Can The Industry Survive On Superheroes? Retailers, Publishers Talk Genre Diversity (Newsorama)

But decades later, the majority of comic books shipped each week to comic book stores are still the ones starring Marvel and DC heroes. And now that the film industry seems to be in the midst of a love affair with superheroes, the strength of the superhero genre doesn’t appear to be waning.

But is that a good thing? Can the direct market survive if it continues to cater to mostly superhero fans? Or is the success of The Walking Dead in recent years a step in the right direction toward a necessarily diversity of genres?

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One Woman’s Quest To Bring A Bookstore To The Bronx Highlights Publishing’s Diversity Problem (Forbes)

When Noëlle Santos first heard that the only general interest bookstore in the Bronx would be closing its doors, she had no idea she would be embarking on a quest to not only start a new business, but an initiative to help change resident’s lives.

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In Africa, locally produced comic books are starting to catch on (Marketplace.org)

They look just as slick as any American comic, but these stories aren’t an easy sell to traditional African publishers. Many artists self-publish runs of 200 to 500 copies, but they still need a place to sell them. Emmanuel Nyakwada, an artist who goes by the pen name Point Blank Evumbi, created a delivery service to distribute his comics.

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Regional Booksellers List: Dystopian Novels On Most (Northwest Public Radio)

At Yakima’s Inklings Book Shop, manager Emily Ring says Margaret Atwood’s books The Handmaid’s Tale and her MaddAddam trilogy are selling well. Ring thinks it’s because Hulu is releasing a The Handmaid’s Tale series in April. HBO was developing The MaddAddam trilogy as a series, but has since killed the project. Other books selling well: Night by Elie Weisel, along with Cracking the SAT.

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Trump’s America Book Club: the dystopian novels, satire and right-wing tracts everyone’s reading to understand US leader (South China Morning Post)

Donald Trump is making America read again. It started during the campaign, when J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy became the go-to text explaining Trump’s appeal among low-income white voters. It continued in January, when a public row between Trump and Democratic lawmaker John Lewis boosted sales of Lewis’ trilogy March and memoir Walking With the Wind.

And then came the dystopian-fiction craze, when Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway immortalised herself in America’s political lexicon by describing White House falsehoods as “alternative facts” – and George Orwell’s 1984 shot to the top of Amazon’s sales ranking.