AI
- Are people outside of the tech industry taking AI seriously enough? Joshua Rothman writes, “It’s important to see that there is no longer any scenario in which AI fades into irrelevance. The question is really about degrees of technological acceleration.” Highly and urgently recommend. Read at the New Yorker.
- Inkitt makes use of AI to create content and stories based on writers’ ideas—but portrays the work as human created. A reporter at Bloomberg offers a deep dive on the startup Inkitt, owner of the serialized fiction app Galatea. Inkitt is funded and advised by some big figures in the industry, including the other Jane Friedman (former CEO of HarperCollins and Open Road Media). But Inkitt as a company has always felt suspect to me, with business practices that don’t align with industry norms—even startup publishing norms. Writers who agree to publish with Galatea give up considerable IP rights: Even if they don’t want to continue writing and publishing with the company, Inkitt can continue their series work with ghostwriters and generative AI. Founder and CEO Ali Albazaz says in the article, “You need to have a brand, you need to have a persona behind the book. However, that can be generated by AI. If you tell customers, ‘Hey, this is AI-generated,’ nobody’s going to read it. … You need to make it plausible that this is a human.” Read Vauhini Vara (subscription required).
- Did OpenAI train on material behind paywalls? O’Reilly Media believes it’s possible. They write, “Given that paywalled and copyrighted content is often higher quality and up-to-date (very recent), AI model developers and services will continue to need access to this proprietary data in order for their models to deliver relevant responses to users. This means that establishing commercial marketplaces for content used in AI training and inference is difficult to avoid eventually, despite current resistance from model developers.” Read at Asimov’s Addendum.
- Meanwhile, a group of lawyers suggests that harvesting for LLM training is fair use—even if the content has been pirated. As I keep emphasizing, all of these claims or arguments will be put to test in court. Keep an eye on the lawsuits that have been consolidated in New York. This will take time to play out. Read Ernesto Van der Sar at TorrentFreak.
- Guidance from the US Copyright Office on using AI-generated material in your work. Part 2 of its report on generative AI has been released and is consistent with their earlier guidance. “Questions of copyrightability and AI can be resolved pursuant to existing law, without the need for legislative change.” I wrote about the copyrightability of AI-generated work earlier this year based on the office’s guidance. Read Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware for a strong summary.
Legal
- File under: Serious lapse in judgment by literary agent. In 2023, New York Times bestselling author Gregg Jarrett was approached by Simon & Schuster to write a Trump-related current events book. But when S&S gave him a lowball advance offer, he walked away. Well, it turns out S&S really wanted to publish with or without Jarrett. So Jarrett’s agency suggested Jarrett’s research assistant serve as the author. But it seems this move happened behind Jarrett’s back. Now Jarrett is suing Simon & Schuster, his literary agent, and the research assistant. Here is the entirety of my commentary on the situation.
Amazon
- Amazon now offers AI-generated recaps of books. You know those recaps you watch before starting a new season of a show? Amazon is launching recaps for books to help Kindle readers remember or catch up on previous installments of a series. Amazon told TechCrunch, “We use technology, including GenAI and Amazon moderators, to create short recaps of books that accurately reflect book content.” Publishers Lunch asked Amazon how they approached acquiring rights to create AI-generated summaries; no response yet. Read Aisha Malik at TechCrunch.
Trends
- Graphic novels are one of the most significant growth areas in children’s publishing. The CEO of Scholastic recently said, “Our most recent event with Dav [Pilkey] in the UK was in a venue that seated 2,000 people. It was full. Of the children who were there, over 90 percent were boys.” Read Ed Nawotka in Publishers Weekly.
- There are at least 91 physical romance bookstores around the world. Most of them are in the United States. Read Lady Jane of Romancing the Data at Smart Bitches Trashy Books.
Culture & Politics
- Potential TikTok deal falls through due to tariffs. In retaliation against Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs, China has prevented a deal that would bring TikTok under US ownership. Trump has extended the deadline once again for a sale. Read Fatima Hussein, Sarah Parvini, and Aamer Madhani at the AP.
- Is it ethical for male authors to publish books under female names? Yes, says the NY Times Ethicist. Read Kwame Anthony Appiah at the New York Times Magazine (gift link).
- Substack finds a new, creative way to help writers monetize. Two authors on Substack—Ottessa Moshfegh and Eddie Huang—auctioned off personal items (e.g., toothbrush, bottle of soy sauce, laxatives) in-person in New York City to raise money. A Zoom writing therapy session with Moshfegh garnered $2,600. When asked where the money would go, Moshfegh said, “In our pockets.” Learn more about Substack’s debut auction: Read Laura Pitcher at Dazed.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.