The AAP released their StatShot publisher-reported monthly sales statistics for January. As we have explained before, the statistics for any given month turn out to have little or no statistical significance, particular for the print categories. The current report has adult trade sales at $352.5 in January 2019 (down 7 percent from $380 million last January), with hardcover sales 10 percent lower and mass market sales 18 percent lower. Children’s and YA increased 4 percent, to $137 million from $132 million. Children’s hardbacks and paperbacks showed slight increases, with board books up 15 percent. Digital audio continued to gain, at […]
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March Picks From Reese, Apple Books
Last summer Reese Witherspoon‘s production company Hello Sunshine and Amazon Studios announced a co-production of a 13-episode series based on Taylor Jenkins Reid‘s forthcoming DAISY JONES & THE SIX. So it should be surprise that the book is also the March pick for Witherspoon’s book club (as well as Amazon’s “spotlight pick” for the month). In other selections, I Was Anastasia by Ariel Lawhon is Pennie’s Pick at Costco for the month. Also, Apple Books‘ Best Books of March includes: Outer Order, Inner Calm, by Gretchen Rubin The Stranger Diaries, by Elly Griffiths Spies of No Country, by Matti Friedman […]
YA Author Kosoko Jackson Cancels Book After Online Criticism
Debut YA author Kosoko Jackson has withdrawn his book A Place for Wolves from publication after it was called culturally insensitive in online reviews. Originally due out from Sourcebooks Fire on March 26, the book centers on a queer love story between two non-Muslim Americans during the Kosovan Genocide. Jackson pulled the book when Goodreads users criticized it for misunderstanding the conflict. He posted an apology on Twitter on Thursday saying his focus was to put “queer boys of color in the center of a story” but that he “failed to understand the people and the conflict” involved in the […]
Self-Publishing Group Accused of Stacking Nebula Nominations
The 2018 Nebula Award finalists, announced last week, have sparked controversy in the science fiction and fantasy community, drawing accusations that a self-publishing group called 20Booksto50K stacked this year’s list with a slate of self-published authors they selected. The Nebulas are voted on by SFWA members, and according to a post by author Cora Buhlert, five of six of this year’s finalists are “military leaning space opera or outright military SF,” an unusually disproportionate number for the sub-genre, and all six are members of 20Booksto50K. Buhlert writes that 20Booksto50K “started out as a Facebook group for business minded indie writers […]
Abramson Accused of Plagiarism in Merchants of Truth
Jill Abramson has denied allegations from two journalists that she plagiarized work of other reporters in her new book Merchants of Truth. Michael Moynihan of Vice News provided comparisons on Twitter to multiple passages from Ryerson Review of Journalism, Time Out magazine, the New Yorker, and more that he says she copied. Freelance journalist Ian Frisch posted a similar thread, stating Abramson “lifted my reporting and put it in her book.” Asked about the accusations on Fox News on Wednesday evening, Abramson said, “All I can tell you is I certainly didn’t plagiarize in my book, and there’s 70 pages of footnotes […]
YA Author Zhao Postpones Blood Heir After Online Controversy
Amélie Wen Zhao’s YA novel Blood Heir, which was due to publish June 4 from Delacorte, has been postponed indefinitely by the author after a controversy in the online YA community. The first in a planned trilogy pitched as Anastasia meets Six of Crows, the sale was reported last January, in a major deal, at auction, with a number of international deals following thereafter. But some online readers accused Zhao of racism and insensitivity to the history of American slavery, in particular YA author L.L. McKinney who Tweeted, “apparently Blood Heir is anti-black.” (At the same time, she writes, “I didn’t ask […]