Links of Interest: August 2, 2023

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Traditional Publishing

  • The Guardian celebrates independent presses in the UK. Independent presses often pick up riskier work that’s been rejected by the biggest houses. While that’s to be celebrated, this article doesn’t discuss that such houses can close unexpectedly or be acquired and absorbed into the conglomerates. Read Anthony Cummins in the Guardian.
  • Private equity firm KKR has sold RBmedia. RBmedia is a global audiobook publisher; it’s been reported that the purchase price was over $1 billion, paid by another investment firm. Rumor has it that KKR wants to purchase Simon & Schuster. Read Jim Milliot in Publishers Weekly.
  • Canadian publisher Kenneth Whyte pushes back against pessimism in the publishing industry. Specifically, he takes issue with a recent New York Times op-ed that argued Cormac McCarthy wouldn’t be able to break out in today’s environment. Read at SHuSH.
  • Publishing didn’t use to be better. Pair Whyte’s article with publisher Anne Trubek’s argument that publishing was not better in some distant past, especially for authors. Read at Notes from a Small Press.
  • Or maybe publishing is broken after all. “Book publishing is the only industry I can think of where, if something isn’t selling, more of it is done. Publisher’s lists expand; I understand why—they must keep building their backlist. That said, tightening lists won’t ruin the industry, especially when there isn’t a marketing and publicity budget for every title. The onus can’t continue to be on authors to cover every aspect of promotion simply because a bigger book is eating up their publisher’s budget.” Read Kathleen Schmidt at Publishing Confidential.
  • What really happened at Indigo? “While Barnes & Noble has been pulling all the crap from its shelves and doubling down on proper bookselling, Indigo has reduced books to an all-time low of 51.9 percent of company revenues; general merchandise has climbed to a high of 44.1 percent. Indigo remains the anti-Daunt, and it is clear from the annual report that these trends will continue.” Read Kenneth Whyte at SHuSH.

Trends

  • Music memoir is booming. “We’re now nearly 70 years away from the birth of rock ’n’ roll, 30 from the zenith of the 1990s, which means the surviving musicians from the first half-century of rock history are of an age where one naturally takes stock and regards one’s youth both with fondness and the kind of perspective that’s perhaps necessary to write something worthwhile, or at least something that isn’t going to cripple you with embarrassment in years to come.” Read Alexis Petridis in the Guardian.

Creator Economy

  • Medium changes its payout model yet again. But does anyone really care? Medium continues to pivot in its efforts to survive. Its new payment system for writers takes a variety of engagement signals into account to avoid incentivizing clickbait. It’s also trying to do away with AI-generated content. Read the announcement.
  • Learn about book clubs on Substack: Substack speaks to people who use Substack to run book clubs. Read.
  • You can now make text-only posts on TikTok. Writers, rejoice? Read Mia Sato at the Verge.

AI

  • How much is AI different from other automation that’s occurred in the last 200 years? This thoughtful article by Benedict Evans has been making the rounds in everyone’s newsletters for good reason. Explore “The Lump of Labour Fallacy,” or “the misconception that there is a fixed amount of work to be done, and that if some work is taken by a machine then there will be less work for people.” Read.
  • Learn how to use AI writing programs. The Authors Guild is hosting a free session on how to use tools like Sudowrite or ChatGPT responsibly. Register.
  • Why generative AI won’t disrupt books. In a nutshell: Books aren’t broken, and the tech community tends to dream up book “improvements” that no reader wants. Read Elizabeth Minkel at Wired.
  • The workers at the frontlines of the AI revolution: All that design and writing work that’s been outsourced to the far corners of the globe, often via marketplaces such as Upwork and 99designs? Those people are the ones who are most immediately competing against AI. Read Andrew Deck at Rest of World.
  • The Biden administration gets AI companies to voluntarily commit to safeguards. It’s all well and good, but critics say the principles are vague and meaningless. Read Michael D. Shear, Cecilia Kang, and David E. Sanger in the New York Times (gift link).
  • If you’re looking to waste your money: Authortegrity is a seal you can soon buy that guarantees your work was authored by a human. Who asked for this? Who cares? And who will be the first person to successfully buy an Authortegrity seal for a work that was in fact AI generated in whole or part? (If anything, it makes more sense for AI-generated work to carry watermarks indicating such, as one of the safeguards proposed by the Biden administration.)

Culture & Politics

  • Recent legislation in Texas would force booksellers to evaluate and cull books that have explicit content. A group of booksellers, publishers, and authors are suing to stop the new law—set to take effect in September—that would require stores to rate any books sold to schools based on their sexual content. If they fail to comply, stores would be barred from doing business with schools. Read Andrew Albanese and Ed Nawotka in Publishers Weekly.
  • The rise of ghostwritten celebrity fiction: This article has a UK focus, but it definitely happens in the US as well. Read Sarah Shaffi in the Guardian.
  • Supreme Court justices earn millions from book deals. The New York Times considers the potential ethical implications. Read Steve Eder, Abbie VanSickle, and Elizabeth A. Harris.