- Manuscript Wish List has just announced June 30 as their next day of agents announcing what they want. Find the MSWL info here.
- You probably know about BookBub, but how do other ebook discount services rank in comparison? ALLi offers an in-depth analysis and overview.
- In a somewhat controversial move that lit up social media, LitHub recently launched Book Marks, an aggregation of book reviews that ultimately assigns a letter grade to each book.
- Apple has rolled out iBooks Editions [discontinued], offering versions of popular self-published romance ebooks with bonus material unavailable elsewhere. Authors participating include Bella Andre, Marie Force, Courtney Milan, and others.
- India is Amazon’s fastest growing region. And so Jeff Bezos has increased the company’s investment there. Read more at Reuters.
- Want to know the future of podcasting? An informed and comprehensive analysis of its potential path to monetization can be found over at the Stratechery blog.
- HarperCollins has launched daily author-reader Facebook Live video sessions. The presentations last from fifteen to forty-five minutes and are available on the HarperCollins Book Studio 16 page, as well as on individual author pages. HarperCollins has already been active in video through its Epic Reads channel on YouTube, which creates content serving the YA community. This newest initiative focuses on adult imprints. Read more at Book Business.
- A new celebrity imprint has launched. Real Housewives producer Andy Cohen now has his own imprint, Andy Cohen Books, at Holt. In the announcement, Cohen said, “I’m already developing shows for radio and TV, and now can’t wait to develop bestselling books written by many of the people I know who are primed to hit it out of the park.” Read more at Shelf Awareness.
- A new publishing community nonprofit, the Colophon Center, has been established in Denver. The release says the center hopes to “establish a place where publishing entrepreneurs, editors, writers, scholars, and readers can interact with the processes of publishing and the culture of literature.” Anyone interested in publishing in the West is invited to be involved.
- The Pat Conroy Literary Center has been established in Beaufort, South Carolina. Modeled in part on The Loft in Minneapolis, the center will focus on the Lowcountry culture and location. Find out more at the center’s website.
- Another version of Book Con (a teen-focused event typically run after BookExpo America) will now run alongside New York Comic Con this October. It’s called BookCon @ NYCC, and the event will be open to anyone with a Comic Con ticket. Find out more.
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.