438: The Outer World of Publishing

Hey ho, Jess here. This week, all four of us discuss some of the happenings out there in the publishing world. 

First up: Super Bowl Sunday is apparently a great reading day. Sarina sent us a screenshot of her sales (she was tipped off by another author) and found out what many people are reading during the game:



So that’s fun. 

Next up, Sean Manning of Simon & Schuster announced no more blurbs (yay!)…unless you want to (boo!) in Publisher’s Weekly and everyone had a lot to say about it. The New York Times, LitHub, lots of others. We add some perspective to the conversation as both blurbees and blurbers. 

Here’s that wonderful AJ Jacobs NYT piece about not blurbing. 

And Rebecca Makkai’s piece on not blurbing anymore in her Substack. 

PEN America

The Authors Guild. Please join. 

Authors Against Book Bans. Please join. 

Is Sarina Bowen going to jail? We sure hope not.

Here’s OK SB593, the legislation we discussed by the dude in Oklahoma. Make sure to check out the language on pages 10-11. Don’t take our word for it, read it yourself. 

Here’s an example of the work The Authors Guild is doing to stop book banning, in this case in Idaho. 

I mentioned author and illustrator Katherine Roy in passing, so here’s her episode and her website, and the book I mentioned, Making More: How Life Begins.