This week! Books!
Some really terrific news for the book world this week as independent online bookseller Bookshop.org has launched its long-awaited e-book platform. You can now buy e-books that support many of your favorite independent bookstores! I gave the app a spin, and it looks great. For now they have traditionally published books, but are hoping to add self-published books soon. I mainly read e-books and have long been locked into Amazon’s ecosystem, so I’m really psyched about this development.
Meanwhile, two books really capture the state of the bookselling ecosystem. First, the bad news, publisher Ken Whyte takes a look at an obviously-fake book of letters from “J.D. Rockefeller,” which is racking up “good reviews” and “boosts from influencers” on LinkedIn. Amazon continues its race to become an ever-deeper cesspool of fakeries. In a more wholesome development, Emily Gould profiles the rise of I Who Have Never Known Men, a once-obscure 1995 book by a Belgian author that has received new life from a seemingly-spontaneous groundswell on BookTok and boosted the fortunes of the independent publisher who published its translation.
And in related news, the Authors Guild is working on a verification system to certify books that are human-written, a development that honestly just depresses me.
If you have any outrage to spare at the new presidential administration, please direct it at the Department of Education declaring rampant book bans in school a “hoax” and dismissing the book ban coordinator at the Office of Civil Rights. Industry organizations including Authors Against Book Bans and PEN America have decried the move. Meanwhile, children’s reading skills have reached a new low, which seems like something a supposed Department of Education might care more about addressing.
Sean Manning, the new publisher of Simon & Schuster’s eponymous flagship imprint, announced that S&S will no longer require its authors to secure blurbs, and judging from the reaction across the book world, you’d think he single-handedly discovered how to split the atom. I’m of course pleased to see a rethink of one of publishing’s “this is just what we’ve always done” customs, but it’s also a reflection of how many of those exist within the industry (I’m looking at you, P&Ls), and how rarely they’re challenged. Publicist Cassie Mannes Murray has lots of ideas for what the space for blurbs could be used for instead.
Congrats to the ALA winners! Here are some notables:
- Newbery: The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly
- Caldecott: Chooch Helped illustrated by Rebecca Lee Kunz; written by Andrea L. Rogers
- Printz: Brownstone by Samuel Teer; illustrated by Mar Julia
You’re on your way toward being traditionally published and you are checking your first pass pages for typos after your book’s been formatted and now you can only see how you want to change everything. Can you? (Not exactly, as agent Kate McKean explains).
The debate about whether listening to audiobooks counts as reading has reached the pages of the Wall Street Journal. (Here’s my take).
And George R.R. Martin may win an award for greatest lengths to avoid writing as he co-authored a scientific paper that utilizes one of his series to study mutations. (In all seriousness this is really cool).
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:
- Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
- Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
- Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
- The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
- James by Percival Everett
Adult print and e-book nonfiction:
- Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
- Melania by Melania Trump
- On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
- The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
- The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
Young adult hardcover:
- If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin
- Nothing Like the Movies by Lynn Painter
- A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid
- The Last Bookstore on Earth by Lily Braun-Arnold
- Murtagh by Christopher Paolini
Middle grade hardcover:
- Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell
- The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids
- The Last Dragon on Mars by Scott Reintgen
- Warriors: Changing Skies #1: The Elders’ Quest by Erin Hunter
- Will’s Race for Home by Jewell Parker Rhodes
This week on the blog
In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:
And keep up with the discussion in all the places!
And finally, spare the world’s smallest tear for OpenAI, who is very concerned that Chinese AI company DeepSeek may have improperly harvested its data. Oh gosh. Geez. I’m just so sad for you, OpenAI. I can only imagine what you must be going through!! Thoughts and prayers.
Have a great weekend!
Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!
For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel and my guide to publishing a book.
And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!
Photo: The Huntington, San Marino, CA. Follow me on Instagram! At least until there’s a non-Meta substitute!
){kind=link}
I’m a sentient being and I prefer books, and other creations, by sentient beings. It’s difficult to get into the mind of a robot – or whatever they want to call themselves – that has no living mind.