Amazon to tighten e-book returns (This week in books)

This week! Books!

After some TikToks went viral pointing out that you can easily read and then return Kindle e-books for a refund, which had some real effects on authors, Amazon announced that it is (modestly) tightening its e-book policy ($ link) and will require customers to explain themselves to customer service if they’ve read more than 10% of an e-book.

In other Amazon news, a judge dismissed a longshot lawsuit against Amazon and the Big 5 publishers accusing them of e-book price fixing.

In “you can write and publish at any age” news, Julia Edelstein at Publishers Weekly catches up with seven authors over age 50 with YA debuts in 2022.

Sad news this week as Wolf Hall author Hilary Mantel passed away at age 70. Judith Shulevitz wrote about how chronic pain impacted her work.

Children’s book imprint Margaret K. McElderry Books turns 50 this week, and Carolina Ciucci profiles both its founder and its impact on children’s publishing. It’s sold 80 million books and counting and is now a part of Simon & Schuster.

And in writing advice news, I enjoyed this post by Becca Puglisi with ideas for revealing a character’s inner conflict.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. Dreamland by Nicholas Sparks
2. It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover
3. Verity by Colleen Hoover
4. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
5. Fairy Tale by Stephen King

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
2. The Divider by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser
3. Starry Messenger by Neil deGrasse Tyson
4. The Body Keeps the Score by Bassel van der Kolk
5. Dinners With Ruth by Nina Totenberg

Young adult hardcover:

1. Long Live the Pumpkin King by Shea Ernshaw
2. Hocus Pocus: The Illustrated Novelization by A.W. Jantha
3. Defend the Dawn by Brigid Kemmerer
4. The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber
5. The Girl in the Castle by James Patterson and Emily Raymond

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Odder by Katherine Applegate
2. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
3. Amari and the Great Game by B.B. Alston
4. Refugee by Alan Gratz
5. The Midnight Children by Dan Gemeinhart

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• Close off your protagonist’s easy off-ramps
• Avoid those little redundancies (page critique)

Don’t forget that you can nominate your first page and query for a free critique on the blog:

• Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog
• Nominate Your Query for a Critique on the Blog

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Twitter
• Follow my page on Facebook
• Join the Facebook Group
• Check out the Bransforums

And finally, just in time for Halloween, goth galaxy courtesy of the Webb Telescope!

Space, but make it goth! 🕸️

If this new image from Webb’s mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) looks dark & moody, that's because things look different in this light than what you may be used to. These are the "bones” of galaxy IC 5332, usually hidden by dust: https://t.co/UEENdXZMdk pic.twitter.com/4HYFrgi98j

— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) September 27, 2022

Have a great weekend!

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Photo: Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles. Follow me on Instagram!