Awesome as always. Thanks for jumping into this. Cost-saving measures seems like a euphemism for we overpaid to get these people. These two acquired big projects so they seem to be victims of their own big salaries. Appreciate what you say about alliances and likeability too. Would love to have the inside story.
This "cost-saving" also, of course bumped Lisa Lucas out of a job and she was/is one of the few high-powered women of color in the publishing business. And *that* is a truly appalling thing (not to mention that she was, at least from the writers' end of things, hella good at her job). Cost-saving in other industries seems also to mean that someone higher up made bad financial decisions but will not themselves suffer. Blergh.
Ah, Publishing. Same as it ever was 🤦🏻♀️ PRH was always going to have to hemorrhage salaries and consolidate roles/imprints to help dig out from that $200m failed takeover penalty. It’s too bad that Lisa (who I don’t know) and Reagan (who I know and like very much; she was the publisher at Little, Brown on all of my books before she left for Knopf) were caught in the crossfire.
And Reagan’s dismissal smacks of *both* cost-cutting and the internal politics you mentioned. Now they have Jordan Pavlin “taking on two roles” as EIC and Publisher (according to the NYT)—aka PRH is saving a lot of money turning two high-paying jobs into one—but also…why wasn’t Jordan named Publisher in the first place??
Again, I love Reagan and liked that Knopf was bringing in someone with a more commercial sensibility, but Publisher has long seemed like Jordan’s destiny there, for good reason. Yet at the time, reports were that Sonny Mehta had “hand picked” Reagan as his successor, passing over his star, homegrown editor, and the CEO went along with it when Sonny died. Whatever the reasons behind all of it, what a dick punch for all involved (Reagan, Jordan, and the affected authors) just to arrive where the imprint could have been this whole time! And Hachette could have held on to Reagan! (Not that I have any right to assume she was happy there and/or make her career decisions for her 😂 But I was very sad when she left.) Anyway, and so it goes…
So interesting how social media has evolved as a platform for serialized mini-memoirs. I'm not on TikiTok anymore but remember seeing numerous TikToks where people shared their mental health journeys as serialized stories. Now reading what's happening to nonfiction books and how people are sharing personal stories, mental health journeys, cooking tips, etc on TikTok and Instagram, I'm saddened but not surprised by the drop in book sales. I always learn so much reading this Substack. Thank you.
Love the publishing industry analysis and insights, Kathleen. AND I'm here to say Baby Reindeer was BANANAS. After every episode my husband and I sat on the couch staring at each other. I dissected this to mean:
The dramatically unusual events in the story bring up a lot of new emotions for the viewer. We're not used to seeing or feeling ANY of this. We barely have the vocabulary to label what we've seen and how we feel about it. It's a lot to process.
Yes, absolutely I wanted to scream at both Martha and Donny to STOPPPPPPP. Maybe this is why the show was so compelling. We were overly invested in every detail of their interactions, down to the typos in Martha's texts.
Is it possible Donny's character was a metaphor for addiction? It started out so lovely. Then poor decisions were made, one after the other. Finally he couldn't quit her no matter how awful she was for him. He kept poking the bear even when he knew it would destroy him. And then it did.
How do you explain your own fascination with the story? Go.
So much great intel in here as always but I really need to discuss Baby Reindeer! After binging the show I binged podcasts talking about it! Agree, hard to have empathy for either. But holy cats! So much to dig into!
Any suggestions for encouraging kids back into print books? Our summer reading program at our community library starts in June! I think part of it is making the book just as convenient as a phone or tablet 🤷🏼♀️
Something I've seen work (though currently it takes a special kind of kid) is for the books and the social lives to meet. The true breakout books in YA (that haven't been adults buzzing about them) have been books that a lot of teens ended up reading and discussing together organically (though I think the last time I saw this was when Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse first appeared (2013?), and then it resurfaced with the TV show).
Personally, one of the avenues I had for connection in high school was a book club, so I'll admit to being a bit biased! But once you can get kids to hold conversations about books together, books can become an integral part of their social lives.
Yes! And somehwere in there too is what I've seen about curriculums in K-12, which seem to downplay fiction for "excerpts" and/or non-fiction--the muscle of the imagination seems to be atrophying, as a result.
That’s interesting… I wonder if favoring shorter “excerpts” in printed fiction for curriculum parallels this preference for shorter episode lengths for shows. I’d hate to think both attention and imagination are waning - that’s a heck of a combo to lose!
Sorry for late reply--traveling for book promo haha. I was very frustrated that he kept enabling her! But once I saw the flashback episode, I felt like I understood why he was stuck in the stalker "relationship" and rooted for him to find his way out.
Awesome as always. Thanks for jumping into this. Cost-saving measures seems like a euphemism for we overpaid to get these people. These two acquired big projects so they seem to be victims of their own big salaries. Appreciate what you say about alliances and likeability too. Would love to have the inside story.
Me too.
This "cost-saving" also, of course bumped Lisa Lucas out of a job and she was/is one of the few high-powered women of color in the publishing business. And *that* is a truly appalling thing (not to mention that she was, at least from the writers' end of things, hella good at her job). Cost-saving in other industries seems also to mean that someone higher up made bad financial decisions but will not themselves suffer. Blergh.
Ah, Publishing. Same as it ever was 🤦🏻♀️ PRH was always going to have to hemorrhage salaries and consolidate roles/imprints to help dig out from that $200m failed takeover penalty. It’s too bad that Lisa (who I don’t know) and Reagan (who I know and like very much; she was the publisher at Little, Brown on all of my books before she left for Knopf) were caught in the crossfire.
And Reagan’s dismissal smacks of *both* cost-cutting and the internal politics you mentioned. Now they have Jordan Pavlin “taking on two roles” as EIC and Publisher (according to the NYT)—aka PRH is saving a lot of money turning two high-paying jobs into one—but also…why wasn’t Jordan named Publisher in the first place??
Again, I love Reagan and liked that Knopf was bringing in someone with a more commercial sensibility, but Publisher has long seemed like Jordan’s destiny there, for good reason. Yet at the time, reports were that Sonny Mehta had “hand picked” Reagan as his successor, passing over his star, homegrown editor, and the CEO went along with it when Sonny died. Whatever the reasons behind all of it, what a dick punch for all involved (Reagan, Jordan, and the affected authors) just to arrive where the imprint could have been this whole time! And Hachette could have held on to Reagan! (Not that I have any right to assume she was happy there and/or make her career decisions for her 😂 But I was very sad when she left.) Anyway, and so it goes…
So interesting how social media has evolved as a platform for serialized mini-memoirs. I'm not on TikiTok anymore but remember seeing numerous TikToks where people shared their mental health journeys as serialized stories. Now reading what's happening to nonfiction books and how people are sharing personal stories, mental health journeys, cooking tips, etc on TikTok and Instagram, I'm saddened but not surprised by the drop in book sales. I always learn so much reading this Substack. Thank you.
Love the publishing industry analysis and insights, Kathleen. AND I'm here to say Baby Reindeer was BANANAS. After every episode my husband and I sat on the couch staring at each other. I dissected this to mean:
The dramatically unusual events in the story bring up a lot of new emotions for the viewer. We're not used to seeing or feeling ANY of this. We barely have the vocabulary to label what we've seen and how we feel about it. It's a lot to process.
Yes, absolutely I wanted to scream at both Martha and Donny to STOPPPPPPP. Maybe this is why the show was so compelling. We were overly invested in every detail of their interactions, down to the typos in Martha's texts.
Is it possible Donny's character was a metaphor for addiction? It started out so lovely. Then poor decisions were made, one after the other. Finally he couldn't quit her no matter how awful she was for him. He kept poking the bear even when he knew it would destroy him. And then it did.
How do you explain your own fascination with the story? Go.
So much great intel in here as always but I really need to discuss Baby Reindeer! After binging the show I binged podcasts talking about it! Agree, hard to have empathy for either. But holy cats! So much to dig into!
I wanted to yell at both of them to cut it out!
Really appreciate your insights as always. I keep going back on Baby Reindeer… should we watch it???
Yes! My husband thought he would hate it, but he ended up liking it.
Great analysis as always.
And Baby Reindeer was bonkers.
What does "soft" mean in relationship to books ("nonfiction is soft")? I tried to google but didn't see anything that clarified this for me.
I think it means sales are slow.
If that's true... any idea why "nonfiction is soft" listed both on the negative side and the positive side? I felt like a dolt, lol.
Soft is negative. It usually denotes that there was a decrease in sales or sales did not meet expectations.
I find three occurrences of “soft” and all are negative.
I found a definition meaning “sales are below expected” here.
https://www.phrasemix.com/phrases/sales-are-soft
It says, "On the positive side, Fiction sales are up, nonfiction is soft, audiobooks are hot..." This is what was confusing to me.
I see what you mean. Sales being down (soft) shouldn’t be positive. Likely a mistake. The graph shows nonfiction being down.
Any suggestions for encouraging kids back into print books? Our summer reading program at our community library starts in June! I think part of it is making the book just as convenient as a phone or tablet 🤷🏼♀️
I think it’s a multi-solution problem. I have trouble getting my own kids to read. They’re so into their social lives right now.
Something I've seen work (though currently it takes a special kind of kid) is for the books and the social lives to meet. The true breakout books in YA (that haven't been adults buzzing about them) have been books that a lot of teens ended up reading and discussing together organically (though I think the last time I saw this was when Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse first appeared (2013?), and then it resurfaced with the TV show).
Personally, one of the avenues I had for connection in high school was a book club, so I'll admit to being a bit biased! But once you can get kids to hold conversations about books together, books can become an integral part of their social lives.
Yes! And somehwere in there too is what I've seen about curriculums in K-12, which seem to downplay fiction for "excerpts" and/or non-fiction--the muscle of the imagination seems to be atrophying, as a result.
That’s interesting… I wonder if favoring shorter “excerpts” in printed fiction for curriculum parallels this preference for shorter episode lengths for shows. I’d hate to think both attention and imagination are waning - that’s a heck of a combo to lose!
Baby Reindeer is EVERYTHING!
Ok so what did you think? I had a very hard time having empathy for either of them!
Sorry for late reply--traveling for book promo haha. I was very frustrated that he kept enabling her! But once I saw the flashback episode, I felt like I understood why he was stuck in the stalker "relationship" and rooted for him to find his way out.