Romance is a billion-dollar-a-year industry, according to Writer’s Digest. It is no wonder that at the height of its power, the Romance Writers of America (RWA) was the biggest and most influential writers’ conference in all of book publishing, with over 10,000 members.

So, why did RWA come apart, and more importantly—coul…

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I’ve almost lost count of how many hopeful writers have sat across from me at a conference table, a coffee shop, or a writing workshop desk and, before they’ve told me a single word about their story, told me how old they are…and asked me to look past it.

The logic behind their worry is usually the same, and it isn’t unrea…

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Every few months, a writer asks me some version of the same question: Is it actually worth it to go to a writers’ conference? Registration fees, travel, hotel rooms, a weekend or a week away from the desk…all to sit across from an agent or editor for a ten-minute pitch session that may or may not go anywhere. Fair question…

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There used to be a rhythm to this business you could set a watch to. Starting the Friday before Memorial Day, and through July and August meant Summer Fridays, half-empty offices, and the unspoken understanding that nothing…a deal, a deadline, a decision…was urgently happening until after Labor Day. The reasoning was partly cultural: from June to the en…

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Here is a number worth sitting with: £4.7 billion.

That is what U.K. publishers earned from exports in 2025—a 4% increase over the prior year, and 64% of the entire British publishing industry’s total revenue. Not a side business, nor a supplemental revenue stream. The majority of what British publishers earn now comes from…

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It started with a Today Show interview and ended…well, it hasn’t quite ended. Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt found himself at the center of a firestorm last week after telling book club host and imprint publisher Jenna Bush Hager that the chain would stock AI-created books, provided they were clearly labeled. The internet…

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An aspiring author receives an email from a “literary agent” expressing enthusiasm about their manuscript.

The message is polished, personalized, and professional. The sender references recent bestsellers, adaptation potential, and submission strategy. The agency website looks legitimate, the LinkedIn profile appears credi…

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There are some phone calls and messages in life that do not feel real when they arrive. News that seems impossible to absorb because the person in question felt close to you and alive only moments earlier. Alan Hlad’s passing was one of those moments for me.

Alan had just turned in his latest manuscript,

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Something unusual is happening in the world of books. In the span of just a few weeks in spring 2026, a cluster of union drives has ignited across the publishing industry with a speed and coordination that feels less like coincidence and more like a reckoning.

On April 13, workers at Catapult Book Group, which also include…

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Picture Maxwell Perkins at his large wooden desk, buried under stacks of manuscripts at Charles Scribner’s Sons, with a red pen in hand, shaping the work of giants, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. In book publishing lore, he was the gold standard: the editor as auteur, the Steven Spielberg…

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Should novelists be judged on their writing—or their platform?

There is a quiet but significant shift happening, and it may be eroding one of publishing’s foundational principles…

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After hearing a great elevator pitch for a novel or reading a fantastic query letter, I request a full manuscript from writers for consideration. Their reaction is almost always one of shock, surprise, and delight.

When I ask writers why they are so surprised, the reply is often that some agents or editors tend to ask for only…

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Writers must be audacious and think very highly of themselves. They must hold themselves and their work in very high esteem.

This is not just meant as a morale boost for writers (although who doesn’t love a good morale boost), but it is really about writers visualizing a dream or a goal for themselves.

That is why it is ve…

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For as long as I can remember, the publishing industry has operated on a sort of silence of politeness. Literary agents whisper their opinions among themselves in private. Editors hedge in their own private meetings. Authors seem to nod along with all of this when they should be pushing back. Everyone protects the ecosyst…

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