News
- Troubles continue for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Two members of the committee set up to oversee reforms have quit. Read Sian Cain at The Guardian.
- Submittable is now 85 percent cheaper for members of CLMP. The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses has negotiated a very low annual rate for members that use Submittable to accept submissions: $290/year for up to 500 submissions per month. The move should help the financials of smaller, usually unprofitable publications, who sometimes charge writers submission fees to cover their Submittable costs. Read John Maher in Publishers Weekly.
Trends
- The e-reader market continues to shrink. More people read on their smartphone and tablet; MarketWatch predicts at 12.7 percent decline in e-readers over the next five years. Read the press release at MarketWatch.
- How Chinese science fiction conquered America. The translator Ken Liu is bridging the gap between Chinese science fiction and American readers. Read Alexandra Alter in the New York Times.
- Elena Ferrante is inspiring other female authors in Italy. The results promise to shake up the country’s male-dominated literary establishment. Read Anna Momigliano in The New York Times.
- Spotify wants to become the world’s number-one audio platform. It plans to harness Hollywood for podcasts. Read Natalie Jarvey in the Hollywood Reporter.
Voice Assistants
- Are we really in the midst of a “voice revolution”? Few case studies illuminate the results achieved by brands using voice apps. Read Rebecca Sentance at Econsultancy.
- Still, though, Alexa plans to run your entire life. The creator of the voice assistant dreams of a world where Alexa is everywhere, anticipating your every need. Read Karen Hao at MIT Technology Review.
Culture and Politics
- Random House will publish the Trump impeachment report. It is already available in audio; the ebook releases on Friday, and the paperback comes out Dec. 17. Learn more at the AP.
- The complicated role of the modern public library: There are few truly public places left in America, and the library is one of them. Read Jennifer Howard at the National Endowment for the Humanities.
- Libraries are eliminating overdue fines, and everyone is happy. Library systems have realized that the penalties drive away the people who stand to benefit the most from the library. Read Emma Bowman at NPR.
- Just like the Booker Prize, the Bad Sex in Fiction award has two winners this year. The judges said, “Faced with two unpalatable contenders, we found ourselves unable to choose between them.” See which one you think is worse.
Marketing Trends
- Amazon is raking in the ad dollars, but shoppers are annoyed. It’s now the third-largest ad platform in the US, and the ads appear at the top, middle, and bottom of search listings, as well as within pages for other products. Read Joseph Pisani at the AP.
- Email still wins the marketing game among publishers. While the study focuses on digital news and magazine publishers that seek subscriptions, similar trends can be found across major book publishers, who now maintain and grow consumer email marketing lists. Read Monojoy Bhattacharjee at What’s New in Publishing.
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.