Links of Interest: February 14, 2024

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Organizations & Community

  • An explanation for the Hugo Awards mess: What’s helpful here is the background on how SF conventions are run and funded, even if its conclusions about what happened in 2023 are not correct. Read Charlie Stross at his website. Also, Adam Morgan at Esquire dug into the scandal. The article doesn’t really uncover new information, but it puts everything together in story form.
  • An in-depth look at Chill Subs, a growing competitor to Submittable. It was started just a couple years ago by a Belarusian writer and web developer. It has now combined forces with the online magazine Write or Die. Read Nathalie op de Beeck at Publishers Weekly.
  • IBPA has a new chair. The Independent Book Publishers Association has named Tieshena Davis, the founder of a hybrid publishing firm, its first black woman to lead the board. Read the press release.

Bookselling

  • Canada’s largest bookstore chain is not doing well. Indigo’s sales dropped by 12 percent during the holiday season. The store has a buyout offer from the founder’s husband. Read Jim Milliot in Publishers Weekly (subscription required).

Amazon

Trends

  • The rise of romantasy. The Guardian takes a look at the popularity of authors like Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros. The article helpfully clarifies that the genre often has explicit sex scenes, referred to online as spice or given the reclaimed label smut. Read Ella Creamer.
  • Learn more about Sarah J. Maas, the “mortal queen of faerie smut.” There’s also a lot of trauma in her books. Read Kathryn VanArendonk at Vulture.
  • Should novels be changed to appeal to an American audience? A writer in New Zealand reflects on the dominance of the American market in book publishing in all English-speaking countries. Read Rebecca K Reilly at Lit Hub.
  • Indie author Darcy Pattison discusses trends in the children’s market. Recently, Publishers Weekly ran a trend piece on how publishers see the children’s market in the year ahead. Pattison responds with the lessons that self-publishing authors can take away. Read at Indie Kids Books.

AI

  • Universal Music sues AI company for distributing song lyrics. While it’s easy to find song lyrics online for free, websites typically pay licensing fees. Read Emilia David at The Verge.
  • Meta will label AI-generated images on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. It’ll be fascinating to see if a company like Meta can accurately label such content. Read the press release.
  • OpenAI will add industry standard, hidden watermarks to AI-generated images. Again, such watermarks/metadata can be removed by others. Plus, taking a screenshot omits the metadata. But it’s a start? Read Emilia David at The Verge.

Culture & Politics

  • A Florida school district has censored a goblin’s butt in a children’s book. You can’t make this stuff up. Read Tori Otten in the New Republic.
  • Skyhorse has acquired another conservative publisher. Just a couple months ago, Skyhorse acquired Regnery; it has now acquired All Seasons, which launched in June 2021. Read Shelf Awareness.
  • A new Oscar-nominated comedy film satirizes American publishing.The premise: A Black author writes a “ghetto” novel under a pseudonym, trafficking in the biggest Black clichés he can think of. It becomes, of course, a bestseller. Read Emma Loffhagen at The Standard.