Traditional Publishing
- Counterpoint—a traditional publishing company that includes Soft Skull Press—is merging with Catapult, a publisher that was established roughly a year ago. You can read more in Publishers Weekly, or find out more about Catapult in this Wall Street Journal article from 2015; Catapult is funded by one of the nation’s wealthiest families.
- Penguin Random House is giving away free ebooks on the New York subway for eight weeks. The partnership celebrates the installation of Wi-Fi networks in subway stations. Read more in the New York Times.
Business Know-How
- Before you sign a publishing contract, learn how to spot pay-to-play. Attorney Susan Spann outlines how to read a contract closely to spot arrangements where the author can get stuck with unexpected expenses. This can be especially prevalent in small-press and hybrid-publisher contracts. Read more at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers site.
- An author who consistently makes a six-figure income from book sales shares his marketing strategies. Note that he has more than 100 books, mostly nonfiction, on the market. Find out more at Written Word Media.
- Want to see your book stocked in gift stores? Marketer Brian Jud has written a short post on how to sell books at national parks and the like. Read it in Book Business magazine.
In the News
- A poetry book sells a half million copies after first being self-published. The Kansas City–based publisher Andrews McMeel picked up Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur (its third poetry title) based on the author’s strong social media following and platform in the spoken-word poetry community. Read more in Publishers Weekly.
- Is the novella making a comeback? (Probably not, but …) A UK story discusses this “trend” given the current success of BookShots, as well as George R.R. Martin’s work. Read up at the Independent.
- The Arthur C. Clarke Award will start accepting self-published entries. The director of the award, Tom Hunter, explains the change on Medium.
Amazon
- Amazon may have surpassed Flipkart in India. Founded in 2007, Flipkart is considered the leader in e-commerce in India. But Amazon India, which launched in 2013, is quickly gaining market share. Read more at Mashable.
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.