According to a recent announcement, the storied Washington, DC, bookstore Politics & Prose—known for hosting high-profile author events—intends to pursue “new models of paid programming and content creation with an eye toward forging partnerships with publishers and media companies.” The announcement asserts that the “current revenue model” is no longer sustainable: “We’re still producing world-class conversations every night, yet there’s so much under-utilized content and so [much] more we can do with it. Networks have subscription models. Why don’t we? How can we build on our customer trust and wealth of internal talent to create new revenue streams? P&P has always led the way on bookstore programming, and now is the time for us to push forward to create a more flexible, independent content model.” This may be the first time we’ve seen a bookstore refer to authors as “content” and employ corporate speak to say something quite simple: book sales from P&P events just aren’t cutting it any 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.
