More 2022 Recaps
- Publishers Weekly summarizes supply chain problems last year. Conditions did improve, and price increases eased. But costs remained above 2019 levels and hurt publishers’ profit margins. Read Jim Milliot and Ed Nawotka in Publishers Weekly.
- Author Kristine Kathyrn Rusch offers her year in review. There are six parts thus far, including an overview and a close look at Amazon.
TikTok
- How will BookTok change publishing? For now, white romance novels dominate BookTok. Meanwhile, influencers feel they’re not compensated sufficiently. Read CT Jones in Rolling Stone.
- TikTok drama of 2022: Plagiarism, the CoHo effect, and more. Read Meg Zukin in Vulture.
- Librarians meet young people where they are: TikTok. Library TikTok is similar to but different from BookTok: There is chatter about books, but librarians post about resources and events, showcasing libraries as welcoming places for diverse communities. Read Lora Kelley in the New York Times (gift link).
- Is picking books by trope reductive? Some say BookTok trope recommendations reward authors for simplicity rather than complexity. Read Radhamely De Leon at Slate.
Libraries
- Fascinating data on library borrowing habits in San Francisco: After the pandemic, there are fewer patrons who borrow only physical materials and a larger share of digital-only and “omni users” (those who check out both physical and digital copies). At the beginning of the pandemic, 24 percent of public library patrons in San Francisco were digital only. By the end of last month, the share of digital-only users increased 22 percentage points, omni-users were up 1 point, and physical-only patrons down 23 points. Read Nami Sumida in the San Francisco Chronicle.
AI
- How are Kindle novelists using ChatGPT? Jennifer Lepp writes cozy paranormal mysteries under the pen name Leanne Leeds. She’s interviewed by Josh Dzieza at the Verge.
- The death and rebirth of writing: Novelist and cultural commentator Stephen Marche discusses ChatGPT with academic and broadcaster Shahidha Bari. Listen to the Intelligence Squared podcast.
Bookselling
- Waterstones asks for 85 percent discount from publishers. According to an email seen by the Bookseller, UK chain Waterstones seeks 85 percent off certain frontlist titles it expects to have a surplus of in January. A publisher said that no one except Waterstones would make money at such a discount—and small publishers would lose money. Read Ruth Comerford in the Bookseller (subscription required).
Culture & Politics
- The Jan. 6 Report will be available in a half dozen editions. Most are left- or right-leaning, with the exception of Melville House’s release, which will have no preface/introduction or other supplementary material. Read Alexandra Alter and Elizabeth A. Harris in the New York Times (gift link).
- What makes an unfilmable novel? For the purposes of this commentary, “unfilmable novels” are books that are considered artistically unfilmable: “Works whose power is so bound to the pleasures and possibilities of the page—which are different, not better or worse, than the pleasures and possibilities of the screen—that they couldn’t be adapted without losing most of their DNA.” Read Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft.
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.