Links of Interest: July 22, 2026

Traditional Publishing

• A debut YA novelist offers a long and nuanced explication of her experience at a Big Five publisher. The publisher had big expectations going in, announced a 50,000 unit print run, but ultimately only printed 7,500 copies. The author is told lackluster sales are due to limited buy-in from Barnes & Noble, thus concludes that Barnes & Noble remains influential in determining what books take off. I worry that will be the one thing people remember from this insightful piece, and authors may assume there’s little or nothing they can do to support their own success if Barnes & Noble isn’t on board. First, when a publisher tells the author that thin Barnes & Noble buy-in explains weak sales, that can be a convenient explanation, an effect of the publisher not prioritizing the book. (Barnes & Noble has always been a useful scapegoat for publishers.) However, physical shelf presence is indeed needed if a book doesn’t have much else going for it—no organic BookTok wave, no meaningful publisher push, limited author activity. When a store table is the only path to discovery, I wouldn’t be surprised when the book underperforms. The author mentions libraries have become the book’s biggest market, which underlines that a book has many paths to success. If it were me, I’d be doubling down on my library strategy. Read on Reddit.
  • A Big Five marketing manager comments on the case. This person says pre-orders are not realistically obtainable for debuts, yet Barnes & Noble increasingly makes decisions based on such data without editorial judgment. That puts debut authors in a bind. Again, there are really wonderful insights here about how Big Five publishing works and its overall attitudes and assumptions. But I don’t agree with the overarching conclusion that authors can’t influence early indicators. While it’s true that authors can’t realistically affect in-store placement or what Barnes & Noble decides to do, it’s 2026, not 2006. Why treat physical store placement as the only way books find their readership? I hope the Big Five are playing the game more strategically and expansively than this—Barnes & Noble can only stock and support a minuscule number of books. The marketing manager does offer turnaround examples that hinge on reader feedback, which I think proves my point that success doesn’t lie in convincing Barnes & Noble to do things. Read on Reddit.
• Vibe check at university presses. Author Laura Portwood-Stacer attends the Association of University Presses annual meeting and reports on how university press staff are feeling about the market. A key factor driving lower sales for certain books is a reduction in library budgets in higher education. Read her newsletter.

Marketing & Promotion

• An author spends $44,000 to launch her book and says the investment sold three copies. The nonfiction author, Amy Chan, spent $10,000 on a TikTok influencer campaign, $10,000 on a speaking gig agency, and $24,000 on a PR agency’s four-month campaign. TL;DR from her: “If I could rewind, I would take the $44,000 I spent on influencers, the speaking agency, and PR and put nearly all of it into Amazon ads. Amazon ads reach people who are already on Amazon looking for a book to buy. I’d probably test out a Meta campaign as well.” Read at Renew with Amy Chan. If you read her account, be sure to read Leigh Stein’s response, which explains why Chan’s investments were likely doomed to fail. I’m not as savvy or knowledgeable as Stein when it comes to influencer and social media marketing, but even I could have told Chan she was headed in the wrong direction or at least overspending on efforts that would not come back to her in the form of book sales. Stein’s key points: Start with your own fans first (Chan has lots of them, or a meaningful platform), sponsored content is not going to perform well on TikTok, and invest in learning new skills. Unfortunately, Chan’s post is the sort of thing authors like to read so they can feel like publicity is a total crapshoot or that TikTok marketing doesn’t work. The real takeaway is that it doesn’t take a big budget to market your book—it really only takes you and your own creative efforts. (Yes, creative.)

Trends

• Amazon Prime launches a romance fan convention. According to the Wall Street Journal, Prime Video has cornered the market on YA fiction and the women who want to escape into love stories. Executives pay close attention to what’s trending on BookTok to find work they can adapt. Their first fan convention, Obsessed Fest ($25 per ticket), is a “declaration of its all-out push into romance.” Read Ashley Wong.

AI

• The latest findings on how well AI detection works. Key takeaway: Best-in-class tools like Pangram are far more likely to misclassify AI-generated text as human-authored than vice versa. Read Jaeho Lee at Epoch. Related: This article from Reuters Institute finds that AI detection is far more reliable when evaluating a large corpus of text versus an individual article. Read Marina Adami. H/t Peter Brantley.
• The AI content paradox. A media commentator argues, “There’s still a social cost to using AI to express yourself or your ideas. It’s embarrassing, even somewhat offensive, to outsource that. Serious people don’t behave this way. … My hypothesis is that companies will see diminishing returns trading humans for tokens in many of these fields.” This is an interesting and ultimately optimistic take from someone who works in a highly disrupted industry, but I’m still wary of confident predictions about a technology that’s evolving so quickly (and I never cease to be surprised by human taste and judgment). Read Brian Morrissey.