has now come to the point that publishers are struggling to get enough printing paper to keep their presses running. Apparently, carton boxes get priority over paper and toilet-paper get priority over printing paper.
Where is this world going too?

 

[millymollymo]

Don't forget to include Libraries in your study, @Serendipity - locally I know that library enrolment increased substantially, and some have shifted to Libby (Google-fired) to meet demand. I'd suggest reaching out to your local for actual figures of genre, which they'll be able to give.
Audiobooks have had a huge take up too.
Other things that have altered:

Publishers have shifted to more online based events to maintain awareness, for example Tor holding regular author-to-blogger events.
Authors offering more online courses/workshops.
Indie shops are holding more online events in association with smaller presses and local authors.
Writer events and workshops have become more accessible due to being forced to embrace digital only approaches.
Agents have been inundated with quality Manuscripts.
There is some evidence that debut authors are finding it harder to land trad places as readers seek to stay with what they know.
People want comfort reads - (see the explosion of crime fiction)

 

[Montero]

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...

From the Dutch News server:
Ever since the start of the pandemic online sales have boomed, in nearly every sector of the market. Food (pizzas) not the least among them.
All these purchases and pizza deliveries need package material (read cartons + paper.) In increasing quantities.
Raw materials get scarcer and lead-times increase.
It has now come to the point that publishers are struggling to get enough printing paper to keep their presses running. Apparently, carton boxes get priority over paper and toilet-paper get priority over printing paper.
Where is this world going too?

There was a "thing" on the news that I can't now find - cardboard box manufacturers are struggling in the UK, because their system works on regularly collecting the big heaps of cardboard boxes from shops and recycling them into the next boxes. Home customers mostly put cardboard boxes into their garage to use again one day, instead of putting them out for recycling, so there is a shortage of raw materials for cardboard boxes. (We had a purge when we heard that and put out about a dozen.)

 

[Guanazee]

I know in the US children's market there has been an unprecedented flow of new authors and new agents. It seems many people with extra time on their hands think it's easy to write and publish a children's book, so aspiring writers flocked to that genre. It's made it even more difficult to manuscripts through the process to overwhelmed editors who now have to weed through novice writers and novice agents.