Traditional Publishing
- Bindery has announced its first four books. Bindery is a startup publisher that partners with influencers to publish books. We covered Bindery’s business model in August. Read Sam Gutelle at Tubefilter.
Bookselling
- Waterstones may file for an IPO. The biggest bookseller in the UK turned around under the leadership of James Daunt. Whether the IPO would include Barnes & Noble (owned by the same firm) is unclear from the article. Barnes & Noble is the bigger business. Read Daniel Thomas at the Financial Times (gift link).
Trends
- A new Kickstarter campaign record, this time for YA. Traditionally published author Cassandra Clare raised more than $1 million to fund her upcoming fiction series. Similar to Brandon Sanderson’s record-breaking Kickstarter, the project was born during the pandemic. Clare tells Publishers Weekly, “Authors felt disconnected from readers, and I began writing some shorter works—stories and novellas—and posted them online in my weekly newsletter and on Tumblr. My publisher wanted me to take the material down, and I understood why—it’s difficult to publish something as a book when it’s free online, but I did not want to do that.” But guess what happened? Her fans wanted physical copies of the work she was posting online, so maybe it’s not as difficult as publishers seem to think. Read Sally Lodge.
- Webtoon is a place for finding new talent. As demand for graphic novels remains high, publishers are looking to platforms like Webtoon to scout out popular work that can be turned into books. Read Shaenon K. Garrity at Publishers Weekly.
AI
- The Association of American Publishers offers a forceful response against generative AI companies’ claims of fair use. The statement is being submitted to the Copyright Office, which has been collecting comments on AI. The preface states, “It is not and should not be a copyright owner’s burden to subsidize the development of generative AI technologies.” Read the PDF.
- A look at how some people in the self-publishing community view AI. The overall sentiment expressed in this article is “learn to use it or get left behind.” Read Noah Powelson at the Observer.
Marketing
- What can an author do to hit the bestseller list? If you didn’t receive a stupendous advance and don’t have much support from your publisher, it’s still possible to hit a bestseller list. Leigh Stein interviews Dr. Devorah Heitner about how she did it. Read at Attention Economy.
Culture & Politics
- Penguin Random House and bestselling authors sue the state of Iowa over book ban provisions. Iowa recently passed a law that requires the removal of both fiction and nonfiction books that depict sex, written or visual (regardless of context), from school libraries and classrooms and prohibits materials involving gender identity or sexual orientation for students through the sixth grade. Read John Maher in Publishers Weekly.
- The culture wars in publishing: This is a very long article about the Big Five publishing industry and what gets published these days. Read Alex Perez at the Free Press. If you decide to dive in, it’s also imperative to read this cogent response from Kenneth Whyte about the article’s shortcomings.
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.