UK Paperback!

Small enough to slip into your bag

Hello, friends. It feels almost like spring here in DC, although I think that’s just a minor reprieve. Surely, winter will come back again for at least a few weeks. Is it warming up where you are?

The Bloomsbury paperback of Young Queens is out this week! The book still has beautiful color plates, but it is much smaller than the hardback, and light. It could easily fit into a shoulder bag (hint, hint). Bloomsbury injected a bit of color into this version, a little spring palette just in time for the actual season.

Technically, the launch date is February 29th, but that is a bit arbitrary since many bookstores will put copies out as soon as they receive their delivery. Just today, I saw on Instagram that Waterstones Piccadilly posted about Young Queens and a slate of other books. So clearly, it’s already out!

Right on top of the pile. Thanks, Waterstones Piccadilly!

I had an immense amount of fun thinking through the details of the paperback cover with the editorial team. We played a little with layout and made some minor changes to the portraits, since at first the picture of Catherine de’ Medici was close but not quite right. And, you might notice that the subtitle has changed. What used to be Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power is now Young Queens: The Intertwined Lives of Catherine de’ Medici, Elisabeth de Valois, and Mary, Queen of Scots.

Why the change? One reason is that the intertwining of their lives is a major feature of the story that did not get much billing in the hardback. It’s an intriguing part of the history, one that attracted me to these women in the first place, and we thought we’d play it up.

The other reason for the subtitle change is far more pedestrian, but just as important (perhaps even more important?): SEO. Search engine optimization. Amazon, Google, etc., won’t necessarily pick up a book title unless you announce exactly what — or who — it’s about right in the title. When the hardback was launched, for example, it took a long time for Amazon to pull up Young Queens for anyone who typed in “Catherine de’ Medici,” “Elisabeth de Valois,” or “Mary, Queen of Scots.” If a reader had heard of a book, for instance, but couldn’t remember the exactly title of Young Queens (and that happens a lot, especially to me); if they knew just enough to type in “Catherine de’ Medici” in Amazon’s search bar, they wouldn’t necessarily have found the book.

Interesting, no? And slightly alarming. SEO is having a major impact on book titles, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s having an impact on what’s getting written. All authors want their books to be found, of course, and so it’s hard not to keep SEO in mind, even as you are conceiving of a book topic, let alone the title.

I can’t help but wonder, too, whether SEO isn’t contributing to the narrowing of readerships. It is extremely old news that the internet has changed reading patterns and practices; in many ways, it’s actually encouraged readers to read more. But people don’t wander into bookstores as often as they used to, at least not into the big box stores. Or if they do go in, they tend to know exactly what they want. They don’t browse as much as they used to. They don’t necessarily look at a cover, read a blurb, peruse the jacket copy and say, “hey, this looks interesting, I think I’ll buy it!”

There is even less browsing online. If you buy on Amazon, you’ve noticed that feature at the bottom of the page that tells you “people who bought this book also bought X,Y,Z.” That is useful, but it’s still not quite the same as browsing. You’re still directed by what other people bought or, rather, by an Amazon algorithm that tells you what other people bought. And, quite often, those other books are on the same topic, same field, same genre as the book you wanted to buy in the first place.

People like what they like, they know what they like, and most people fall back on what they know they like, especially when it involves paying for something. And so — dare I say it — people aren’t reading quite as widely as they used to. The internet has helped give us more to read, but it has also narrowed what we read. This is my impression. Does this feel true to you?

SEO is clearly here to stay. But I wonder in what ways SEO could be rejiggered to encourage people to cast a wider net in their reading practices. Maybe they’ll discover they liked something they hadn’t expected. Maybe they’ll discover something new.

Maybe reading just a little more widely could help break down the siloing that seems to be the epidemic of our modern world.

A few other quick bits of news. I’ll be at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on April 20, on the campus of the University of Southern California. My fingers are crossed for sunny, spring weather in my hometown! If you happen to be at the festival, please stop by.

I was invited to participate in the festival because Young Queens is a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography, which is wonderfully exciting. A few weeks ago, I also learned that YQ has been long listed for the inaugural Women’s Prize in Non-Fiction in the UK. It is thrilling to be listed for both awards. I feel so honored and grateful — grateful to my editors for their patient and expert shepherding, and to the judges of the prize committees.

More next month with the official arrival of spring. I am looking forward to more blooms in the garden in March and, at the end of the month, a spring break trip to New York where my family and I will take in a few musicals. How about you? Any plans for spring?

As always, thanks for reading.