Has A.I. killed prescriptive nonfiction? (This week in books)

This week! Books!

Has AI Already Killed How-To Nonfiction? Sales Trends, My Personal Data, and What It Might Mean for the Future – Tim Ferriss – Is A.I. already killing how-to nonfiction? The 4-Hour Workweek author Timothy Ferriss has experienced dramatically lower book sales in the past few years and sees prescriptive nonfiction as a canary in the coal mine for changes wrought by A.I. Is there going to be a market anymore for how-to blogs, prescriptive podcasts, and online classes as more people turn to A.I. with their questions?

Why “Book-Shaming” Won’t Solve the Children’s Literacy Crisis – Jessica Winter, The New Yorker – Hand-wringing over the quality of children’s books obscures the likelier reasons for the decline in children’s literacy: distracted kids raised by phone-addicted parents and under-siege librarians.

I spent $65 on two books. Is reading becoming a luxury? – Josh Rivera, USA Today – Are books more expensive than they used to be? By one measure, yes, they’ve risen roughly 25% since 2020. But historically, price increases haven’t kept pace with inflation and books are more affordable than they used to be. What has mainly changed is the perception of value with the rise of cheap e-books and heavily discounted print books.

How The Money Works – Kate McKean, Agents + Books – Agent and author Kate McKean breaks down how advances work, where the money goes, subrights, and how Publishers Marketplace reports deals. (Here’s my own version of this post).

Edits: A Survival Guide – Daniel José Older – Bestselling author Daniel José Older really hates editing, which makes his advice on how to survive the editing process particularly useful.

Feel alive in your creativity – Dan Blank The Creative Shift – Jumping off from nostalgia for a world where we had mastery over fixing the objects around us without needing proprietary tools and faced far less perpetual bombardment for our attention, Dan Blank sees the creative process as a place where you can regain a sense of control with the right mindset.

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. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
2. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
3. Whistler by Ann Patchett
4. The Deal by Elle Kennedy
5. Harvest Season by Brynne Weaver

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Strangers by Belle Burden
2. The Land and Its People by David Sedaris
3. View From the East Wing by Jill Biden
4. London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe
5. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Young adult hardcover:

1. The Secret World of Briar Rose by Cindy Pham
2. The Escape Game by Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss
3. Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
4. If Only I Had Told Her by Laura Nowlin
5. Release Me by Tahereh Mafi

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2. Refugee by Alan Gratz
3. Wombat Waiting by Katherine Applegate
4. KPop Demon Hunters by Jessica Yoon
5. Unsettling Salad! by Aaron Reynolds

This week on the blog

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

• Don’t over-engineer how the reader “hears” your words

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Bluesky and Threads

And finally:

David Hockney, Who Restored the Human Form to Art, Dies at 88 – Holland Cotter, New York Times – This week we lost one of the greatest artists of our times. David Hockney passed away at 88.

Have a great weekend!

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