This week! Books!
In a huge victory for writers, the leaders of Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers reached a deal to end the strike and send a contract to members for ratification. Studios misjudged writers’ willingness to stick together through a strike, and writers made sweeping gains and had many of their terms met. Much respect to the strikers!
Banned Books Week is approaching, and according to a Washington Post analysis, 60% of the challenges in the United States come from just 11 people. Hannah Natanson profiled one such book banning zealot, who, armed with a highlighter and post-it notes, combs books for material she finds objectionable, including Beloved by Toni Morrison. Her crusade imposes a massive cost on her school district, which must deal with the resulting voluminous challenges and byzantine resolution procedures.
Meanwhile, Jasmine Liu has an overview of the myriad efforts of the right-wing war on books.
Erin Somers at Publishers Lunch delves into a recent Association of American Literary Agents membership report, which reflects the extent to which many literary agents are struggling to make ends meet, with 59% of respondents earning less than $100,000, largely in ever-more-expensive New York City. On the other end of the spectrum, 13% earn more than $250,000.
Agent and author Kate McKean interviewed Andrea DeWerd, whose marketing agency serves as an extension of publishers’ efforts around book launches, about the benefits of ancillary marketing on top of publishers’ efforts and what authors can do to promote their books.
And in a sign of things to come for audiobooks, Spotify is going to test using AI to clone podcasters’ voices, and then translate them to other languages.
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:
- The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman
- Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
- Holly by Stephen King
- Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
- Things We Left Behind by Lucy Score
Adult print and e-book nonfiction:
- The Democrat Party Hates America by Mark R. Levin
- Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
- Astor by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe
- Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
- Counting the Cost by Jill Duggar with Derick Dillard and Craig Borlase
Young adult hardcover:
- A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid
- Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
- This Winter by Alice Oseman
- Foxglove by Adalyn Grace
- Solitaire by Alice Oseman
Middle grade hardcover:
- Refugee by Alan Gratz
- Wonder by R.J. Palacio
- The Official Harry Potter Cookbook by Joanna Farrow
- Dogtown by Katherine Applegate and Gennifer Choldenko
- The Sun and the Star by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro
This week on the blog
In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:
- Let characters’ emotions spill in unpredictable ways
- Literary needs to feel literary (query critique)
Don’t forget that you can nominate your first page and query for a free critique on the blog:
And keep up with the discussion in all the places!
And finally, it’s the end of an era, as Netflix-sent DVDs will soon go the way of Blockbuster Video.
Have a great weekend!
Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!
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