Links of Interest: February 12, 2025

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Traditional Publishing

  • UK’s Telegraph calls book packagers “soulless fiction factories.” This critical article looks primarily at what’s happening in genre fiction, especially romantasy, now that the Crave copyright case has opened people’s eyes to the practice of packaging. Read Jake Kerridge (free registration required).
  • The latest Substack sensation with book deal. Rayne Fisher-Quann turned her TikTok following into 100,000 subscribers on Substack. She then landed a book deal with Knopf for an essay collection. Read Ariella Garmaise at The Walrus.
  • Learn about the history of the literary agent profession. A literary scholar and data scientist will soon publish a book on literary agents and the making of literature. Read an interview with her, by an agent, at Delivery & Acceptance.

Bookselling

  • The Decoder has a long interview with Bookshop’s Andy Hunter. Hunter reveals that Bookshop wasn’t profitable last year, but that’s because they put so much money into building out their ebook platform. Bookshop was profitable for the first three years. Read or listen.

Children’s Market

  • An analysis of middle-grade books published in 2024. An author analyzes the top genres, POVs, word counts, and more in the middle-grade market. Read Sam Subity.
  • Where is the kid lit community online? Agents and authors discuss their take on various social media platforms right now. Read Iyana Jones at Publishers Weekly.

Audio

  • 2024 was a record-setting year for audiobooks. What’s going on, and what does it mean for writers and readers? Read Ann Kjellberg at Book Post.
  • Podium now distributes to Spotify and other online retailers. Podium is best known for partnering with self-published authors and producing them in digital audio; in the past it has worked closely with Audible, with much of its catalog exclusive to them. It appears that time has ended. (I interviewed Podium CEO Scott Dickey in 2021 when they moved into ebook publishing.) Learn more.

Book Marketing

AI

  • Former PRH India editor develops AI editing software. Editrix offers automated feedback for fiction and nonfiction, from developmental editing to copyediting. The cost is significant: either $399 for one book up to 125,000 words, or $299 per month for up to five books. Read Ed Nawotka in Publishers Weekly. When I visited Editrix’s site, I scanned the terms and conditions, which raise some red flags. Users grant Editrix a broad license to their content, which could include using any uploaded manuscripts to train their AI models, using manuscripts for commercial purposes, and creating derivative works.
  • A book about J.D. Rockefeller, possibly AI-generated, has fooled readers into thinking it’s legitimate. The 38 Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to His Son has been selling very well online but has mysterious origins. The Rockefeller Archive Center says it’s unable to find any letters that match those in the book, which contains factual errors. Read Robert Frank at CNBC.
  • If your library works with Hoopla, you may be encountering AI slush in the catalogs. Hoopla makes libraries opt-in to its entire catalog, then pay for what patrons use. While librarians could weed out low-quality or AI-generated titles, they do not have time to do so. Hoopla did not respond to requests for comment. Read Emanuel Maiberg at 404 Media.
  • There are now fake AI experts to watch out for. A journalist discovers a mental health expert quoted all over the internet who doesn’t appear to exist. Read Ashley Abramson at Allure.
  • Be on the lookout for AI-generated podcasts that regurgitate your book. Some may recall that Google Notebook LM (among other tools) can generate an authentic-sounding podcast conversation between two people discussing any document you upload—like a book. Surprise, surprise: Some people are doing this without permission and distributing the conversation online. Read Ron Charles at the Washington Post (scroll toward the middle of the newsletter).
  • The Authors Guild offers human authored certification. Currently, certification is only available for Authors Guild members and for books by a single author. Certification appears to be on the honor system. I can’t help but wonder if this will be a short-lived effort, or of questionable value or meaning, as AI tools become part of the writing process. Learn more.
  • More damning evidence in the AI training case against Meta. Engineers emailed each other a lot about their ethical qualms in training Meta’s model on pirated books. Read Ashley Belanger at Ars Technica.

Culture & Politics

  • NEA changes grant guidelines and deadlines. Prior to the Trump administration, the NEA was offering a Challenge America opportunity designed to serve underrepresented communities. That has been replaced by new guidelines that encourage a celebration of America’s 250th birthday; the NEA will offer a free webinar, open to the public, about the updated guidelines on Feb. 18. There are also new legal requirements and assurances of compliance that touch on Trump’s executive orders, including the one prohibiting DEI programs. What everyone can hopefully agree on: It’s good to see that the NEA is not on the chopping block as of yet. Learn more.
  • Publishers and organizations are suing Idaho over its book banning law. The law forbids anyone under 18 from accessing library books that contain “sexual content,” regardless of the work’s literary or educational merit. Read Jim Milliot in Publishers Weekly.
  • This piece of literary criticism pulls no punches. “I’m not sure what it would take to make literature feel genuinely vital and necessary again. My current best plan is to set off a series of small but loud bombs across New York such that if you mapped out the explosions they would spell the words PLEASE CONSIDER WRITING ABOUT SOMETHING OTHER THAN YOURSELF.” Read Sam Kriss in The Point.