TikTok
- Have we reached peak BookTok? It’s hard to say, but like all platforms, TikTok continues to change. Publishers and authors have to adapt as always. Read Erica Ezeifedi at Book Riot.
- TikTok stands out for product reviews, especially for young women. The book crowd already knows this, but it’s good trend information from Pew Research. Read Michelle Faverio.
- TikTok asks Supreme Court to save it from being banned in the US. The deadline for TikTok to sell or be shut down in the US is Jan. 19. Read Adam Liptak and Sapna Maheshwari in the New York Times (gift link).
- The latest TikTok sensation? The decade-old book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. Read Jessica Roy at the New York Times (gift link).
Culture & Politics
- The disappearance of literary men: The New York Times op-ed by David J. Morris inspired countless responses and responses to responses. Here it is if you haven’t seen it yet (gift link). I still like and recommend this article on the topic of literary men from July 2024.
- The level of explicit sex in romance is on the rise. Readers of this newsletter likely know this already, but here is a particularly good overview (with some history) about the evolution of sex scenes in romance—noting that you can’t predict the heat level by the cover alone. Read Natalie Stechyson at CBC.
AI
- Harvard is releasing about 1 million public domain works for AI training. Remember, because they’re public domain, there are no permissions or rights issues. The person leading the charge hopes that establishing a public domain corpus will “level the playing field” in the AI industry. Read Kate Knibbs in Wired. Meanwhile: The Authors Alliance announced a book training commons initiative as well.
- AI audiobook narrators in OverDrive: This escaped my attention when it was first published in October, but it remains relevant and important. Libraries have unknowingly paid for poor-quality AI-narrated audiobooks, plus it appears a literary agent is behind a huge swath of these titles. Read Sarah Wendell at Smart Bitches Trashy Books.
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.