The creator of Worldle is vowing to fight back on the grounds that there are many other games with similar titles. “There's a whole industry of LE games,” he told the BBC. “Wordle is about words, Worldle is about the world, Flaggle is about flags," he pointed out. The New York Times disagrees. - BBC
"The most avid audiobook listeners consumed an average of 6.8 titles in 2023, the survey found, marking an increase from 6.3 in 2022. Among a broader survey group, which included those who had ever listened to an audiobook, the average number of audiobooks listened to last year was 4.8." - Publishers Weekly
"Amanda Jones vividly remembers the time she received her first death threat. … Jones lost 50 pounds, took medical leave from work and watched in disbelief as chunks of her hair started to fall out. Knowing something had to change in the spring of 2023, she filed a lawsuit and wrote her book." - The Guardian
That publishing decision is not being met with glee in either the U.S. or Canada. “‘It's hard to simultaneously draw the ire of black people, white people, conservatives, AND liberals… But I think you've just done it,’ rapper and podcaster Zuby replied on X.” - CBC
“I am here on my knees begging the publishing industry not only to publish books for younger teenagers, but to create a new publishing category that encompasses that unrecognized in-between age.” - School Library Journal
Paperback, audiobook, hardcover, or e-book: Which wins as least bad for the environment? Tough call, and a complicated one. Even "certain fonts can be more climate-friendly by using less ink and less paper.” - NPR
"Publications hope that by willingly opening their archives to ChatGPT, they’ll receive attribution, referrals, and general pride of place in the algorithm’s recommendation features. Which may be something of a Faustian bargain, considering that generative AI tools already scrub those archives without asking permission." - LitHub
When a fire gutted the bookstore Yu & Me, which founder Lucy Yu opened in New York’s Chinatown about 21 months into the pandemic - and a spate of anti-Asian violence - Yu had no idea how ridiculously much work was ahead. - The New York Times
Just ask BookTok. "Telling the internet that Harry Styles is your boyfriend is a fantasy. Telling the internet that Franz Kafka is your boyfriend — that is a thesis statement." - The New York Times
Before you start yours, consider this: What you think is riveting about your life might not seem so to others. As one publisher put it, too many submissions are “just the writer’s own story, which is ultimately boring.” - The Atlantic (MSN)
"When you’re searching for excellence, even books you might have enjoyed under normal circumstances start looking mediocre, and the process quickly becomes a slog that drains the joy from reading. But the monthly discussions with my fellow jurors — always lively, thoughtful, and respectful — were restorative." - The Ed's Up
TikTok, that's how. With The Shadow Work Journal, Keila Shaheen has become "perhaps the first self-published nonfiction author to break out in a big way on the platform, a feat she accomplished by fully harnessing its potential not just for marketing, but for direct sales." - The New York Times
The decision comes just a week after the Hay Festival cut funding ties with the investment firm. Both festivals cite "intolerable pressure," referring to boycott threats and withdrawals by participants who object to Baillie Gifford's financial ties to the fossil fuel industry and Israel. - The Herald (Scotland)
Calligraphy, a centuries-old art form, is seeing a surge of interest, including among young people more familiar with coding than cursive. - The New York Times
The purchase, which has already been completed, adds more than 40,000 academic titles published under the Rowman & Littlefield and Lexington Books imprints, which cover the subjects of academic arts, humanities, and social sciences, including in such subject areas as business and psychology, in which Bloomsbury is "building a presence," the company said. - Publishers Weekly
