We often get asked who in publishing is doing interesting things and where to find innovation of note and often there are not a lot of great answers. Last year was unusual, however, in that a lot interesting things happened and there’s been very little attention paid — so we thought it was worth a quick review to underscore some of these potentially powerful new ideas at work in the marketplace. Two of the hottest imprints came from outside the mainstream of big five publishing. Sourcebooks’ Bloom Books imprint was on track to register close to $100 million in gross […]
NYPL Tries New “Orphan” Works Workaround
The New York Public Library has developed a novel, permission-based approach to try to bring potentially in-copyright “orphan works” of scholarship back into general availability. The problem, as they have identified through a variety of efforts, is that often neither the author not the publisher is certain whose permission is needed to digitize and make available out-of-print or otherwise commercially dormant books that may still be covered by copyright. And the expense — and potential liability — of doing the research or granting permission without certainty about the rights makes the risks outweigh the potential benefits of agreeing to republication. […]
Using AI to Search Deals and Dealmakers
We have launched an experimental use of an AI-powered search approach at PublishersMarketplace, called Matcher. Up until now, our corpus of over 200,000 deal reports has only been searchable through basic word matching and Boolean search strings—and our Dealmakers lists, while quite extensive, only cover the 100 or so sub-categories that we tag and track. Matcher is designed to help you find agents and editors that “match” your manuscript, using natural language descriptions of your work. In this initial phase, it comes in two versions: Deal Matcher lets you search through the deals database, and highlights the editors and agents involved […]
Vroman’s and Book Soup Are for Sale
Joel Sheldon, owner of two Vroman’s bookstores in Pasadena and Book Soup in Los Angeles, announced Thursday that he plans to sell the store. Almost 80 years old, Sheldon wrote on Twitter, “It’s time to begin the process of retiring and finding new ownership outside of the Sheldon family,” which has been the “steward” of the stores for over 100 years. He added, “Vroman’s deserves new ownership with the vision, energy, and commitment necessary to take it successfully into the future.” Sheldon promises, “We will take the time needed to find the right new ownership — someone who shares our […]
Tattered Cover Files Reorganization Plan, with Higher Debts Than Originally Declared
Following their first filing for voluntary bankruptcy in mid-October, the owners of Tattered Cover filed a reorganization plan with the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Colorado earlier this week. While the store group initially said it lost about $660,000 during the year last year and owed at least $1.375 million to publishers and Colorado’s Office of the State Auditor for abandoned gift cards, the new documents depict a more severe situation. As of the initial filing in October, they had secured debt of approximately $820,000, and unsecured claims of just over $3.2 million. In the previous year, 2022, […]
Appeals Court Agrees that Texas READER Law Violates First Amendment
In a unanimous verdict, a three-judge panel on the Federal Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld District Court Judge Alan D. Albright’s clear and comprehensive ruling that Texas’s READER Act, a book banning law, is unconstitutional. The ruling and preliminary injunction blocking implementation of the law, which had been stayed pending the appeal, can now go forward, as the Appeals Court denied the state’s motion for stay pending further appeal. The case is a clear loser for Texas, and the Appeals Court barely breaks a sweat in rejecting all of the state’s fanciful arguments otherwise: “The question presented […]