Traditional Publishing
- Some publishers might return to printing their own books. Supply chain issues and long wait times for book printing could lead to publishers becoming printers once again. Read Kenneth Whyte in SHuSH.
- Maybe gargantuan social media followings don’t sell books after all? Or could it be that publishers naively expect books to sell themselves without any marketing effort on their part? Read Elizabeth A. Harris at The New York Times.
Amazon
- What happened to Amazon’s bookstore? The bookstore is the oldest part of Amazon, but it’s full of third-party sellers who aren’t always selling quality products. (Jane is quoted.) Read David Streitfeld at The New York Times.
Legal
- Who owns a recipe? US copyright law doesn’t protect a list of ingredients in a recipe, but a recent plagiarism claim has cookbook authors renewing discussion about recipe rights. Read Priya Krishna at The New York Times.
Culture & Politics
- Is YA literature more diverse, or does it only seem that way? Yes, progress has been made, but more work needs to be done, says Alice Nuttall. Read at Book Riot.
- Why marginalized authors use second-person POV: First and third person are more like “tourist” approaches, with distance between the reader and character or narrator. Second person dissolves barriers. Read Valerie Valdes at SFWA.
- An independent bookseller panel tackles free expression. Author and professor Kiese Laymon was part of the conversation and challenged booksellers to stop believing that their position within the industry is above criticism. Read Alex Green in Publishers Weekly.
- How queer fanfiction differs from mainstream publishing: Fanfic isn’t all about sex. It’s about connection, according to a new research paper. Read Nikoo Sarraf and Jennifer Chen at .txtlab.
- Writing is a ridiculous profession—at least according to Polish writer Wisława Szymborska, who died in 2012. For years she wrote an anonymous advice column for writers, mostly telling people to abandon their efforts. Now that advice is available in a book that is something of a serious parody, Have You Considered Accountancy? Read Joanna Kavenna at Literary Review.
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.