Literary editors look to future after lockdown cutbacks

Book review coverage has been hit by the pandemic, with reduced coverage in several key publications over the past year, but some literary editors predict that pages will return this year, while many are making the most of digital opportunities.

The Daily Telegraph has seen reductions since the onset of Covid-19, with fewer reviews in the Saturday Review section, and the regular genre fiction and children’s book review columns discontinued for the past year. Literary editor Iona McLaren is once again the sole member of staff on the books team. Meanwhile, after a successful few years, the Times Literary Supplement is understood to have lost a number of staff members last year as a result of budget cuts made across the company. The Guardian temporarily reduced books coverage and will package its Review into a new Saturday magazine as well as a planned refresh of its online coverage.

Martin Doyle, literary editor of the Irish Times, lost book review pages as a result of Covid. He told The Bookseller: “Shortly after lockdown last year, with its inevitable knock-on effect on consumer advertising, the book review section in the Irish Times was reduced from 10 pages to eight as part of a number of cost savings, which included the temporary merger of our Saturday culture section, Ticket, with the magazine. Initially, at least, this posed less of a challenge as the publication of many titles was postponed. As the publishing industry regrouped, however, and the publishing schedule got back to normal, this has made decision-making over what to review tougher. One response was to introduce a new monthly column focused on works in translation so as to cover more ground, and similarly an increase in the number of reviews covering more than one title.

“Our feature coverage has, however, held its own, I think, benefiting from the fact that while other cultural sectors suffered more, publishers continued to launch books. We also thought laterally, running features such as one on neglected Irish literary treasures as chosen by authors.” Doyle predicted that the books section will return to “full strength” this summer as lockdown eases.

Robbie Millen (pictured right), literary editor of the Times, experienced a similar fluctuation in pages. “We started lockdown with nine pages of book reviews. That was reduced to seven during the spring last year but in October, the editor John Witherow thought that was too few, and we gained a further three pages. So the Times now has 10 pages, more than when I started as literary editor in 2013, which bucks the depressing trend of shrinking books coverage.”

Millen got creative with his coverage in lockdown: “There have been two innovations in the books pages. Firstly, the introduction of a monthly science fiction round-up, written by the mighty Simon Ings. The second innovation, a re-reading slot in which a writer enthused about a favourite book which was the child of necessity: how do you fill books pages when so few books are being published? I intend to keep it. Digitally, Times+ launched a monthly online book club interview with top authors, such as Hilary Mantel and Marian Keyes.”

The Financial Times also experienced a temporary cut-back and so invested more in digital innovation. Literary editor Frederick Studemann said: "We reduced the pages temporarily last year for a few months but they are now pretty much back to what they were. What had a bigger impact at the time was that we had to freeze our freelance budgets so we had to commission reviews entirely in-house with colleagues doing it in their free time. This meant some books sadly could not be reviewed as they might have been otherwise, but our freelance budget is now back.

"It has been more about engaging digitally with readers, not only in the UK but also with many of our readers around the world. It has been interesting to think about how to publish stories digitally before putting them in the paper. We could also try new digital initiatives such as when our crime reviewer spent an hour online discussing the best crime novels to read now, which worked well. We’ll keep things like this."

Studemann said that he was struggling to fit the books in his property and is keen to start using the FT office again. "We will start going back to the office soon in Bracken House [in the City of London] so I’m asking publicists to start sending review copies there from 1st May."

At the Guardian, Liese Spencer, joint head of books/editor of Review, said: "In terms of Review, we down-paged quite significantly in April 2020 but then up-paged again and have stayed at the same size magazine (28pp) since then. Elsewhere in print, online and in Guardian Live events we've produced a similar quantity of coverage to usual. Review is closing later this year, at which point our print coverage will be migrating to the culture section of the new Saturday magazine, where it will get comparable space to what we currently have in Review, if not more. Details of the new magazine will be announced in a few months' time, when we will also be looking to refresh and relaunch some of our online books coverage."

The Evening Standard and Stylist are both publications which have traditionally relied on commuters and so were forced to adapt fast. Katie Law, books editor at the Standard, revealed how the coverage had changed. “Our coverage has been affected, mainly because the Standard appeals to commuters and they have been decimated by the pandemic. So the physical newspaper is much smaller than it was, so now the strategy is digital-first. We’ve moved most the books coverage to online-only so we’ve been working with a slightly different formula. We used to publish a page of book reviews every Thursday, but now we publish a book review almost every day so it gives us more flexibility.

“We’ve seen that most people are reading reviews on their mobile phone and there are particular subjects which do particularly well online that we wouldn't have thought of before, such as books on mental health, so we may be repackaging how we present the reviews such as ‘10 of the best books on stress’ because you know what people are searching for. Though we still need to balance that with literary integrity.

"There’s also a question of manpower. There were a lot of redundancies at the Standard in October. At the moment I usually publish four book reviews a week and we have certain new ideas which we’re excited about and we can have the click-through to buy, which we’re doing with Bookshop.org. We’re keeping this [online] format for the moment."

Francesca Brown, contributing books editor to Stylist, revealed how the publication had adapted its offering to online: “Books content in the magazine has been affected by a lack of print issue, which we’re currently producing monthly, with other weekly issues on the Stylist app. Moving onto the app platform means that a regular franchise such as ‘Book Wars’ doesn't work as well and so is on hold for the moment, but books remain pivotal in other areas. We always cover big titles of the week in Stylist and authors and new releases play a huge role in our features section.

“Daily email Stylist Loves regularly features must-read book picks, stylist.co.uk produces regular book news and release round-ups and, crucially, we’re also launching the online Stylist Literary Festival in June because of the huge appetite for books from Stylist’s audience. We’re supporting it with a big cover feature in our 31st May issue.”

Many publications attempted to pivot coverage to be more relevant and helpful during lockdown. Sunday Times literary editor Andrew Holgate (pictured left) said that the section tried to help the industry “by creating a list, which we updated regularly and republished during the second lockdown, of places where people could still buy books”.

He revealed how the mass rescheduling of publication dates led to a drought of titles before an influx. “During the first lockdown, we were faced with a significant lack of books during April and May, and then a crush of titles in June, which was a problem for coverage. We compensated by creating tailored books content... But it was tricky trying to give a fair hearing to the rush of books then suddenly published in June.”

The Press Association adopted a similar approach to tailoring books content beyond the publishing schedule to explore more classic reads. Hannah Stephenson, books editor at PA Media, said: “Our weekly reviews of ‘new books to read in lockdown’ have done really well for our digital customers over the year. We have also been producing round-ups of classic must-reads, which have been very popular. They have a bit of longevity and suggest that people have been using lockdown to catch up on the classics they have always meant to read.”

Freelances reported reduced space for much of lockdown. "The climate has definitely changed for books coverage, and for freelance book reviewers, in recent years,” said a freelance journalist, who preferred to remain anonymous. “Some of this predates the pandemic. I think the general trend, as print struggles, is for a decrease in advertising and therefore in budget and in page space, and arts coverage is often first for the chop." They noted how the Independent previously ran in-depth online reviews and now only features a monthly round-up.

“This has been exacerbated, I think, by the pandemic and further loss of ad revenue and therefore also cuts to freelance budget and number of pages in arts and books sections," the freelance added. "As editors have had to make tough calls over what to prioritise, I've had reviews cut in length, or dropped completely, both things which could also happen in pre-pandemic times, but which seem to be more frequent over the last year, at least in my experience writing for one Sunday newspaper. I've heard of sections shrinking, while the Mail on Sunday's Event magazine has folded altogether, with arts coverage being absorbed into the main paper."

Journalist and author Catherine Taylor (pictured right), experienced a loss of income last spring, like many freelances, due to reduced coverage and events. “Many book pages used in-house staff rather than freelances to write reviews, which led to a six-month hiatus for me from one paper for which I review regularly, and an end to being commissioned from another," she told The Bookseller. "The downturn has meant that there have also been redundancies on the books pages of the Guardian and at the TLS, losing specialist knowledge and experience.”

However, she believes that the emergency funding also boosted some smaller publications. “Some smaller and larger orginasations have benefited from cultural recovery and emergency funding. Brixton Review of Books, the non-profit literary quarterly I co-run, obtained some Arts Council funding last summer, so that we could continue to print four issues a year."

Despite the challenges of lockdown, the situation enabled many publicists more flair for ingenuity around digital innovation. Helen McCusker, book publicist and co-founder of Bookollective, told The Bookseller: “Publicists had to get creative with their promotional activities, turning their focus to virtual events, book blog tours and online media. A positive has been that a captive audience of book buyers have been at home, often online, ready to interact and purchase new titles. As with any challenge, it’s what you make of it. There have been promotional opportunities available for those choosing to embrace change and be creative.”

Book-related podcasts have also enjoyed a boom, with people having more time to listen while working from home, including Daisy Buchanan's "Your Booked", while Graham Norton has recently launched his own podcast on books with Audible. Alice Azania-Jarvis, who hosts “The Sunday Salon”, said: “From a podcasting perspective it has been a year of growth. I’ve seen a jump in listeners, which isn’t really surprising given how much time we’ve been spending alone.”