Traditional Publishing
- Why authors want to be picked for celebrity book clubs: It’s not always for the book sales but for the development deals. Read Emily Gould in The Cut.
- Another nail in the coffin of mass-market paperbacks: According to Circana BookScan, mass-market paperbacks are now 3 percent of print sales. ReaderLink, a distributor to mass merchandisers like Walmart and Kroger, will stop carrying them at the end of this year. Sales of mass-market fiction have moved to digital format and are more likely to be read through subscription services like Kindle Unlimited. Read Jim Milliot in Publishers Weekly.
Bookselling
- Romance bookstores are booming worldwide. This article looks particularly at the growth of romance in Australia. Read Jodi McAlister and Jayashree Kamble at The Conversation.
- A romantasy bookstore opens in Ohio. It’s called Flame & Fable. The owner—a former employee of the digital distributor OverDrive—tells Scene, “There’s a movement among women in the millennial age group in particular, where we’re kind of like reclaiming romance for ourselves.” Read Mark Oprea.
- Would bookstores be better off as nonprofits? An LLC founded by Laurene Powell Jobs is exploring that question by partnering with a couple dozen stores. Read John Maher in Publishers Weekly.
- UK-based used bookseller plans US expansion. World of Books sells both new and used books, with a focus on backlist (older) titles. It uses an algorithm to determine what books to purchase. A private equity company owns a majority stake in the company. While the UK-based operation is able to pay royalties on the sale of used books, no such scheme exists in the US. Read Ed Nawotka at Publishers Weekly.
Marketing & Promotion
- Should traditionally published authors invest in an independent publicist? As usual, there is no single answer to this question. This Q&A with a publicist will help you think through whether it’s the right investment. Read Alia Hanna Habib at Delivery & Acceptance.
Culture & Politics
- StoryGraph is picking up steam as a competitor to Amazon-owned Goodreads. Part of the reason: Readers don’t want to support Amazon or be associated with the toxic behavior of some users. So far StoryGraph has nearly 4 million active users. StoryGraph does not allow private messaging or comments on reviews. Read David Barnett at The Guardian.
AI
- Important ruling in a copyright case involving a major legal database, Westlaw. A judge recently ruled against an AI-powered legal research tool that infringed on the rights of Westlaw, owned by Thomson Reuters. Read a summary of the case.
- The Guardian is the latest media outlet to partner with OpenAI. Despite their past articles that have been very critical of AI companies, they have decided to partner with the most well-known and significant AI company. Learn more. The New York Times remains the most significant legacy media holdout; their lawsuit against OpenAI continues. I expect a settlement in the end. (By the way, they just gave their staff the green light to use AI in editorial processes.)
- Good for a laugh: “I tried a new AI-generated comic book app and Marvel has nothing to worry about” by Eric Hal Schwartz in TechRadar. Yes, AI tools will improve, but it’s unlikely these tools will consistently produce meaningful work with market value without human direction and involvement.
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.