Employees at the University of Chicago Press have officially joined the Chicago News Guild, after a supermajority voted in favor of unionizing. In May, the company declined to formally recognize the union. The news follows recent successful unionization efforts at the American Library Association, Dark Horse Media, Catapult, and Hachette Book Group. Elsewhere, the editorial staff of Harper’s Magazine, union members of UAW Local 2110, are holding a one-day strike today to protest the magazine’s contract offer. The union has been in contract negotiations with management since forming in 2024.
Archives for July 2026
E-Book Pricing Antitrust Case Against Amazon May Become Class Action
The improbable antitrust lawsuit alleging that the large trade publishers willingly colluded with Amazon to help the etailer maintain monopoly-level control of ebook prices and overcharged ebook buyers $740 million since 2017 remains alive in the Southern District of New York. (The original suit was dismissed in 2022; this is a refiled, amended version.) In a Wednesday hearing on whether to certify certain ebook buyers as a class, Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein appeared to side with plaintiffs, MLex reports. The proposed class would be “anyone who purchased one or more trade e-books sold by the publishers via an agency model […]
People 7/9
FBF to Close Hall 6 This Year, Shuffle Booths and Tables
Due to “structural building inspections,” the Frankfurt Book Fair will refrain from using all three levels of Hall 6 at this year’s fair, the Bookseller reports, based on a recent letter sent to exhibitors. As a result, spaces for exhibitors and meetings will be shuffled to different places in the fair buildings. International exhibitors placed in Halls 6.1 and 6.2 will relocate to the central Hall 4.2. The literary agents and scouts center and the publisher rights center will move from Hall 4.2 to Hall 1.2. Exhibitors in Hall 6.0 will move to the Festhalle; Meet-the-Author events previously scheduled for […]
People 7/8
Second Quarter Dealmaking Is Mixed As Biggest Publishers Pull Back
First quarter dealmaking for 2026 sent some mixed signals and that story continued in the second quarter, albeit in different ways, but still suggesting that peak deal activity could be in the past. Second quarter deals declined modestly overall (-1.8 percent), due to a continuing drop in reports from digital publishers (exacerbated by our integration of mature digital publishers into the general categories at the beginning of this year). Deals in the core categories were up 2 percent (lifted by that same recategorization). Adult sales reached a five-year high for the period, powered by continuing growth in fiction, up 13.3 […]