Dymocks Booksellers, a 65-store bookstore chain in Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong which also sells books online, experienced a data breach, which exposed 836,120 unique customer accounts. The leak includes customer email addresses, phone numbers, birthdates, mailing addresses, and more. The chain was informed of the leak by data breach notification service ‘Have I Been Pwned’ on September 6. But the service says the stolen data has been circulating on hacker forums since June. The chain says it has not yet discovered how its systems were penetrated. They wrote to customers on Friday, September 8, “On (Wednesday), Dymocks became […]
Archives for September 2023
National Book Foundation DCAL Award
The National Book Foundation announced that Rita Dove will receive its 2023 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
People 9/8
Mary Marolla has been promoted to associate director, children’s publicity at Abrams.
An Exclusive Britney Spears Excerpt
The fall release schedule is packed, including celebrity memoirs spanning the wide range from Britney Spears (The Woman In Me; 10/24) to former Macmillan Publishers ceo John Sargent (Turning Pages; 9/19). Below, we bring those two together in a pre-publication excerpt. The book is told in Sargent’s inimitable voice, with stories from his unusual childhood, adventures and misadventures on the slopes and in the surf, and a number of publishing tales — from indelible personalities and notable authors to battles over agency ebook pricing, the publication of FIRE AND FURY and, ultimately, his own job. The chapter on the latter […]
New KDP Guidelines Require Participants to Acknowledge AI-Generated Content
Amazon revised their KDP publishing content guidelines recently to add a section that requires participants to indicate when they have used AI tools to create elements of any submitted book. The service distinguishes between “AI-assisted” work — which does not need to be disclosed — and “AI-generated content,” which does need to be acknowledged. They “define AI-generated content as text, images, or translations created by an AI-based tool. If you used an AI-based tool to create the actual content (whether text, images, or translations), it is considered ‘AI-generated,’ even if you applied substantial edits afterwards.” In contrast, AI-assisted work is […]
October Indie Next List
The ABA announced its Indie Next List for October, with Death Valley by Melissa Broder as the No. 1 pick.