Trends
- History books selling well in the UK and US. Nielsen BookScan (UK) reports that ancient history book sales increased 67 percent over the last decade, in addition to all history books focused on specific subjects (e.g., individuals or events). In the US, history grew by 6 percent according to Circana BookScan. And, for the first time in an election year, history as a category outsold politics, by two to one. Read Will Dunn at Bloomberg (sub required).
- Why 2024 was the year of the audiobook: One self-published author says he now earns more from Spotify than Audible, even though Spotify’s royalty rate is lower for him. Remember the same is not true for major publishers who earn the equivalent of a unit sale; self-pub authors and publishers without negotiating power get the short end of the stick. Read Ellen Peirson-Hagger at The Guardian.
TikTok Ban
- What would a TikTok ban do to book sales? Popular authors enjoy considerably increased sales thanks to the BookTok community. How much would their sales be affected if TikTok shuts down in the US? No one wants to find out. Read Ian Morris at AdWeek.
- Could Elon Musk buy TikTok? For some users of the app, this represents the darkest timeline. Read the New York Times (gift link).
Copyright
- The New Yorker goes deep on the Crave copyright case. In the fall, I discussed at length what fascinates me about this case, and it’s primarily the appearance of book packaging. The journalist talks to all the major figures in the case and offers a nuanced view, not betraying a bias for any one side. Read Katy Waldman.
AI
- In case you missed it, the AI debacle of the month: The Fable reading app delivered AI-generated summaries to users about their 2024 reading, with disastrous results. Read Sarah Wendell at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.
- Anthropic must now pay licensing fees for lyrics. Music publishers accused the company of sharing artists’ lyrics without attribution. A judge has required Anthropic to “apply existing guardrails in the training of future AI models and to establish a procedure for music publishers to intervene when copyright infringement is suspected.” This is a good reminder to authors everywhere: Music publishers aggressively protect copyright of song lyrics—and they tend to get what they demand. Read Jess Weatherbed at The Verge.
- Meta trained its AI model on pirated books. Anyone who’s been paying attention will not be surprised at this “discovery.” It’s just now there’s hard evidence of what everyone has already assumed. The pirated material in question has been widely used and disseminated and is not unique to this case. Read Kate Knibbs at Wired.
- The FTC is investigating Publishing.com, run by the Mikkelsen twins. I wrote about unethical business practices of this company in 2023. Now, thankfully, the Federal Trade Commission is investigating the company for selling courses on self-publishing AI-generated books. Read Jack Newsham and Katherine Long at AOL/Business Insider.
Marketing and Publicity
- Publishers don’t always align the marketing copy with the actual book. Publicist Cassie Mannes Murray writes, “I’m intrigued about this as a publicist, the space between marketing and the truth of a book. Mostly, the ways in which we try to make our marketing descriptions match a book or when we purposefully try to omit certain aspects of the book, especially if they don’t fit a current narrative.” Read at Pine State Publicity.
- A crime novelist successfully focuses on podcasts to reach readers. C.J. Box goes on fishing, hunting, and rodeo podcasts. Read Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at the Wall Street Journal (sub required). If you don’t have a subscription, you can figure out what podcasts the author has appeared on by doing a search for his name at a site like Listen Notes.
Comics
- What will tariffs mean for comics publishers? China is commonly used by comics publishers for printing. While tariffs may benefit American printers, they increase prices for consumers and could hurt small publishers more than larger ones. Read Gina Gagliano at the Comics Journal.
- Diamond Comic Distributors files for bankruptcy. People who follow this sector of the publishing industry were not surprised by the news, but it will be a blow to small, independent publishers. Read Jim Milliot at Publishers Weekly.
Culture & Politics
- A thorough investigation into the sexual assault allegations against Neil Gaiman: The story initially broke in a 2024 British podcast. Now, New York’s Vulture talks to several of the women making allegations. Gaiman denies he engaged in non-consensual acts. Read Lila Shapiro (sub may be required). Warning: includes graphic details.
- A journalist investigates the questionable assertion that men don’t read. The concern mainly applies to fiction, and there is some evidence women read more fiction than men, but the gap doesn’t seem to be as dramatic as often stated. Read Constance Grady at Vox.
- Every movie based on a Wattpad story, ranked. The most popular movie on Amazon Prime Video in 2023, My Fault, was based on a novel originally published on Wattpad. Read Josh Bell at Vulture.
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.