News
- California creatives recently rallied to repeal AB5. A mix of writers, translators, musicians, dancers, and others gathered in Sacramento and called for an end to AB5. The so-called gig economy law has made it more difficult for some freelancers to work as independent contractors, leading to lost work and pay. Read Jason Boog at Publishers Weekly.
- Brexit is here. Now what? The short of it: things remain as uncertain as ever. Read Philip Jones in The Bookseller (subscription required).
- Dreamspinner restructures. The LGBT publisher has hired a law firm to help it deal with financial problems. Its methodology for dealing with unpaid royalties remains unclear. Read Rachel Kramer Bussel in Publishers Weekly.
Trends
- Poetry sales soar in the UK. The market is driven by younger readers and, of course, Instagram. Read Donna Ferguson in The Guardian.
Children’s Publishing
- Juvenile humorous stories have been trending up for three years, according to stats gathered by BookNet Canada. Think: The Wonky Donkey. Read Pamela Millar at BookNet Canada.
- Wondering about the K-12 education market? Industry expert Emily Williams discusses what’s ahead for school curriculum and open educational resources. Read at Personanondata.
- Marvel flexes its book-publishing muscles. Graphic novels are the largest and fastest-growing segment of comics publishing. Marvel, owned by Disney, is getting more serious about the segment. Read Rob Salkowitz in Publishers Weekly.
Culture and Politics
- The dangers of the appropriation critique: A Native American author of mixed descent has been taken to task for cultural appropriation in her latest novel. Is the criticism warranted? Read Adrian L. Jawort in Los Angeles Review of Books.
Bookselling
- Edelweiss helps independent booksellers compete with Amazon’s targeted email recommendations. The popular bookseller software Edelweiss now offers bookshops a new direct email marketing tool to replace services like Mailchimp. The service creates personalized recommendation emails based on customers’ past purchasing behavior. There’s also potential for independent booksellers to share publishers’ marketing offers and perhaps steal away advertising dollars from Amazon. Read Judith Rosen at Publishers Weekly.
Amazon
- Amazon employees protest the company communications policy. Hundreds called out the company for its climate policy and attempts to stifle dissent. Read Jay Greene in The Washington Post.
- Amazon ramps up counterfeit reporting. To better crack down on fakes listed at its site, Amazon plans to give more data on counterfeit goods to law enforcement. Read Jeffrey Dastin at Reuters.
- Shopify—the e-commerce company you’ve never heard of—might be a threat to Amazon. The Canadian e-commerce platform has more than 1 million merchants around the globe that use the company’s technology to sell goods online. Read Patrick Sisson at Vox.
Marketing Toolbox
- Get Ingram’s free guide to navigating the world of digital book marketing. While it’s geared to publishers, it has insights useful to authors as well. Download the PDF.
- Academics choose useless titles. Here’s how they can do better. Today’s researchers should be able to find relevant information in your book through keyword search. That means avoiding cutesy and clever chapter titles. Read Patrick Dunleavy at London School of Economics.
Tools
- Need to find diverse books for children? Use the Diverse Book Finder; it has more than 3,000 books in its collection.
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.