Literature World Updates: 6/19/2023
A couple of things you may have missed this month.
This is a short little read for people who haven’t been keeping an eye on what’s going on in the literature world. There’s no blame in that sentence. Too much news happens every day to get everything. That’s why you have me.
Simon & Schuster is being sold. Among the bidders is Harper Collins. This would compress the Big 5 to the Big 4 if the deal goes through, though it is unlikely given the size of other bids, the largest being $2.4 billion.
Barnes&Noble put out their favorite books of the year so far. Here’s a bar graph of the gender representation.
Pageboy was listed as one of their favorite audiobooks narrated by a celebrity (the author). That one is included in the woman bar.
Here is a set of publications that pay freelancers for book reviews, interviews, and more.
Amazon’s Top 20 Books of the Year (so far) is split 50/50 between men and women. I was too lazy to review all their picks (278 in total), but you can if you want to.
Harper Collins closed offices in San Francisco, Grand Rapids, and Boston. The CEO mentioned “streamlining their office footprint”, i.e., they can’t afford the insane rental prices for offices that people barely use because they sit at home all day instead.