Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers and Memory Piece, posted on Bluesky on Tuesday that fake blurbs attributed to her have appeared on the web pages of many books, including a number of Harper Collins titles. (Ko’s latest novel was published by Riverhead). She wrote that the AI-generated booklist run by the Chicago Sun-Times reminded her “that I’ve been credited as blurbing hundreds of books I never have, including books by Patti Smith, Amy Tan, Sidney Sheldon, Joyce Maynard, and Elmore Leonard? And I can’t get these fake blurbs taken off publisher and bookstore websites?” The thread continued, “I only became […]
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Unbound Owes More than £2M to Creditors, Who Are Unlikely to Collect
UK crowdfunding publisher Unbound, which was recently bought in a pre-packaged bankruptcy deal by a new company run by its own executives, has left debts of approximately £2.4 million, according to Printweek. Unbounded defaulted on payments to authors, freelance staff, and vendors since at least 2024. Unbound will make approximately £200,000 from the “sale,” but owes its restructuring team £134,000, leaving just £66,000 total for all creditors. Unbound will also make a small dividend, around 18p per pound, though unsecured creditors are unlikely to see any of it. The company owes 238 authors and agents a total of £657,000 total, […]
White House Fires Copyright Office Director; Part 3 of AI Report Released
The Trump Administration fired Shira Perlmutter, the top copyright official in the US. The move comes two days after the White House fired Carla Hayden, the head of the Library of Congress, which maintains the Copyright Office. Hayden appointed Perlmutter to the position in 2020. Perlmutter received an email on Saturday reading, “your position as the Register of Copyrights and Director at the U.S. Copyright Office is terminated effective immediately,” the AP reports. As a presidential appointee, the executive branch has the power to dismiss the librarian of congress. The register of copyrights, however, is a legislative position. Congress could […]
Trump Fires Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden
Yesterday, President Donald Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, the Washington Post reports. Hayden was the first woman, the first African American, and the first career librarian to hold the position. She was appointed to a renewable 10-year term in 2016. The email informing Hayden of the decision, which was sent by the White House deputy director of presidential personnel, reads in its entirety: “Carla, On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.” Principal deputy librarian Robert […]
In Praise of Copyright at the AAP Annual Meeting
The AAP held its annual meeting via Zoom on Thursday, with lengthy conversations about copyright, AI, and how the publishing industry can navigate the current moment. In the lightest part of the presentation, a keynote conversation between Jenna Bush Hager and Random House president Sanyu Dillon, Bush Hager discussed the beginning of her imprint, Thousand Voices. “I had dug into the reasons sometimes these ventures don’t work,” she said. “I realized that we, after six years of running a national book club, had a lot of assets, and had a lot of contact with readers that would help us figure […]
NEA Begins Terminating and Withdrawing Grants
The National Endowment for the Arts began terminating and withdrawing grant offers on Friday night, after President Trump proposed cutting NEA funding from the government budget. Many small publishers, magazines, and publishing-related organizations lost funding. The Community of Magazines and Literary Presses (CLMP) tells PL that they reached out to all fiscal year ’25 Grants for the Arts round one grantees in the literary/arts publishing category. “Of the 51,” said executive director Mary Gannon, “I’ve heard from 40 so far and all 40 have had their grants ‘terminated’ or ‘withdrawn.’ Some have already received payments, but not all.” Among the […]