Traditional Publishing
- A book packager has a plan to make books more diverse. Dhonielle Clayton runs two firms, Electric Postcard and Cake Creative, which develop intellectual property with a focus on diverse characters and diverse authors for book publishers. Read Alexandra Alter in the New York Times.
- Bookouture signs self-published author in four-book deal. The author has already self-published 22 crime thrillers (in three series), selling 2 million copies. Read Dalya Alberge at The Guardian.
- If there were a Darwin Award for authors, this guy would win. After writing an unauthorized sequel to the Lord of the Rings series, an author sued the Tolkien estate and Amazon for copyright infringement. The case was dismissed. Afterward, the Tolkien Estate filed its own copyright infringement lawsuit against the author—and won. Read Sian Bayley at The Bookseller.
Libraries
- Moving toward digital ownership for libraries: The Digital Public Library of America is trying to help libraries that want to own, rather than license, their digital content. Learn more.
- An update on Baker & Taylor. The country’s largest public and academic library wholesaler was purchased two years ago by CEO Aman Kochar. Publishers Weekly takes a look at what’s happened since then. Read Jim Milliot.
AI
- Meta was warned about training AI on copyrighted materials. One of the AI lawsuits (the Sarah Silverman one) has brought forth a new bit of evidence. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, continued to train its AI model on copyrighted materials even after its legal department expressed concern. Read Katie Paul at Reuters.
- All major retailers now sell AI-narrated audiobooks. Here’s a summary of them all, plus how to get your audiobook distributed to each retailer if you’re a self-published author. Read Monica Leonelle at the Author Analyst.
- Six strategies for getting better results from ChatGPT: A few of the recommendations include providing a reference text, offering examples, and asking the model to adopt a persona. Read at OpenAI.
TikTok
- A self-publishing success story on BookTok. UK novelist Adam Beswick says the platform has changed his life. Read Annabelle Ariyanayagam at BBC.
Amazon
- Amazon seeks to dismiss the FTC’s suit. Because of course it does. Read Andrew Albanese at Publishers Weekly.
- Amazon rolls out “Your Books” hub. It allows you to sort and search among every title you’ve ever purchased regardless of format. Read Emma Roth at The Verge. Click here to access (if you’re logged into your Amazon account).
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.