Labor Day starts a new season for most people. This is true in publishing, too. Fall releases of new books ramp up until the holiday season. Acquisition editors begin in earnest this time of year to put together their next catalog and plan for the one after that. Writers like to turn over a new leaf and recommit to their writing goals for the long winter ahead. In year three of this new era brought on by a global pandemic, publishing continues to change rapidly. The anti-trust hearings regarding the acquisition and merger of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House wrapped up final arguments, but the Department of Justice investigations opened up the industry for closer scrutiny. And it ain’t pretty. The case largely focused on agented authors who commanded advances over $250,000 and the question of whether fewer publishers bidding on intellectual properties diminished the size of advances. While most authors do not command such advances, the diminishing number of publishers creates a market situation in which there are so few buyers as to be a monopsony. A monopoly is when there is only a single supplier, but a monopsony is when there is only one buyer. If there are only a handful of buyers of book manuscripts, that is not a good thing for authors. The argument that new publishers are entering the marketplace didn’t hold much water with the judge in this case. The Penguin Random House attorneys argued Cindy Spiegel and Julie Grau started a…

Pre-order. You might be surprised to learn that pre-ordering a book is critical to the launch of a book. Publishers may make decisions about how much marketing support to provide a new release based on the volume of pre-orders. Some even determine the size of a first print run using those numbers. If a book has strong pre-order sales, reviewers are more likely to review it, the media is more likely to hype it up, and retailers are more likely to carry it in stock and give it premium placement. If you know an author has a book coming out, please pre-order it. Write a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. It doesn’t need to be very long or a deep literary analysis. The number of reviews a book receives affects the algorithms for getting found online. If you don’t like the book, don’t leave a review. As my mother used to say, “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Spread the word. Let your friends and family know how much you enjoyed a book. Share this on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or wherever you do social media. Take a book-selfie. Post a picture of the book, your cat lying across the couch with a paw on the cover, you falling asleep on the couch with the book. Follow. Many authors have Facebook Pages you can like and follow. On Twitter, many authors have accounts and you can follow them and retweet to amplify their voices. Follow authors on…

For 26 years, the Reader’s Loft bookstore in Green Bay has served the community, but on August 31, the store closed its doors. This comes following store owner Virginia Kress’s announcement of her retirement on the Reader’s Loft website and Facebook page. “These past 26 years have brought so much joy I don’t even know how to properly express it,” she writes, “Not just the books themselves but all the people that have come into my life as a result; customers, authors, and co-workers alike. My goal from the beginning was to create a haven from the frantic world we all find ourselves living in. I hope you have found over the years that The Reader’s Loft was a place of refuge and peace for you. From our book clubs to writing circles to poetry readings I hope you have also found nourishment for your mind and soul. I will miss you all!” However, the announcement wasn’t all sad news. Kress also revealed that Amy Mazzariello, who worked as the bookstore’s buyer and events coordinator for 13 years, will be opening a new independent bookstore in downtown Green Bay called Lion’s Mouth. Opening in October, the new bookstore will be located at 401 N. Washington St., but “will offer the same basic services as [the Reader’s Loft], featuring new and used books, specialty gifts and cards, searches for out of print books, online sales of both new and used books, space for reading and writing groups, story times for kids,…