The Changing Publishing Landscape: An Insider's Perspective

Like all forms of media, publishing must change with the times. Today, things are moving faster than ever. The “Big 5” may soon become the “Big 4” and mid-sized independent presses are being bought up at record speed. While it may be easy for writers to self-publish, winning that golden ticket to traditional publishing requires knowing what traditional publishing houses are looking, and that is growing ever more elusive. Even in the best of circumstances, the over-crowded market makes getting readers’ attention difficult. How can an aspiring or established author navigate these ever-shifting obstacles?

Amy Gash, Executive Editor at Algonquin Books, will share her perspectives from more than 30 years in publishing. She will speak about the changes she’s seen, especially in the last several years, describe what acquisitions editors are looking for lately in the realms of fiction, narrative nonfiction and memoir, and share what she sees on the horizon.

Amy Gash is an Executive Editor in the New York office of Algonquin Books. Among the books she has edited are Ross Gay’s bestselling essay collection The Book of Delights, National Medal of Arts recipient Julia Alvarez’s Afterlife, nurse and New York Times opinion writer Theresa Brown’s The Shift, Richard Louv’s international blockbuster Last Child in the Woods, and Bonnie Tsui’s Why We Swim. She has recently acquired books as varied as a memoir from a labor organizer in Arizona to a Pakistani immigrant’s love of food and her struggles with weight, from a feminist history of pockets to a zoologist’s exploration of the hearts of animals, from a personal quest to understand the Nigerian Civil War to a true crime story about one of the most notorious jewelry thieves in the world.

THIS EVENT WILL BE HELD VIRTUALLY ON ZOOM.