A reminder that Monday, November 3, is the last day we will accept submissions for our next free eBook sampler, Buzz Books: Spring/Summer 2026. Submitted titles should have publication dates between February and September 2026. Accepted titles will be excerpted in our seasonal sampler, which publishes in January and will be available for free to booksellers, librarians, reviewers, prize committees, and more through NetGalley and Edelweiss, as well as through consumer retail platforms for read...| Publishers Lunch
The Association of American Publishers announced August sales data from participating StatShot publishers, reporting trade sales of $716 million in the month, down 9.6 percent from last year. Adult books sold $522 million, down 10 percent. Fiction sold $304 million, down 3 percent, and adult nonfiction fell 17 percent to $218 million. Hardcovers sold $164 (down 4 percent), paperbacks sold $183 million (down 15.5 percent), digital audio sold $79.5 million (down 4 percent), and ebooks sold $75....| Publishers Lunch
New York District Court Judge Sidney H. Stein’s ruling allowing a trial to proceed on authors’ allegations that ChatGPT infringes copyright found that the LLM’s outputs include “such copyrightable elements of plaintiffs’ original works as plot, setting, and characters.” In denying OpenAI’s motion to dismiss, he determined that the author plaintiffs cleared the bar of having “alleged some outputs that a reasonable jury could find are substantially similar to plaintiffs’ works...| Publishers Lunch
Former poet Laureate of Vermont and pulitzer finalist Ellen Bryant Voigt died on October 23. She was a founder of the Goddard College low-residency MFA program, and received grants from the NEA and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 2015 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. The post Obituary: Ellen Bryant Voigt appeared first on Publishers Lunch.| Publishers Lunch
Author CW Gortner died on October 25. He wrote 16 historical novels focusing on women including Catherine Medici, Lucrezia Borgia, Marlene Dietrich, and Coco Chanel. His most recent book, The Saint Laurent Muse, was published by William Morrow in March. Bestselling author and historian Tim Cook has died. He wrote more than 20 books on Canadian military history, and his forthcoming book, The Unquiet Western Front, will be published by Allen Lane/Penguin Canada next year. The post Obituaries: C...| Publishers Lunch
A judge in the Southern District of New York denied OpenAI’s motion to dismiss a consolidated class action suit over ChatGPT. The suit combines lawsuits from authors including Michael Chabon, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Sarah Silverman, Kai Bird, and Victor LaValle, as well as the Authors Guild, alleging that ChatGPT’s outputs are similar to the authors’ work and constitute copyright infringement. Judge Sidney H. Stein determined that the plaintiffs’ argument is strong enough to go to trial. I...| Publishers Lunch
Swedish audiobook company Storytel reported results for the third quarter ended September 30, with sales up 6 percent to SEK1.013 billion ($106.5 million). Operating profit grew 74 percent to SEK152 million with adjusted EBITDA up 44 percent to SEK232 million. “Record high profitability, solid customer intake, and robust cash flow generation. Our performance reinforces our confidence in achieving our mid-term targets, while we raise our guidance for 2025”, ceo Bodil Eriksson Torp said in ...| Publishers Lunch
A coalition of seven charitable foundations—led by the Mellon Foundation, and joined by the Ford Foundation, Hawthornden Foundation, Lannan Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Poetry Foundation, and an anonymous foundation—have launched a $50 million Literary Arts Fund, “an unprecedented effort to dramatically boost the essential yet critically underfunded nonprofit literary arts field in the United States.” Jennifer Benka is executive director. She was previous...| Publishers Lunch
Circana Bookscan formally reported print sales data for the third quarter, when the “market remained steady” — running at 1 percent below sales from the previous year, as was the case in the second quarter. Adult fiction sales declined 1.3 million units in the quarter, and young adult unit sales fell 4 percent. In contrast, children’s books grew 2 percent overall in the quarter, led by children’s nonfiction sales, which rose 6 percent. You can follow Bookscan data all the time throu...| Publishers Lunch
This week’s fiction releases include new novels by Louise Penny, Mark Z. Danielewski, and V.C. Andrews. New nonfiction includes work from Zadie Smith, Cameron Crowe, Judd Apatow, Jonathan Karl, Shea Serrano, and Jonathan Freedland. 17 works of fiction https://bookshop.org/lists/new-fiction-publishing-october-28 14 works of nonfiction https://bookshop.org/lists/new-nonfiction-publishing-october-28 Also publishing this week are new titles by Catherine Newman and Molly O’Su...| Publishers Lunch
Penguin Random House Christian Publishing Group is launching a new imprint, Align Insight, “for Christian authors and experts writing to a broad, general-market readership on topics such as self-help, lifestyle, psychology, relationships, memoir, and leadership.” The imprint will publish 8-10 books per year. Acquisitions will led by editorial director Madison Trammel; vp and executive editor Susan Tjaden; associate editor Kim Von Fange; editor Jamie Lapeyrolerie; and associate editor Le...| Publishers Lunch
