Introduction The phrase “American publishing” used to conjure images of high-rise offices in Manhattan, bustling book fairs, and the intellectual thrill of discovering the next great American novel. It represented a multi-billion-dollar industry that served as a crucial gatekeeper of culture, knowledge, and narrative. Yet, for all its storied history and persistent cultural cachet, the … Read more
Introduction The phrase “American publishing” immediately conjures the images of brownstone offices of storied houses, the annual book fairs in New York and Chicago, and the blockbuster sales of celebrity authors. It’s an industry deeply intertwined with the nation’s cultural narrative, seemingly as American as jazz or baseball. Yet a closer look at the corporate … Read more
Introduction The question of whether American publishing is in decline is one that gets tossed around with predictable regularity. On one hand, you hear the doom-and-gloom reports: book sales are slowing, attention spans are shrinking, and the cultural landscape is fragmenting. On the other hand, publishing houses are still inking massive deals, BookTok is turning … Read more
Introduction Discussing Donald Trump and the publishing industry is like watching a financial thriller with a side of constitutional drama. He’s been simultaneously a boon to book sales and a potential disaster for the bedrock principles that publishing stands on: free expression, open discourse, and a stable, predictable economic environment. The sheer volume of books … Read more
Introduction Ask any publisher in America what keeps them up at night, and you might hear: “Amazon, AI, and maybe a little politics.” But the politics part gets louder when Donald Trump is involved. As a polarizing figure who has had an outsized influence on media and public discourse, a second Trump presidency raises a … Read more