News and Trends
- Scholastic offers children’s publishing predictions for 2018. At the top of the list: more books highlighting strong female characters. Learn more at Publishing Perspectives.
- Wattpad releases new report on fiction-reading trends: Find out about the most popular topics among the platform’s Millennial and Gen Z readers at Publishing Perspectives.
- New York Times looks at instapoets again. With Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey the top-selling book of the year, everyone is rediscovering Instagram poets. Instapoetry is not a particularly new phenomenon (Kaur’s book originally released in 2015), but the Times feature is a good one nonetheless. Read more from Carl Wilson.
- A fascinating and in-depth look at how Netflix personalizes artwork. Our first thought: book covers can’t be that far behind, right? Learn more at the Netflix Technology Blog.
- Patreon changed its mind about its new fee system after considerable community outrage. Let’s see if the $1 and $2 pledges that were canceled come back. Read the announcement at the Patreon blog.
Digital Audio
- Podcasting is the new personal essay? We’re rolling our eyes a bit at the headline, but Meg Dalton offers a useful look at what’s trending right now. Learn more from CJR.
- Apple finally offers free podcast analytics. It may change things dramatically for both creators and advertisers. Learn more from Peter Kafka at Recode.
- Playster raises price on audiobook listening. The global media streaming company is showing signs of strain on the audiobook side—it has doubled the price of the monthly subscription. Learn more from Glinda Harrison at the Ebook Evangelist blog.
Amazon
- Experiencing trouble at Amazon as an indie author? Here’s guidance on how to sweet-talk them—in the comments section of a post at the Mad Genius Club.
- Amazon bookstores opening in Germany. A German news piece quotes an Amazon employee who says brick-and-mortar stores are in the works—but no date is given for when they might appear. Learn more at Berliner Morgenpost.
- Go inside the massive online forums for people who sell stuff on Amazon. Independent journalist Simon Owens spent hours researching this piece on the Amazon selling community. Read at his blog.
Legal Arena
- Big changes are coming to online privacy in the EU, but not the US. In May 2018, new rules will take effect that allow individuals to request that their data be deleted. Learn more from Paul Dughi at Medium.
- Self-publishing services are not considered publishers in a legal case. Publishing services such as CreateSpace and Amazon KDP are found to have no liability in a right-to-privacy case. Learn more in the National Law Review.
- The Authors Guild warns that the Internet Archive’s OpenLibrary project violates copyright. A big new batch of scans recently released has caught the attention of Authors Guild and other authors’ organizations. Learn more from Chris Meadows at the TeleRead blog.
- What works enter the public domain in 2018? Notable authors include Alice B. Toklas, Winston Churchill, and Siegfried Sassoon. See the full list at the Public Domain Review.
Marketing Toolbox
- How the new Facebook algorithms affect authors: Be careful when asking your followers to vote on covers; it may be seen as engagement “bait” and decrease your reach. Learn more at K-lytics by Alex Newton.
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.