Links of Interest: December 21, 2022

Traditional Publishing

• The murky path to becoming a New York Times bestseller. Yes, there is editorial curation at play. Esquire gets a few publishing professionals on the record about how the list is created. Read Sophie Vershbow at Esquire.
• Learn more about the HarperCollins union strike. The Print Run podcast speaks with Rachel Kambury about the working conditions that led to the strike. Listen.
• How publishers make old books new again. Add an introduction by a contemporary writer. Read Sophia Stewart at Publishers Weekly.
• Barnes & Noble will open more stores than it closes in 2023. About 30 stores are in development, but they are smaller in size and will open in markets where larger locations had closed, according to CEO James Daunt. Barnes & Noble has 125 fewer stores than at its peak 14 years ago. Read Kate King in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required).
• The year in sequels. “Maybe these second helpings are symptoms of our traumatized age, a form of repetition compulsion. But maybe they just mean that the culture is active and alive.” Read Katy Waldman in the New Yorker.

Celebrities

• Have we fallen out of love with celebrity memoir? In the UK, books by Jeremy Clarkson and Matthew Perry (among others) aren’t doing as well as expected. Read Sarah Shaffi at the Guardian.
• The rise of celebrity book clubs. This article feels several years too late and not at all cognizant of what’s happening on TikTok. But here it is anyway. Read Elle Hunt at the Guardian.
• Jenna Bush Hager is publishing’s best friend. Are celebrities doing a PR push to talk about how important they are to book culture? More specifically, are Jenna and Reese battling it out for the Oprah mantle? It sure feels like it. Read Stephen Battaglio at the Los Angeles Times.

Artificial Intelligence

• AI won’t replace novelists, but they can still damage writers’ earnings. SFF novelist Lincoln Michel takes a look at ChatGPT and sees both no reason to worry and cause for concern. Read at Counter Craft.
• New audiobook features at Google Play Books: Among other features, authors and publishers can now use multiple AI narrators and control which voice reads your book down to the word. Read Monica Leonelle at Aggressively Wide. For authors who sell through Google Play, be aware they’re also rolling out series bundle discounts.
• Apple soft-launches AI narrated audiobooks. In partnership with Draft2Digital, Apple has launched its first AI-narrated books in the contemporary romance category. The program remains invite only. Read Monica Leonelle at Aggressively Wide.

Legal

• An agent sues his clients. Vigliano Associates is suing authors Chip and Joanna Gaines for breach of contract, seeking damages of no less than $2 million. Read Justin Rohrlich at Daily Beast.
• Amazon changes some business practices as part of EU settlement. Amazon will make the Buy Box more competitive and allow third-party merchants to participate in Prime while using outside logistics providers. Amazon also cannot use internal data to compete with third-party merchants. This applies only to Amazon’s operations in the EU, though Amazon may decide to roll out these new policies elsewhere. Read Adam Satariano and Karen Weise at the New York Times (gift link).

Culture & Politics

• In the music streaming sector, the UK finds that it’s not competition but streaming itself that’s depressing earnings. It’s not that Spotify or any specific company is responsible for depressed earnings because of market dominance; it’s that the streaming itself, as part of larger technological progress, depresses earnings. The report says, “​​Whilst outcomes are good for consumers and generally improving for creators, we note that to some extent changes in the sector, precipitated by streaming, have made it harder for some creators. Reduced barriers to entry and more choice on how to distribute music has meant there are more artists than ever and, therefore, creators face more artists and songs to compete with for streaming revenues. Not only that, but the convenience of streaming means that older music is enjoying a resurgence of popularity, meaning that today’s artists need to work harder than ever to grab listeners’ attention. … This inherent uncertainty combined with consumer tastes that tend to tip to a relatively small number of artists means that it is challenging for creators to succeed. We do not think that these factors arise from how firms compete in the market.” Many analogies here to authors and publishing. Read the full report at the UK government website.
• Learn about the conservative groups fueling book bans: The groups are organized, well funded, and effective. Read Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter at the New York Times (gift link).
• PEN America hosts a town hall on diversity in literature. Authors Min Jin Lee, Roxane Gay, Ayad Akhtar, and others criticized the publishing industry for not making sufficient progress and being white supremacist. Watch or read a summary.
• A fifth of US adults struggle to read. An investigative report argues that the literacy problem originates in the weaknesses of public schools but then isn’t resolved by the “backup system” intended to help those failed by public schools. Read at ProPublica.
• A history of the tote bag: “How a humble bag became a humble brag.” Read Maija Kappler at The Walrus. (Note from Jane: I guess I shouldn’t have pitched my New Yorker tote bag in the trash when it arrived?)
• When literary journals de-platform writers: Once again, Lit Mag News looks at a bothersome phenomenon: journals taking down work by writers they’ve already published based on what those writers say in other contexts. There is an epic comment thread. Read Becky Tuch.