The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a place where writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. It’s a safe haven for you on your author journey and available at this website where you can also find resources, articles, and various other help.
The awesome co-hosts for the July 1, 2026 posting of the IWSG are Rebecca Douglass, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Cathrina Constantine, and Jacqui Murray!Don’t forget to go say hello as you’re hopping today.
July question: Is there anything you’d like to see changed, added, and/or rearranged about the book publishing industry?
Are there things I’d like to see changed? OH MY GOSH you bet your little boots there are things. SO many things. So many things, in fact, that the best way to answer this seems to be with a list. A bullet point listicle. Yes. Just roll with me here as I present:
SE’s Non-Exhaustive List of Rules for the Immediate Changing and Re-arranging of the Writing Industry*
*research based on zero industry experience whatsoever, but I do have a blog and probably stayed at a Holiday Inn at some point in my life, so definitely very trustworthy
- All stickers on covers to be made illegal, effective TODAY. Right now. I’m very serious about this. Sticker residue marring a beautiful cover is all bad things in this world and should be banned forever. Also, orcs should be allowed to eat the bones of whoever thought up putting stickers on covers, whoever approved putting stickers on book covers, and whoever distributes the stickers.
- E-readers for everyone. Cause we are living in a
materialsorry, digital world, and I am a digital reader girl. Also higher literacy rates can only be a good thing. Publishers, you exist to move books from writer to reader. Make this as easy as possible by ensuring an easy way to access said books is available at all times, everywhere.
- As a corollary to this: all E-readers should come equipped with a Library lending app. Standard. I’m just handing you ideas here, publishers. I should patent these.
- Richard Armitage, Hugh Jackman, Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, and Jude Law should be required to narrate one audiobook per year, and of course be generously compensated for this demand on their time. Have you heard any of them speak aloud? Swoon. PLEASE MAKE THIS HAPPEN.
- Indie bookstores are the future. I would like to see some sort of location app that pings to warn you whenever you’re close to one and gives you directions. Bookworms are simple creatures. We just want to know if we mistakenly passed the bookstore instead of going inside it as is proper and correct.
- ALL TRADE PAPERBACK SIZES TO BE STANDARDIZED. Stop changing your minds on paperback sizes, publishers! I don’t care if it saves you money! You don’t exist to save money, you exist to give us perfectly matched series!
- There is nothing worse than buying the fifth book in a series and finding out they’ve CHANGED the DIMENSIONS and now this book is thinner, or taller, or fatter, than the others in the series and GREAT, now I have to start over and buy them all again in the correct size or else spend the rest of my life twitching whenever I look at the mismatched series staggering across my shelf. STOP IT, PUBLISHERS.
- Publishers should immediately hire ownvoices sensitivity readers/consultants and pay them well, because they will save the publishers a huge amount of missteps, mistakes, lawsuits, and retractions in the long run. You can save money this way, publishers, instead of changing the paperback size halfway through a series. TAKE NOTES.
- Create and promote big name prizes and awards for Indie books. I’m talking Pulitzer or Booker status, but for self-published titles. They are a huge portion of the market share, they are here to stay, and they deserve some recognition. The awards ceremonies will likely be much more exciting and interesting than the traditional ones and I, for one, welcome our new confetti-blasting overlords. And, let’s be real here, we really need to get on top of the AI slop books trying to tsunami self-pub authors out of existence. Really celebrating and supporting the writers who have done the work is a good way to start doing that.
- Also a big name award for book cover design, because covers are seriously underrepresented in awards when they do most of the heavy lifting in selling the book. Caldecott, but for covers.
12 comments
Another great list of changes we writers need! What I appreciate here is your sugestions focus on ways that established publishers can make a difference. Thank you.
Only if they actually read lists like this and then do some of the actions, which is unlikely. I still feel like I should have asked for a consultant fee for these, LOL
Love your ideas!
Thank you! And happy IWSG day 🙂
Love your thoughtful and humorous post from beginning to end, SE! Happy IWSG Day!
Thanks, Louise! And happy IWSG day 🙂
Love these, especially “pings to warn you whenever you’re close to one [Indie bookstore] and gives you directions”.
I don’t even want to think about the amount of indie bookstores I may have walked past without knowing. I might start sobbing.
I fully support this narrative law of which you write; let’s vote that in right now! You’re a genius. Prizes specific to the self-published and indie publishers. Yes!
Great post.
I am biased, of course! But I really do feel like the awards and recognition for indie publishing lag far, far behind. Traditional publishing has some difficulty pivoting to meet changes in the industry, and this is just one example of how.
When a series changes sizes is annoying. What were they thinking?
I’ll go out on a limb and guess that they were thinking $$$