Launching a book: Absolute Pleasure
The last time I launched a book with my name on the cover (Derby Life) was ten years ago. Since then, I’ve been involved in launching dozens of books (or...
Absolute Pleasure
Hello friends! It feels like I have been in a cocoon for the past few months, and am now emerging into the warm spring light and spreading my wings. Though...
New horizons: moving on from Feminist Press
It has been an incredible honor and privilege to lead Feminist Press for the past three years, nurturing, publishing, and celebrating writing from...
Shoals: collaboration in publishing
I've always loved the image of the shoal: many small fish swimming together, emulating a bigger fish to deter prey. I imagine it's companionable, insofar as...
How to look at book sales reporting
I've been noticing something about how outlets report publishing sales levels that troubles me. The most frequent way a media outlet or publisher will...
Why I *Left* Subst@ck
Watching everyone launch Substack newsletters over the past months as the ground under Twitter has shifted due to Elon Musk's takeover and summary...
What to Watch in Book Publishing in 2023
I was asked to give a talk at Digital Book World this month, and had a lot more latitude about what to discuss than I normally have when I’m asked to speak,...
Playing Monopoly in Book Publishing
The news broke
Feminist publishing and saying goodbye to B*tch
This email is about what it takes to sustain independent presses and media. It's about what it means to sustain an independent feminist organization that...
Scarcity, ownership, and the inexorable rise of NFTs
In 2021, I didn't care about NFTs. As the year went on, it felt harder and harder to avoid learning what they were, or forming some sort of opinion on them....
Why writers need an email list, not just social media
This week, Jenny Bhat tweeted about a NYT piece that was making the rounds, "Food Businesses Lose Faith in Instagram after Algorithm Changes." She pulled out...
How to fund a book on Kickstarter if you AREN'T Brandon Sanderson
*You might notice this newsletter is on a new platform, Buttondown. For more info, scroll to the end.* In case you missed it, prolific bestselling fantasy...
What Brandon Sanderson's $14M+ Kickstarter Project Means
If you’re on writing or publishing Twitter, you probably saw news of Brandon Sanderson’s astoundingly successful Kickstarter project, which launched at 11 AM...
A new chapter
With a book, it’s clear where it begins and ends. You open the cover and begin reading with an Introduction, or Once upon a time, which is just a different...
Boycott Amazon for May Day
Today is May Day, a date with a long history in the labor movement. As COVID-19 has revealed even more than usual the deep inequality and injustice that...
Ch. 11: Bad Publishing Experiments
Recently HarperCollins UK announced that it will be making some of its backlist titles available via Kindle Unlimited. “The publisher confirmed that as of...
Ch. 10: Money tips for authors
An essay is making the rounds on publishing twitter right now that talks about how an author found herself completely up a creek, financially, after being...
Ch. 9: Self-publishing costs
I recently published a very transparent look at the costs and financial realities of self-publishing my book, Derby Life, after running a successful...
Lunchtime Links 8.9.19
James Daunt of Waterstones (and the new CEO of Barnes & Noble) announced “a company-wide 4% bonus for Waterstones employees, following a "pretty good"...
Ch. 8: Career paths in publishing
Last month, I was pleased to be invited to give a talk at the New School Publishing Institute, a weeklong introduction to the publishing industry led by John...