Bookselling
- Bookshop reaches $1 million in ebook sales. After launching ebooks in January, Bookshop says the format now represents 5 percent of overall sales. So far this year, the online storefront has seen 65 percent growth over last year. Read Ed Nawotka at Publishers Weekly.
AI
- Johns Hopkins is licensing authors’ books to train AI models. Authors who don’t want their books used for AI training must opt out. Authors will receive a token amount, less than $100 per title. Read Kathryn Palmer at Inside Higher Ed.
- Substack releases an AI report. Substack surveyed 2,000 users and found that a little less than half are using AI. The most common uses are research, brainstorming, writing assistance, and image generation. Read Arielle Swedback at Substack.
- The world’s largest publisher, RELX, sees growing sales and demand for its AI tools. RELX offers generative AI tools for multiple professions, including law, science, banking, insurance, and more. Read Sarah Young at Reuters.
Culture & Politics
- Books about President Trump aren’t enjoying big sales during his second term. “In these tenuous times for the nonfiction political book market, industry insiders say there are fewer big advances being paid and narrower routes to success that rely on brand-name authors or a partisan perspective.” Read Daniel Lippman at Politico.
- Are men being pushed out of the publishing industry? In the UK, a BBC podcast explores the issue with people who work inside the profession. Read Heloise Wood at The Bookseller.
- How Harry Potter fanfiction brought down a romance convention. It’s all summarized for you at the very appropriately named Garbage Day website. Read Ryan Broderick.
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.