Culture & Politics
- Federal judge halts dismantling of IMLS. If the federal government complies, they will have to resume distribution of funds and restore employees and contractors who were involuntarily placed on leave or terminated. Read Nathalie op de Beeck at Publishers Weekly.
- Related: Learn how libraries have cut back on digital lending and staff as a result of cuts to IMLS. Read Nadia Lathan at the AP. Publishers Weekly also has an article on how cuts affect rural libraries. Read Karen Fischer.
- It’s a rarity for five Supreme Court justices to recuse themselves. But that’s what happened in a case involving Bertelsmann, parent company of Penguin Random House. A lower court’s decision will stand because the Supreme Court does not have a quorum. While justices don’t have to offer reasons for recusal, it’s assumed they did so because some of them have contracts with Penguin Random House. Learn more at Fix the Court.
Trends
- The biggest trends in romance covers. Publishers Weekly looks specifically at Westerns, interspecies romance, and rom-coms, but one thing they all have in common? Illustrated covers. Read DW McKinney at Publishers Weekly. Related: 831 Stories is going in an entirely different direction, using uniform designs with color blocking. I’m all for strong publisher branding, but as an author, I’m not sure how I’d feel about this. It makes sense for Fitzcarraldo or New York Review of Books, but romance?
Traditional Publishing
- The controversy behind Silver Elite, a dystopian romantasy: The book is a debut from Dani Francis, who has no author photo and a generic online presence. Naturally this has led to rampant speculation about the author’s identity. Is it a NYT bestselling author writing under a pen name? Or is it a ghostwritten or packaged book? Perhaps AI generated? Meanwhile, some don’t like how the book is being marketed, and others don’t like its approach to the genre. Read Amanda Mullen at ScreenRant for an overview. Then see Alyssa Morris for a deeper dive into the BookTok reaction.
- Novelist Taylor Jenkins Reid is on the cover of Time magazine. She discusses her rise on BookTok, celebrity book clubs, and film and TV adaptations of her work. There’s money talk as well—she’s receiving $8 million per book. Read Lucy Feldman.
Audiobook Distribution
- Spotify and Findaway Voices change up audiobook distribution. For authors distributing through Findaway or Spotify, services will change starting on August 1. For distribution to retailers other than Spotify, a new company—INaudio—will be used. Ultimately, Findaway Voices will become Voices by INaudio. Learn more.
Subscription Services
- Readers complain about Everand’s new model as audiobook originals program winds down. I recently stumbled on this Reddit thread of romance readers who don’t have many kind words for how the Everand subscription service has changed in the last year. (Everand is the new branding for the book subscription side of Scribd.) Once upon a time, Everand offered unlimited reading and listening for its entire collection, but it has since moved to a model that is more or less like Audible. Everand’s $11.99/month plan offers one “premium” title per month and unlimited access to its standard catalog. But the standard catalog consists of 20,000 titles; the premium catalog consists of 1.5 million titles. Meanwhile, authors who licensed their audiobooks to Everand recently learned the company is winding down their program to produce original audiobooks.
AI
- AI introduces the era of “liquid content.” What happens when you can use AI to represent any piece of content in any medium you like—e.g., books into podcasts and vice-versa? Considerable discussion here of Amazon, Spotify, and TikTok that’s relevant to authors and publishers. I find the article boosts AI overmuch, but the overall point remains valid. Read Ryan Khurana at The (Ge)Narrative.
Libraries
- Connecticut passes a “right to negotiate” library ebook bill. It still has to be signed and may never go into effect, but it ultimately prevents publishers from insisting on ebook licenses that include both lending limits and time restrictions. Read Andrew Richard Albanese at Words & Money.
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.