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< Back Why Sheldon Collins Chose Indie Production Over Corporate Audio Giants August 13, 2026 at 11:25:03 AM Producing an audiobook was not something Sheldon Collins had really ever planned on doing. But this year, the author and filmmaker’s new audiobook , The Legend of Valentine: An Ancient Historical Love Story , won four awards for production and sound design, including the 2026 Independent Press Award . To produce that quality, Collins didn’t turn to a massive audiobook corporation. Instead, he used Pro Audio Voices , an independent audiobook and podcast production company run by a team of just 20 people. In a phone call this summer, he walked BookCAMP Magazine through the process of creating that award-winning work from start to finish. “First and foremost, it was important for me that a production partner would allow me creative freedom,” Collins said. “It appealed to me to work with more of an independent-type production and distribution company. The idea of working with a company where it felt more like an independent community of people was attractive to me because it reminded me of my own background in independent filmmaking. When things get too big, too corporate-like, you lose a lot of the creative collaborations along the way. Pro Audio Voices appealed to me because they weren’t too big for their own britches, so to speak, and they allowed me the creative leniency to do what I wanted to do.” Collins didn’t originally write The Legend of Valentine to be an audiobook. But as an avid audiobook listener himself, he found as he was writing the story that the epic, sweeping nature of the tale would lend itself well to audio. With 20 actors playing multiple characters and over 100 original musical compositions, it promised to be a highly complex, ambitious project. So Collins wanted to make sure he got everything right. He co-directed the project with Pro Audio Voices CEO Becky Parker Geist, a professional theater actress and narrator who founded the company in 2019. Working with a smaller company, he said, gave him the flexibility to adjust. “ It was way more important to me to slow the time down and make sure that there was this incredible attention to detail on every step of the way, from casting, to directing the performance to the initial edit, to the sound design, to the music, and then to the mix,” Collins said. “It was very important to me that it was always as good as we could possibly get it. A bigger production entity, like an Audible or a company like that, might have said, ‘We’ve got to get this done by this month.’ But Becky really understood how important it was to me and to the project to make sure that we nailed this. And that worked out to be part of the ingredients to the winning formula.” One telling example of this approach was the musical composition. “ We got to a point where we had put some music in there, we had licensed either low-paid royalty or royalty-free,” Collins said. “But I quickly recognized that this is not as good as it could be. Everything else was so strong. The performance was strong. The story was strong. But the music just was not orchestral enough for me. It just didn’t give me goosebumps.” Collins consulted with Parker Geist and the music team, and brought in Grammy-nominated composer Stephen Endelman to develop little musical themes for each of the characters and design how those themes would interact. By the end of the four months that process took, in addition to the four months spent on sound design, Collins said, the audio file was the biggest that the company’s audio mixer had ever seen. And Collins was able to complete it for under $100,000. “ The giants in the industry would’ve produced this audiobook at probably somewhere between five to eight times the price, easily, based on the epic nature of this audiobook,” he said. “Pro Audio Voices  recognized that we had to do this at the right budget, and they were capable of doing that without there being too many hands to feed, so to speak, with a bigger company.” The Legend of Valentine received eight nominations in the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences’ (SOVAS) 2026 Voice Arts Awards and won two, including one for Best Sound Design in the Outstanding Audio Engineering category. Pro Audio Voices’ Daryl Bolicek took home that award. The other win was for Best Producer, which went to Parker Geist on behalf of the team. Collins himself received three SOVAS nominations for directing. He admitted his situation was a bit unique—Parker Geist has never allowed anyone else to direct an audiobook with her company before, but allowed him to work with her specifically because of his filmmaking experience. When asked what advice he would give to other authors looking to direct or produce an audiobook production of their work, Collins laughed. “ I think you have to be insane, first of all,” he said, chuckling. “Insanity is required. But I would say that, with almost anybody in the creative arts right now, beyond the skill and the talent there has to be an incredible will to take it to the next step. I think the first thing that somebody needs to do who’s an author is really decide whether or not this is for them or not. You could very easily pass it over to Becky and just let her company run with it, in which case you’re going to get a great result.” Pro Audio Voices, and AMPlify Audiobooks , its distribution imprint, offers a full production service . After an author has agreed to work with the company and completes a planning session, the company will start working on casting and standardizing manuscripts. “An audition text is created from your manuscript and our Casting Team will invite narrators from our talent pool to audition,” the company’s website describes . “We vet the auditions, then provide 3 or (typically) more narrator samples for you to choose from.” There are also usually some manuscript adjustments that go into converting a written piece into an audiobook script. “As part of Pre-Production we help develop a production manuscript ready for recording,” the website states . “For example, many character attributions (e.g., ‘he said angrily’) can be omitted, as long as we have been introduced in the scene to the voice playing that character. We don’t need to say ‘angrily’ since the actor will be acting that.” To date, Pro Audio Voices lists over 200 audiobooks in its portfolio, ranging from children’s books, to romance, to law and politics. “ Becky’s leadership is unparalleled,” Collins said. “The people who work with her love to work with her. She always wants the best product, and she really wants to understand the goals of the artist. It was the first time I ever co-directed anything with anybody. And Becky and I hadn’t spoken about this, but she was open to working with me, and I was open to working with her, and we both clicked, and it worked out fantastic. It was just the way a collaboration should be.” Reported by Printed Word Reviews Share this article Copy link LinkedIn Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp Pinterest

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< Back Can History Books Fix Australia's Publishing Problem? July 23, 2026 at 11:16:48 AM Australia is publishing too many books. That’s what a number of publishers and book industry writers have begun to say in the last few years. Between a general decline in readership and global headwinds for the publishing industry , critics say, there are too many new books being written, and not enough people to read them. Terri-ann White, an Australian writer and publisher of 20 years, wrote an opinion piece in Australian arts industry magazine ArtsHub last year titled, “In 2026, can we please have fewer books published in Australia?” White writes that Australia has a population of 27 million, and that about 22,000 new books are published in the country per year, according to 2024 data. Catriona Menzies-Pike, an award-winning writer and critic, also wrote last month in The Guardian that “Australia is publishing books too quickly—and everyone is losing out.” “Thanks to rushed deadlines, financial pressure and overworked staff, titles are going to market before they’re ready—and then sliding from view immediately,” Menzies-Pike wrote. There are broader issues, like declining readership and the economics of physically printing a book, that are difficult for Australian publishers to handle. But the problem here, many of these voices say , isn’t that having more creativity is bad, or that no one wants to read anymore. It’s that in an industry with diminishing resources and an explosion of input, there just isn’t market space for every book. At the same time, though, history books in Australia are facing another problem. According to a new survey report released this past June by the Australian Historical Association (AHA), there’s an industry-wide mismatch plaguing Australian history publishing. Australians want to read about their history; Australian historians want to publish locally, to an Australian audience; and Australian publishers want to publish books on Australian history. But despite this apparent convergence of interests, Australian history books aren’t getting published in Australia. Getting these three elements to work together is, somehow, exceedingly difficult. What gives? And could history books be the solution Australian publishing should be looking for? In examining the state of the history book, the AHA conducted a survey of 223 active and retired historians in the nation, and asked their opinions on the publishing process, the usefulness of history books, and their goals for their writing. The main problem, the report found, is that despite the interest in Australian history, historians are pressured by their institutions and universities to publish in places often inaccessible to the general Australian reader. In order to build academic careers, historians are pushed towards scholarly journal articles rather than books to begin with; and if they do publish a book, that book is often pressured to be published internationally, particularly in Britain and the United States. “Universities overwhelmingly favor international university presses,” the report states. “International publishers are regarded as more prestigious: a combination of their editorial processes, brand recognition and international standing.” One respondent wrote in the survey, “When I signed a contract with an Australian university press, my then Head of Department said, ‘That’s a shame. An Australian publishing a book about Australian history with an Australian press betrays a lack of ambition.’ This comment infuriates me, yet in truth the only reason I felt able to publish my book with an Australian press was because I’d already secured a continuing position.” The report’s authors wrote that this distaste towards Australian publishers is a classic example of a long-standing phenomenon in the country: “Cultural Cringe.” “In 1950 the literary critic Arthur Phillips wrote an essay for Meanjin Quarterly with the title ‘The Cultural Cringe’,” a chapter of the report explains. “Phillips defined ‘the Cringe’ as appearing ‘in an inability to escape needless comparisons. The Australian reader, more or less consciously, hedges and hesitates, asking himself ‘Yes, but what would a cultivated Englishman think of this?’” As universities in Australia try to boost their rankings and institutional prestige, they steer as much as possible away from grounding themselves in Australia and instead angle to compete in international markets. As such, many historians said in the survey they felt like they had to publish internationally. But they want to publish in Australia. “Long-form responses emphasised the importance of accessibility of books, arguing that readable and engaging books justified their publication and ‘overly academic’ work should be reserved for journal articles,” the report states. “[University] focus on international publishing was not always compatible with the desire of many Australian historians to reach a local readership, or to promote their university through local (and affordable) publications.” “If our work is meant to have impact, generate public discussion and be relevant to the communities with whom we research, we should be publishing work that is accessible to the public,” one respondent wrote. Another said, “History is a shared experience with community members, not just academics!” Publishing locally allows the authors to participate in and contribute to the “public life” of history, including how it impacts modern social and cultural feelings. It also encourages more engagement with the historian’s work, through things like local media appearances or book reviews—of which, thanks to a distaste for ever-growing multinational corporations and media conglomerates, there’s a budding resurgence . And Australian publishers are interested, too. As the second half of the report, the AHA researchers interviewed five Australian publishers about their attitudes towards history books. All five expressed an interest in putting out more of them. One said there was a “public respect for history and a public interest in history”; another said that “many, many people want to know more about Australian history,” and that there was an “appetite” for it. The history books these publishers are looking for aren’t overly academic or niche, but rather history books that can appeal to the “interested general reader.” They’re curious about books that are told boldly and conversationally, with some imagination and flair while maintaining the rigorous accuracy of history as an academic discipline. “I often think, you can write about anything if you’re writing it in an engaging way that’s going to inspire readers,” one of the publishers said. “You’ll take the reader with you.” They’re also interested in books that don’t focus on the dominant national voices in Australia. “These books are so important, and they are histories that we’ve never heard about,” said White, the author of the ArtsHub opinion piece, who was also interviewed in the report. “That’s the value of Australian history books for me.” Other people seem to share that perspective. A national survey by the University of New South Wales released in May found that 80 percent of Australians are interested in Australian history, and that 76 percent of Australians believe history is as important to learn about in school as business and STEM topics. Over 80 percent of Australians also believe that history is relevant to society today, and that understanding the past can keep history from repeating itself. Interestingly, though a majority of people said works of Australian history should celebrate the nation’s past, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed wanted history to challenge their knowledge. But only 57 percent feel that they know much about it. The crowded, oversaturated market of Australian publishing needs some breaths of air in its titles. And the dearth of historical publishing by Australians, for Australians, needs filling. Publishing history books might just be the solution to two problems at once—if only institutions can be convinced. Reported by Jules Roscoe Share this article Copy link LinkedIn Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp Pinterest

< Back Publishing Groups Denounce Attacks on Dutch Bookstore July 30, 2026 at 10:03:00 AM A Dutch bookstore dedicated to selling anti-establishment books celebrating free political thought was violently attacked two times in the past month, according to a statement by the European and International Bookstore Federation (EIBF). Fugitive Books is an independent bookseller in the Netherlands, with a primarily online presence but a pop-up bookshop as well in Groningen. The shop curates books and magazines that go against traditional establishment values, including a number of works about Palestine, nationalism, anarchy, and race. Its homepage features a photo of two people, faces masked by cloth, in a close embrace as fire and smoke billows behind them. “We’re on the run,” the page states. “Sometimes quite literally from state authorities. But always from those forces that seek to control and define us. In some cases by necessity, but always out of love. We want no part in this world. So we run. And we’d love for you to run with us.” According to the EIBF, which issued the statement on July 16, the bookstore was the “target of two violent incidents involving physical and verbal abuse” in the first two weeks of July. “The attacks were directly linked to its curation of books and the values it openly represents,” the statement reads. “These violent incidents represent yet another attack on booksellers’ right to freedom of expression. Bookshops are a cornerstone of democratic societies, fostering democratic dialogue by providing spaces where diverse ideas, perspectives, and worldviews can be shared, challenged, and debated respectfully.” Fugitive Books did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Federation of European Publishers and the International Publishers Association also issued a joint statement condemning the attacks. “The freedom to read is a vital part of a trinity of freedoms including the freedom of expression and the freedom to publish that unites authors, publishers, booksellers and librarians,” wrote Jessica Sänger, Chair of the IPA’s Freedom to Publish Committee. Anne Bergman-Tahon, director of the Federation of European Publishers, also wrote that, “The apocryphal quote attributed to Voltaire, ‘I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’, has been a beacon of freedom of expression and must remain a key principle for all democrats. Bookshops must be spaces of freedom of expression, places where you can debate, exchange, learn from each other.” Reported by Jules Roscoe Share this article Copy link LinkedIn Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp Pinterest

< Back Harvard Law Alums Publish Childrens Book About Fatherhood June 21, 2026 at 6:43:06 AM A pair of Harvard Law School alumni and current legal scholars have published their first children's book this week in anticipation of Father’s Day, meant to help fathers and their kids explore their emotions together—and to help dads learn how to tell their kids they love them out loud. The book is titled “You Are My Favorite Story,” and is available via Fair Share Publishing . It’s written by Shani King and N. Jeremi Duru , two former Harvard Law classmates and current law professors. Both have written books in the past, but this is their first collaboration, and Duru’s first children’s book. Illustrator John Jay Cabuay brings the book to life with vivid colors. “ You Are My Favorite Story celebrates the small moments that define fatherhood, the ones that feel ordinary until you realize they are everything,” the book description on Fair Share Publishing’s webpage states. “It validates what so many fathers already feel and do, while giving beautiful language to emotions that can be hard to name out loud.…It naturally models emotional vocabulary and connection in a way that feels like a gift rather than a lesson, making it as valuable in classrooms and school libraries exploring family and social emotional themes as it is at home on the nightstand.” King, who has written children's books before, told Harvard Law Today in a joint interview with Duru that the idea for the message came far before the idea for the book. “‘Have I ever told you?” is something that I’ve asked my kids for years,” King said. “It allows me to get away with telling them that I love them, that I believe in them, and that I love being their dad every day. On a random day years ago, I wrote a love letter to them and posted it online. That letter eventually became my first book. Years later, I wrote another love letter to them, but this one was from the perspective of a dad.” Instead of posting this one, though, King reached out to Duru, an old classmate and constant friend with whom he had regularly discussed the joys and struggles of fatherhood. “Shani emailed me out of the blue one day and asked me to take a look at and share with him my thoughts on a short piece of writing he’d done,” Duru told Harvard Law Today in the interview. “It was essentially a poem he’d written that involved a father speaking to his child. It was beautiful.” The authors say their goal for the book is to help dads find a way to tell their kids they love them, as fathers sometimes struggle with that kind of emotional intimacy. “I grew up being told I was loved, and as I have raised my children, I tell them I love them all the time, but it is not as easy for some fathers to be expressive in that way,” Duru said. “I hope this book sends the message that it is healthy and feels really good to tell your children how much they mean to you and that you love them. And for fathers who struggle to speak in this way with their children, I hope that in reading the book to their children, they can begin to feel more comfortable in being expressively loving.” Reported by Jules Roscoe Share this article Copy link LinkedIn Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp Pinterest

< Back Simon & Schuster Relaunches 'Pocket Books' Romance Imprint July 6, 2026 at 8:15:24 AM Major U.S. publisher Simon & Schuster is relaunching “Pocket Books,” an old pocket-sized paperback imprint first started in 1939, as a new home for self-publishing and romance writing, the company announced last week. The new imprint is being led by Anh Schluep, who previously spent 15 years at Amazon Publishing developing the company’s Montlake romance imprint and working with fast-growing romance authors like Colleen Hoover. Pocket Books was the United States’ first mass market paperback publishing company, and it dramatically popularized reading by making it more accessible and more commercially available. “The imprint revolutionized the industry by making books available to readers in non-traditional outlets,” Schluep said in a statement about the relaunch. “The first contemporary U.S. publisher to democratize reading, it became the home for legendary romance authors including Jude Deveraux, Julie Garwood, and Judith McNaught.” In its revival, Pocket Books will maintain this approach to become a “leader in commercial fiction publishing, with a key focus on romance, and as the top choice for bestselling entrepreneurial authors,” the statement said. The choice for this focus aligns with current book publishing trends. Romance books and self-publishing and indie authors have grown tremendously in popularity in recent years, even leading to the opening of numerous independent romance-themed bookstores . Pocket will slot right into this growing niche. Jennifer Bergstrom, S&S executive vice president, wrote in the statement that the imprint will “offer a home for forward-thinking writers, including bestselling indie and hybrid authors looking to amplify their reach using our unparalleled strengths in marketing, publicity, and print distribution.” In addition to pure romance, the imprint will publish offshoot genres like romantic thrillers, dark romance, and horror, starting next January with about three books expected per month. “I look forward to publishing the next generation of fan favorites,” Schluep said. “This is how I think about it: Pocket Books was originally created to reach a mass market readership. I want to honor that idea and collaborate with authors to bring their stories to the widest audience.” Reported by Jules Roscoe Share this article Copy link LinkedIn Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp Pinterest

< Back BookTok Creator Opens Indie Author Only Bookstore June 22, 2026 at 12:17:30 PM Inspired and funded by her “BookTok” community on social media, an online bookstore owner has opened a brick-and-mortar bookstore dedicated to supporting indie authors. Katelyn Matusky opened her bookstore, The Book Nook , in Warren, OH, earlier this month. But just a few years ago, she didn’t work anywhere near the publishing space. As a respiratory therapist and single mom with four kids at home, she said books had always rather been a personal escape for her than a business idea. “ Books were always my way out,” Matusky told Printed Word Reviews in a phone call. “At the end of the night, to shut out the world, I would always just read to empty my brain.” So, two years ago, she started a TikTok account, KMChaosBookReads , where she would post reviews and thoughts about the books she was reading. She focused heavily on indie authors. “ I’ve always wanted to support small authors, and I like that self-published books are not changed at all,” she said. “Trad-published books, the publishers can change whatever they want about the books when they publish them, so it’s not what the author authentically wrote. You don’t get as much of the emotion and the rawness of the books in traditionally published books as you do with indie books.” As she continued posting her ideas, more people followed her, and more authors reached out to her to ask if she would review their work. Matusky soon grew her following to nearly 15,000 people as a “BookTok” creator. BookTok is a popular subsect of social media, where authors promote new work and readers give reviews and book recommendations. It’s a driving force in the resurgence of reading as a hobby for young people, and as of last year, it had garnered 370 billion views worldwide. That community support was a big part of Matusky’s decision to open an indie-author-only online bookstore in March of this year. But the operation quickly outgrew her home. “I don’t tell any indie author no,” she said. “Because of my following on TikTok, I had so many authors who wanted to support me, which is fabulous, that I needed a storefront.” Matusky opened her physical store just three months later. She said her biggest challenge, like with many small businesses, had been funding—but her online community had come through there, too. “ My only help was through my GoFundMe from my TikTok supporters and Facebook supporters,” she said. “Literally, authors and readers are who helped me with money to get my store up and running.” Matusky hopes to eventually turn The Book Nook into a coffee-shop-bookstore combo, but right now, she’s busy laying the groundwork. She said she had assembled bookshelves and painted the store herself. She’s still pursuing content creation, too. She will attend an indie book convention in Cincinnati, OH, in August as an influencer, and host a book fair in the town square at home in Warren soon after. “I have found a lot of friends through [BookTok],” Matusky said. “ I’ve had local authors who I had met through BookTok, and now, we’re friends and do other stuff together. We’ve helped people get covers done for their books or audio done for their books, and it’s just such a good little community of people who have connections. I don’t even know how to explain it. It’s wonderful.” Reported by Jules Roscoe Share this article Copy link LinkedIn Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp Pinterest

< Back Book Adaptation Rights Market Coming to Venice July 3, 2026 at 12:22:55 PM The Venice Production Bridge , a popular festival and conference for film and TV production, will host its eleventh annual Book Adaptation Rights Market this September to drive networking opportunities between publishers and producers. Book adaptations are an increasingly popular way of creating new film productions. Netflix, for example, reported in 2025 that its book-based titles had over nine billion global views . “As demonstrated by the growing presence of literary adaptations at major international festivals and on global streaming platforms, adaptations are no longer an exception but a central component of the contemporary content landscape,” the Market’s brochure reads. The Market will host 30 publishers, publishing houses, and literary agents, from nine different countries this year. They will showcase their catalogues and network with production companies to potentially drive film and TV adaptations of books. Around 1,400 producers will be attending. Pascal Diot, the head of the Venice Production Bridge, said in a phone call that the unique part of the Market is that publishers come with a variety of books, not just one or two offerings. This allows producers to get a feel for the publisher as a whole, and to develop longer-term relationships. “It’s a win-win situation for both the producers and the publishers, because automatically the publisher has to know exactly what the producer is looking for, what kind of things he's interested in, and he will always have something to propose to him,” Diot said. When selecting publishers, the organizers always aim for variety. “Quality is always the first thing,” Chiara Marin, the Market’s coordinator, said. “Then of course, we try to maintain a balance between countries and also between genres.” “We also try to get a balance between big publishing groups and smaller ones,” Diot said. “We have, of course, big publishing countries like France, Italy, Germany, but we are also taking some small countries like Georgia, or Greece, or Taiwan, in order to give the producer also an opportunity to see other cultures.” The Market will run from September 4 to September 6, 2026, in Venice, Italy. Options for book adaptations can take multiple years to be legally nailed down, so deals aren’t always directly made there, but numerous projects have come out of it in the past. “ With this kind of programs, maybe they start here to speak with them, and then they develop over the years. So it’s always a little harsh to say they signed it here,” Marin said. “But at least they get in touch for the first time here.” Reported by Jules Roscoe Share this article Copy link LinkedIn Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp Pinterest

< Back Hachette Book Group Launches Children's Reading Initiative July 30, 2026 at 9:47:35 AM Global publisher Hachette Book Group launched a new children’s reading initiative last week to combat the global decline in kids reading. The initiative is titled “Raising Readers,” and was launched both as a public service announcement and as a broader project with the involvement of over 50 collaborating book and publishing companies. “Raising Readers is Hachette’s urgent and long-term campaign to raise awareness of the decline in number of children reading for fun and encouraging everyone to make reading for enjoyment part of children’s daily lives,” the initiative’s webpage states . “This campaign aims to raise awareness that reading for fun is the single biggest predictor of a child’s future success. It impacts academic results, mental health, wealth, communication skills and ambition.” Children’s readership has broadly declined in recent years. In 2026 alone, numerous media reports have written about the decrease; the company’s press release references a June report by the U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics , which found that reading for fun among 13-year-olds has declined by nearly half since 2012. Hachette’s public service announcement, posted to the company’s YouTube page last Tuesday, encourages both kids and parents to step away from the noise of social media and immerse themselves instead into books together. In it, a young girl sits absorbed in her phone, scrolling through fast-paced text messages about social media posts. Her father comes into her room and drops off a book for her, asking her if she wants to take a break. “FYI, I’m more than a break,” a voice emanating from the book says after a beat. “I can take you on an adventure, crack you up, and inspire you. Come on, take a look.” Hachette wrote in a press release that, “Reading to a child for just 10 minutes changes their life.” The initiative includes a pledge for parents and children to commit to reading every day. Hachette encourages all members of the book industry, including its own authors, to get involved. Letters from authors who write for adults will be printed at the back of Hachette-published books to share “the importance of encouraging a child’s lifelong love of reading.” Partners of the Raising Readers project include a variety of collaborators, from national groups like PEN America, to publishers Penguin Random House and Macmillian, to major bookseller Barnes & Noble, as well as smaller organizations like the Brooklyn Book Bodega in New York City and the independent Little Blue Pigeon bookstore in Denver, Colorado. Reported by Jules Roscoe Share this article Copy link LinkedIn Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp Pinterest

< Back Independent Book Shop Starts Publishing Reviews July 2, 2026 at 5:03:24 PM An independent bookshop has started publishing its own weekly in-house book review as a way to start filling a growing dearth of book-focused media coverage. Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts, started posting book reviews written by its booksellers last month. “The decline of books coverage in the media, including a dramatic decline in regular old book reviews, has been well documented,” the shop wrote in its announcement of the review. “Readers had relatively few newspapers, journals, or media outlets to turn to learn about books. This lack of coverage hurts everyone in the books ecosystem: readers, writers, publishers, and, of course, bookstores.… Well, we’re not just going to complain about it!” Josh Cook, a co-owner of the shop, said he had the idea to start the review as a way for the shop to help fill the books journalism gap, and as a natural extension of the work it already does in its community. “ Booksellers naturally do a little bit of the book review process anyway,” Cook said. “We read books, we assess them, we think about how to describe them to other people. We decide if they’re a good fit for different types of readers. So it kind of made sense to me that we could just push it a little bit more and start, in our own little way, filling this void specifically around book reviews.” So far, the review has covered four titles, three of which were published in the past few months: Sourland by Ariel Delgado Dixon, The Caretaker by Marcus Kleiwer, and Plastic, Prism, Void: Part 1 by Violet Allen, as well as Women by Chloe Caldwell, originally published in 2014. “ It’s totally bookseller-driven,” Cook said. “I’m not assigning any reviews, and each bookseller has their own process. I personally have long had a commitment to try to make sure that the books I highlight are the ones that people would not have heard of if I didn’t highlight them, so I tend to focus a lot on small presses, works in translation, and also marginalized communities, especially now that there’s so much attack on their stories.” A team of about six booksellers currently plan to consistently write reviews, and they are paid for each publication. Cook says he hopes the operation will grow beyond Porter Square, too. “I  haven’t seen any [other bookshops] doing full reviews. But I hope there will be someone,” Cook said. “I hope a lot of stores copy this. I hope it’s successful enough, there’s enough interest, that we start reseeding the local journalism a little bit.” Reported by Jules Roscoe Share this article Copy link LinkedIn Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp Pinterest

< Back Simon Six Approaches One Year August 7, 2026 at 1:33:54 PM Major publisher Simon & Schuster’s boutique book imprint that publishes just six books a year is approaching the one-year anniversary of its announcement. Simon Six was announced last August when then-CEO Jonathan Karp said he would be stepping down to get back to the part of publishing he loved most. The imprint puts out just one book every two months, with a focus on razor-sharp quality and an “X factor” for each. Its webpage states that a Simon Six book has six qualities: “Extraordinary stories. Exciting voices. Exclusive access. Exemplary individuals. Excellent accomplishments. Exquisite prose.” “As the founding publisher of Twelve, I published one book per month for the Hachette Book Group,” Karp wrote on the webpage, referring to a Hachette imprint with the same ethos as this one. “For Simon Six, I will acquire and edit half as many books each year and publish them with twice as much emphasis.” So far, Simon Six has published five books , with authors ranging from Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tyson’s book was the first one announced last February , and was published in May. The titles range from memoir, to narrative political nonfiction, to a “ Nabokovian mystery .” Its most recently announced book is Robert Miner’s Thoughts and Prayers , a novel about the American obsession with guns. In an Instagram post announcing the release, Karp called it a “remarkable debut novel” and “one of the most provocative literary thrillers I’ve read in a long time.” “Simon Six is an example of what I love most about the publishing business—finding, editing, and being a champion for all kinds of authors: novelists, journalists, thinkers, artists, historians, futurists, philosophers, humorists, experts, leaders, and anyone else with a unique perspective or a great story to tell,” Karp wrote on the imprint’s webpage. “Some of the best books I’ve worked on have been about things I knew little or nothing about, so I’m especially interested in authors who will enlighten me while intriguing me. Like many editors, I want to help put books into the world that expand our understanding, challenge orthodoxies, and are useful, artful, and irresistibly interesting.…My hope for Simon Six is that this imprimatur will signal to readers that these are books of quality, singularity, and relevance.” Simon & Schuster declined to comment on the imprint’s first year. In a June press release announcing the publication of one of Simon Six’s five books so far, Unreliable Boyfriend , the company described the imprint as “dedicated to publishing bold, original voices and provocative nonfiction that shapes cultural and political conversations.” Reported by Jules Roscoe Share this article Copy link LinkedIn Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp Pinterest

< Back Major Publishing Houses Sue Book Piracy Site WeLib June 16, 2026 at 9:29:09 PM A group of major publishers filed a lawsuit against “endless library” and alleged piracy website WeLib on Tuesday, claiming that the site engaged in rampant copyright infringement and allowed artificial intelligence developers to illegally use its content to train large language models. The group comprises 13 members of the Association of American Publishers, including the “Big Five” publishing houses: Penguin Random House , Macmillan , Simon & Schuster , Hachette Book Group , and HarperCollins . Other members include academic publishers Cengage , McGraw Hill , and Wiley . “Publishers bring this action to stop the mass distribution by Defendants [WeLib] of millions of legally protected literary works owned by Publishers that were unlawfully copied from physical and digital books and journals,” the lawsuit states. “Publishers’ action is now especially critical in light of reports that major large language model developers used illegal sites like WeLib as illicit sources of training data.” WeLib is an online repository of books, journal articles, and other materials comprising at least 141 million documents, according to its website. The plaintiffs’ investigators searched WeLib’s database for the name of each publishing house and found hundreds of thousands of search results. For example, a search for “Penguin Random House” yielded 639,586 results available for download; another search for “McGraw Hill” yielded 137,138 results. The investigators were also able to download full copies of 130 specific works owned by the publishers from the website. “The scale of WeLib’s infringement is stunning,” the publishers wrote. WeLib did not immediately respond to a request for comment. This lawsuit comes on the heels of another legal challenge last month, when the same 13 publishers won a lawsuit against piracy website Anna’s Archive for the same allegations as in this case. Anna’s Archive was ordered to be shut down. Publishers have also recently filed a class action lawsuit against Meta for “willful copyright infringement” to develop its Llama AI models . Reported by Jules Roscoe Share this article Copy link LinkedIn Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp Pinterest