Books Written In-Game
I think there's some missed opportunities here with the books Sims are able to write themselves in The Sims 4. Why can't they be purchased by Sims in other Households in the same world? At bare minimum, these should be added to the books available to purchase in the bookcases. In a perfect world, I'd like to see Sims able to sell books in a plopsy situation, similar to buying books from online retailers, or to the e-book service that sounds like Kendall (Jenner)...
Maybe as a small business, Sims could stock their own bookstores with books they've written themselves or with books bought from other sims somehow. It would be cute to pick and choose which books you wanted in your store. (Examples include a super-girly romance bookstore and a super-creepy horror bookstore, or a small-on-space bookstore selling your top favorites of each genre.) There would need to be some way to display individual books without full bookshelves though, so customers could better see each item.
When I have tried to do this myself, I've struggled to find a way to display individual books. Some retail tables allow a few to stand on top, but so few that this is an impractical way to stock a whole store. The small square box wall shelves work to store individual books as well, but the books are positioned laying down instead of standing up where you could more clearly see the cover.
Speaking of covers, it would be nice if sims could further customize the books they create with a selection of covers they could choose from. Perhaps sims with high painting/photography skill could design their own book covers or use art they've painted/photographed from reference.
It could be interesting to see sims choose how to advertise their own indie-published book, or choose to publish through a larger publishing house with an advertising plan. Maybe sims could go on book tours to promote their newest release, hold signings in public venues, etc.
It would be so fun to see a book do really well and have the option to adapt it into a screenplay that would be made via sims in the acting career, as book-to-movie adaptations are growing increasingly popular in recent years. The demand is high, books are back. One of my favorite hockey teams recently had a theme-night at their arena with a fantasy romance author. The book was about dragons and had nothing to do with hockey, so it was a surreal matchup for me, but not an unwelcome one! Rappers are releasing songs about top romance novels now, too.
My last suggestion is keeping an in-game accessible list someplace of all the books my sim has written, because as of right now I've been keeping a list IRL in a notebook beside my computer to record the titles as I choose them, because I like to use the titles of my favorite real life books and once you've written so many it's hard to keep track. Once I sell them, I can only see the titles in the notifications that come each morning about royalities, and as I recall once you write so many it stops showing them all. The in-game notebook will only hold 250 characters (or so) of text, and there's not enough space to type them all there.
Thank you so much Sims-4 team for the writing award at the starlight accolades! I've really enjoyed going to the ceremonies (and even sometimes winning!) when my Sim has had a particularly popular release.
