Traditional Publishing
- A bestselling SFF novelist explains his sales figures. John Scalzi shares his sales data and notes that the majority of his sales are backlist (titles older than one year). Read at his blog.
- The children’s category of STEM/STEAM continues to expand. Despite the decline in middle-grade fiction sales, STEAM titles, both fiction and nonfiction, appear to have grown in the market. Read Shannon Maughan in Publishers Weekly.
Romance
- Publishing is sexier than ever. A Welsh columnist concludes that the stigma around what women like to read has vanished, thanks to the reading tastes of younger generations. Read Zoe Williams in the Guardian.
- Another article that mentions “no shame” related to writing and reading romance: “We have this billion-dollar-a-year industry that is giving people hope and empathy and agency, and we shouldn’t be ashamed of that,” author Tessa Bailey says. Read Emily Leibert at The Cut.
- And there’s no shame in queer romance either. Author Casey McQuiston has published three queer romance novels, each a blockbuster. The goal? For “readers to luxuriate in decadent and unabashed queer joy.” Read Elizabeth A. Harris at the New York Times.
Book Marketing & Promotion
- New updated Amazon Ads course from Dave Chesson at Kindlepreneur. It’s a five-day course; you can browse all the modules before enrolling for free. Take a look.
- Why authors are often counseled to drum up pre-orders: Because they indicate sales momentum, and publishers can use strong pre-orders as a way to open up more opportunities for a book. Read Jeffrey Yamaguchi at Book Publishing Brick by Brick. And here is part two.
Culture & Politics
- Is the indie conservative publishing effort coming to an end? Some of the new houses and imprints announced in recent years haven’t performed well when compared to traditional publishing imprints. Read Max Tani at Semafor.
- An academic looks at the rise of Wattpad as part of the feminization of work in the publishing industry. It considers the “bibliotherapeutic” business model and what it might portend for the future of publishing. Read Sarah Brouillette at Post45.
- Was an author wrong to reveal her novel was based on an adulterous friend? A novelist writes an essay that reveals the origins of her novel’s characters and plot—and it gets back to the friend. The New York Times ethicist advises.
- Kaepernick’s AI-based comics venture met with disdain. Comics creators are not happy. Read Heidi MacDonald at The Beat.
AI
- Audible is testing AI-powered search. Maven allows users to search for audiobooks using natural-language queries. The new tool is currently in beta in the US. Read Ed Nawotka at Publishers Weekly.
- Scribd also adds AI functionality. The feature allows users to pull key information from documents on Scribd. On Everand (the book subscription side) AI can recommend books based on users’ interests. Read the press release.
- The US Copyright Office issues a report on AI and copyright. This is just part one and extends to 72 pages. It focuses on unauthorized digital replicas, such as deepfakes; the existing legal frameworks to protect against such replicas; and the need for federal legislation. One thing it explicitly rejects: the idea of any digital replica right that covers artistic style. Review.
- How is AI-driven search different from Google search? “Google was designed to send users elsewhere as fast as possible; ChatGPT is designed to generate responses as helpfully as possible. … Legacy search engines paid publishers exactly zero dollars, but in exchange, they funneled clicks and eyeballs that could be monetized downstream. Now, AI search is hoarding the user’s attention, but it might compensate by paying a dollar amount instead.” Read Charlie Guo at Artificial Ignorance.
- OpenAI has its own AI-authoring detection tool based on ChatGPT watermarking. But they haven’t deployed it because it’s not 100 percent accurate, only 99.9 percent accurate, among other issues. Read Samuel Axon at Ars Technica.
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.