- Earlier this year, Nielsen reported on specific print book categories that were growing rather than declining. Cookbooks was one of those categories, partly driven by celebrity chefs and foodie culture. The Guardian reports on the trend further: “Cookbooks’ key ingredient now design, not recipes, says food writer.” (If you’re wondering about that Nielsen report, here’s the SlideShare.)
- The German ebook market will soon be predominantly DRM-free; currently, ebooks make up 5 percent of their overall book sales. Industry consultant Mike Shatzkin summarizes the situation. Why does anyone in the US care? Because everyone is watching “whether ebook sales, particularly for top titles, are maintained or softened in any way by pass-along and, at least as important, whether new ebook retailing really is enabled by ditching the DRM requirement.”
- Watch out. Simon & Schuster is experimenting with the addition of a single title by author Vince Flynn in Kindle Unlimited (KU) to help promote his upcoming fall release. No Big Five publisher has ever offered titles through KU, so this is now the sole exception. You can read more at Publishers Lunch if you have a subscription.
- Ebook piracy and copyright infringement isn’t anything new, but we’re hearing about a new twist on an old game. Skilled pirates appear to be uploading authors’ ebooks to Amazon, creating identical descriptions, escaping fraud detection by Amazon, and sometimes getting their version to turn up first in search results. John Doppler offers an in-depth explanation here.
- If you enjoy being on the cutting edge of media and publishing tech, check out an emerging app called Byte.
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.