Weekend Links
Some book-related stories of interest.
When I first started tweeting in 2008, I was known for aggregating links to stories I thought would interest people, so I will do that here occasionally (all will be gift links). Next week is an exciting one! Publishing Confidential’s first anniversary is March 7!
This story left me scratching my head. Who at the RWA (Romance Writers of America) thought this was a good idea? A romance writers workshop using AI. (Sorry if this is not a gift link—404 is a new media outlet, and I don’t see a way to gift stories)
Wired published an interesting story about fan fiction.
This Wall Street Journal story about online book clubs got me thinking.
The fountain pen community (I didn’t know it existed!) is upset about this, per The New York Times.
I am still unconvinced that Spotify will dethrone Audible. This Techcrunch story is about Spotify’s new pricing for audiobooks. The problem is you still only receive 15 hours of listening time per month out of a limited library of 200K books.
There was a lot of online chatter about this story: How the News Media Keeps Losing the Future: NYT
I have been preaching this for a while: TikTok is basically broadcast television now—here’s a story in The Atlantic.
A new feature from Instagram that might interest you.
This post from
about what makes the book market tough right now is spot-on.Publishers’ backlist sales accounted for 70% of total unit sales in 2023—a record high: read more at Publishers Weekly here. I’m going to write about what this means in an upcoming newsletter.
An interesting piece from The Guardian about the music industry’s over-reliance on TikTok. I often feel book publishing has the same problem.
Want to know what the top 50 news sites were last month? The Press Gazette always has great info like this.
Upcoming paid newsletters will cover topics like book covers and red flags you must recognize when exploring publishers.
Have a great weekend!
Kathleen
It is very discouraging that discovering books for many happens only via Booktok. (It depends on the generation and of course bookstores still count for a lot). However, the industry is leaning into this channel and not seeming to make many efforts to carve out other ways for readers to find books. I know BT has done good things and brought readers together but can't we create or promote other ways as well? And let's not forget this platform is Chinese owned and no one seems bothered by this point at all......SIGH.
I was thinking over the weekend about how it's been 10 years this spring since I was told by the president of a major sports industry brand that he couldn't justify creating a full-time position to handle social media. Now, sports and entertainment brands are hiring full-time positions titled "Vertical Video Specialist" (in addition to their more general social media positions) which is essentially a full-time TikTok creator for the brand. It's wild just how much TikTok has taken on a life of its own and reshaping/redefining the "social media" landscape for brands. Just because we don't understand or "get" it doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention to it with curiosity and great respect. Ten years from now anyone shrugging off TikTok today is going to be a lot like my boss ten years ago who shrugged off social media as a short-term fad he didn't need to take too seriously or invest any time/money in.