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Deals for adult fiction saw 9.3 percent growth, nonfiction deals were down 1.6 percent versus 2024, and children’s deals were flat.

We looked at an app which claims to retell popular books via brief animated chapters, and the results range from absurd to possibly infringing.

These are the news stories and topics I’ll be following closely this year, from growth in AI translation to ad-supported Substack and more.

For 2026, works from the year 1930 enter the public domain, including the first four Nancy Drew novels, The Maltese Falcon, and many more.

Each issue of this newsletter contains dozens of links. Here’s what caught readers’ interest in 2025, in order of popularity.

In 2026 the publishing business will be moved into WEBTOON Entertainment. The entertainment business will be moved into WEBTOON Productions.

Nonfiction sales will likely continue to decline in the years ahead due to competing sources of information and entertainment.

Poetry Corp is an informal collective of five New York–based small presses.

The headline finding is that personal recommendation is the top source of book discovery, surpassing social media and platforms like Amazon.

The Dublin-based publisher will focus on current affairs and business titles with a global focus.

PRH is collaborating with Netflix, which streams KPop Demon Hunters, to publish “fan-forward” titles about the show.

A deep dive with three traditional publishers who remain active in the coloring book market, each of them with a different approach.

Lakeside, a book manufacturer which spun out of RR Donnelly five years ago, already serves 250 small publishers who handle their own sales.

The venture promises to identify an unpublished novel that will receive a $25,000 contract from Blackstone—but there’s a price.

James Patterson and Bookshop.org are partnering on a $15,000 literary prize for debut books. Nominations open on January 5, 2026.