Simon & Schuster UK will launch sci-fi/fantasy, romantasy, and horror imprint Solstice Books. Gemma Creffield will join as editorial director on September 1, reporting to adult fiction publishing director Clare Hey; Creffield is currently at Angry Robot. The first list will release in spring 2026 with Naomi Ishiguro’s The Rainshadow Orphans and AF Steadman’s TimeLess.
Archives for July 2025
Trade Sales Fall in May, as Returns Rise
The AAP reported May results from reporting StatShot publishers, with trade sales down 8.6 percent from last year to $671 million. Adult book sales fell 9.6 percent to $493 million; fiction sales were down 8.3 percent to $286 million and nonfiction sales dropped 11.3 percent to $207 million. By format, adult books sold $167 million in hardcover (down 8.6 percent) and $167 million in paperback (down 16.3 percent). Ebook sales were $72.1 million (down 1 percent) and digital audio sold $75.8 million (up 9.8 percent). In the kids and YA book market, sales were down 5.8 percent to $178 million, […]
Ernest J. Gaines Award Winner
People 7/29
Storytel Updates Guidance on Strong Q2
Swedish audiobook company Storytel announced financial results for the second quarter. Sales grew 4 percent to SEK958 million, or 8 percent at constant currency, due to “healthy growth in the Streaming segment due to strong growth in subscriber intake and a solid development in the Publishing segment.” Bokfabriken, which Storytel acquired in Q1, contributed SEK10.6 million. Operating profit was up 75 percent to SEK82 million and EBITDA grew 46 percent to SEK161 million. “We have delivered a robust financial performance, driven by a high subscriber intake, solid EBITDA growth and strong cash generation giving us the strategic possibility to invest […]
Johns Hopkins Press Will License Its Books to Train AI
Johns Hopkins University Press announced that it will license its books to train proprietary LLMs. The press hopes that revenue from the deals will help fill holes left by Trump administration cuts to university funding. The press did not announced which specific companies it will license the work to, but says they include “general AI companies and those focused on specialized content and inference models like Retrieval-Augmented Generation.” Johns Hopkins authors have until August 31 to opt out of the agreement and sign an addendum on their contracts, or else their work will be licensed. The publisher says they can […]