Category: Publishing Controversies
Batten down the hatches: The implications of a Trump Presidency for the publishing industry
As Donald Trump prepares to take office once again, the publishing industry faces a unique set of challenges. With a compliant Department of Justice (DoJ) under his administration, the potential for increased scrutiny and influence over book publishing decisions is a significant concern.
Read More
Children reading for pleasure at an all-time low. Industry in panic mode. The problem lies in the classroom, not the industry
Does anyone seriously expect a child to enjoy reading if they cannot read properly?
Read More
No sign of Gordon Gekko at the 2024 Global 50 CEO (Simon & Schuster/KRR) Talk at Frankfurt
“Not opening the floodgates” (Richard Sarnoff, KKR) is a concession that AI content will flow regardless, and the right way forward is to learn to manage that flow, not try to dam it.
Read More
While trade publishers are scared to get off the AI fence, Wiley seeks more lucrative deals. Trade CEOs, wake up and smell the coffee!
With more access to trade content for training, LLMs can become more efficient in the trade sectors where it currently lags behind, opening up new revenue streams and potentially new and transformative concepts yet to be explored.
Read More
NaNoWriMo is a procrastinator’s dream. But it’s got AI right. And the new gatekeepers are worried
The new gatekeepers are not the publishers but the established authors looking to protect the status quo and keep the market as non-competitive as possible.
Read More
Wiley to pocket $44 million this year from AI deals but rightly says no to author opt-outs
Just who do authors think is in charge here? Traditionally, publishers do not give authors control over where their books are sold or in what format, or what else the publisher might do to maximise revenues. If we authors don’t like that, we can self-publish.
Read More
UK’s Society of Authors asks AI companies to tell them which books were used to train LLMs because the SoA hasn’t got any evidence
The SoA believes they have such a strong legal case that they have, after several months choosing the right words, written to the tech companies with a seven day ultimatum (one hundred and eleven days to write the letter, seven days to comply – hey, that’s fair!) to acknowledge receipt.
Read More
Are romance novels literature?
In fact, some of my all time favourite “classics” are romance novels.
Read More
Ingram’s 2000s version of AI bans Thad McIlroy book on 2020s AI in publishing
This twentieth-century sledge-hammer to crack a nut approach to policing its catalogue flies in the face of the company’s otherwise deserved image as being at the forefront of the publishing revolution.
Read More
UK publisher and author advocates want AI regulation and fair pay, but we should be careful what we wish for
Fair pay for writers? I’m sure JK Rowling would be happy to settle for £25 an hour. After all, she has no commuting costs, and can pick and choose the hours she works, and judging from her output lately she probably spends all day on WhatsApp instead of slaving over that next book.
Read More
No, the “real” Middle Grade reading crisis has nothing to do with kids having or not having phones
As the industry watches Middle Grade sales and reading decline, grasping at easy excuses – such as that 70% of US nine year-olds don’t have phones – just beggars belief. How the f**k do they think Harry Potter or Enid Blyton got noticed and sold millions of books back in nineteen bow and arrow?
Read More
Is Spotify’s audiobook service already hurting Audible?
How many Audible subscribers, handing over a fixed sum each month for one single audiobook, also subscribe to Spotify for their music fix?
Read More