Archive • On the Books by Margot Atwell • Buttondown

New horizons: moving on from Feminist Press

December 12, 2024

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

August 20, 2023

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

August 11, 2023

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

January 29, 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

November 11, 2022

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...

February 25, 2022

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

October 7, 2019

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

September 17, 2019

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

September 9, 2019

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...

Boycott Amazon for Prime Day

“Prime Day” is a “holiday” made up by Amazon to juice their bottom line by encouraging shoppers to lock themselves into the Amazon ecosystem by paying $119 a...

Lunchtime Links, 6.21.19

I read a lot online about publishing, journalism, money, etc., and thought you might be interested in some of what I’m reading. If you’re not interested,...

Ch. 7: What does it cost to enter publishing?

Around this time of year, I start hearing from recent graduates hoping to get into the publishing business. While I enjoy meeting with them and am inspired...

Ch. 6: Tariff troubles

President Trump’s recent announcement that he wants to dramatically hike tariffs (fro 10% to 25%) on a huge range of consumer goods and materials shipped...

Ch. 5: The Best Publishing Events

Over the past few weeks, as I’ve wrapped up The Next Page and prepared for Book Expo America this week, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what makes a...

Ch 4: Bad News for Booksellers

Baker & Taylor, one of the two major book wholesalers in the US, just announced that they are exiting the retail wholesale business. I believe this is bad...

Publishing has an innovation problem. Well, publishing has a lot of problems, and innovation is one of them. I have spent the last five years deep-diving...

Ch. 3: Run a Website? Create a Print Legacy

I was absolutely crushed to hear that another bright light of the digital age, The Establishment, is ending their run. Their farewell letter, like everything...

Ch 2: Pondering public funding

Hello friends! I spent last week at the London Book Fair, being on the ground just long enough to be completely confused about what time zone I was for my...

Ch. 1: Amazon and Gratitude

February 16, 2019

Last year, I went to a publishing event that was sponsored by Amazon Literary Partnership, which gives out around $1M annually to literary organizations. I...

On the Books: Preface

February 16, 2019

Publishing has a problem. It’s a money problem. Most people think the problem is that there isn’t any money in publishing. And that’s not wholly wrong. But I...

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