Nathan Bransford | Writing, Book Editing, Publishing

Helping authors achieve their dreams

Penguin Random House

State-sponsored censorship week (This week in books)

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This week! Books! I’m back, and luckily nothing at all happened while I was away (okay everything happened while I was away). Lots and lots of links this week! Let’s get to it. 2026 We Need Diverse Books Mentorship Program Application – Applications are now open for We Need Diverse Books’ terrific mentorship program for […]

Copyright still requires human authorship, but read the fine print (This week in books)

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This week! Books! The Trump tariffs are tanking your 401k at the moment (if you’re lucky enough to have one), but how will they affect publishers, whose books are often printed in Asia and Europe? According to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at the WSJ, they don’t really know either. The U.S. Copyright Office, apparently one of […]

The book world rallies for Los Angeles (This week in books)

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This week! Books! In a week where we have a new president and rich, evil dweebs are out doing Nazi salutes, the fight to ban books continues apace. In Utah, students can no longer even bring their personal copies of banned books to school. The list of banned books includes perennial book ban favorite Ellen […]

Being a full-time writer isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be (This week in books)

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This week! Books! New-ish Penguin Random House CEO Nihar Malaviya stepped (tiptoed?) out of the shadows for an interview with Elizabeth A. Harris of the New York Times. Apart from quite a few people being at pains to speak to his listening and analytical abilities and a very 2024 allusion to the wonders of A.I. […]

PEN and PRH sue a Florida school district over book banning (This week in books)

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This week! Books! Big news this week as PEN America, Penguin Random House, and a group of authors have filed suit against the Escambia County School District for violating the equal protection clause in the Constitution by targeting disproportionately nonwhite and LGBTQ authors with book bans. This is a significant legal salvo in the midst […]

Social media is a dumpster fire (This week in books)

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This week! Books! You know it, I know it. Social media just isn’t what it used to be. Approximately 15 years into the social media era, and 8 years after GamerGate marked the beginning of the end, we’re at a messy nadir, where the giants (Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, Snap) are earnestly committing suicide, the insurgent (TikTok) […]