Traditional Publishing
- There’s a happy ending for at least one author who signed with 8th Note Press. Earlier this year I reported on the abrupt closure of TikTok’s 8th Note Press and the authors left in the lurch. Fortunately, one author found a happy ending in the form of a six-figure deal with a Big Five publisher. See Megan Jauregui Eccles on Instagram.
Trends
- Is F1 the new hockey? Agent Alyssa Morris says, “Ever since Drive to Survive premiered on Netflix in 2019, interest in the sport has grown exponentially in the US. … The amount of money involved in this sport means that F1 romances are practically billionaire romances.” Read at Romancing the Phone.
- Politics & Prose has a one-year waitlist for its self-publishing services. Authors pay the Washington, DC, bookstore for publishing services, plus display in store and other promotional perks. But the operation isn’t profitable, and no one is getting rich off sales. Everyone seems happy anyway. Read Ike Allen in Washingtonian.
AI
- Another egregious example of AI-generated titles run amok on Amazon. This time, author Eric Topol is seeing his name and his bestselling book, Super Agers, getting used on numerous recipe books and other schemes. See his Bluesky post.
Culture & Politics
- A new book collects 500 years of author portraits. The title is Writers Revealed: Treasures from the British Library and the National Portrait Gallery, London, published by the National Portrait Gallery. Looks like a great holiday gift. Read Erica Ackerberg in the New York Times (gift link).
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.