The Human Authored online portal allows members to register their book and use a specially designed logo on covers and promotional materials
Links of the week January 27 2025 (05)
Our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world:
3 February 2025
The US body representing writers, the Authors Guild, has launched an online portal for members to confirm that their work "emanated from the human intellect" and not from artificial intelligence.
The initiative, called Human Authored, will allow authors to log on to the portal and register their book. They will then be able to use a specially designed logo on book covers and promotional materials to show that their work has been created without AI.
Human Authored "isn't about rejecting technology - it's about creating transparency, acknowledging the reader's desire for human connection, and celebrating the uniquely human elements of storytelling," chief executive Mary Rasenberger said in a statement. "Authors can still qualify if they use AI as a tool for spellchecking or research, but the certification connotes that the literary expression itself, with the unique human voice that every author brings to their writing, emanated from the human intellect."
Unicorn Academy series author Julie Sykes and art historian Ruth Millington have been plagued by fake author profiles on Facebook and Instagram, revealing "anger, frustration and vulnerability" over the situation.
Other writers such as Kit De Waal and Milly Johnson and several literary agents have also spoken about the online impersonations which have been ongoing for many years but are apparently increasing through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other technology in recent months.
Sykes told The Bookseller: "Someone contacted me on my website in September saying, ‘I think I've been talking to you on Facebook,' and it wasn't me. The person speaking to him had intimated he could get him a publishing deal with my publisher which obviously made me very concerned."
The person had used a picture of Sykes' New York Times bestselling Unicorn Academy cover (a series co-written with Linda Chapman and illustrated by Lucy Truman, recently adapted for Netflix), using a different spelling of Sykes' surname - "@authorjulieskyes" - and had gained thousands of followers.
After an action-packed weekend of tearful goodbye videos, "Titanic" memes and one act of arson in protest, TikTok received a stay of execution from President Trump. The newly inaugurated executive signed an executive order to delay, for 75 days, the enforcement of legislation that would ban the platform if it is not sold to an American company.
As much as TikTok's critics argue that the platform has made Americans "dumber and slower," TikTok also catalyzed a renaissance in reading for pleasure. If TikTok goes dark for good, it will be consequential to readers, writers, booksellers and the publishing industry.
As a novelist, I sometimes worry there are more aspiring writers in America than book buyers. When the National Endowment for the Arts conducted a survey in 2022, they found that slightly fewer than half of adults had read a book in the preceding year. Novel reading declined 17 percent over the preceding decade.
It would be easy to blame smartphones and social media for why we read fewer novels than ever, which is why it's all the more surprising that TikTok - whose algorithm is designed for addiction - is home to BookTok, a community of readers who rate, review, recommend and discuss books with the dedication and fervor of cult fandoms.
44% of parents think children do not need to know how to use books before they start school. Not so, say the educators - learning - and reading - begins at home.
The annual school readiness survey by early education charitable foundation Kindred Squared revealed that almost half of parents believe children do not need to know how to use books before they start school.
The survey (which concludes that whilst 90% of parents consider their child school-ready, teachers find only 33% are at this level) showed that only 44% of parents think children should know how to use books. Yes, this is as simple as knowing to turn pages, rather than tap or swipe them. Yet over and over again educators and experts reiterate the same point: reading is the cornerstone of education. so to enter school unfamilar with books is to be disadvantaged from the very start.
Author Richard Beard discusses the growing trend for people to document their lives, and outlines the benefits the process can bring
Everyone has memories. And according to the old saying, we all have a book in us. Put these thoughts together and, after a certain age, everyone has a memoir in them. The blank page sits there waiting for the words to flow, the years ticking by and clicking up the volume on that always relevant question - if not now, when? The correct answer is usually now. Record those memories in writing before it's too late. Safeguard your lived experience for future generations, because if not you then who?
Over and above the historical record, there are solid present-tense reasons to consider embarking on a memoir. The reflection required can be a journey of discovery in itself, autotherapy at a time of life when the past - famously another country - suddenly opens its borders and seems once again accessible. And possibly more interesting than whenever you last may have looked. A memoir is a chance to preserve a voice - your own - but also an opportunity to find that voice, at a time of life when introspection may feel overdue.
The Gruffalo has taken a bite out of Harry Potter as Julia Donaldson surges past JK Rowling to become Britain's bestselling author since accurate records began - in terms of units sold.
Donaldson shifted just over 3.1 million copies in 2024 through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market, moving over two million more units than Rowling during the past 12 months. This puts The Gruffalo co-creator's lifetime sales at 48.6 million units, versus Rowling's 48 million.
Rowling, however, remains by some distance the all-time leader in value, having earned £390.5m through the TCM to date, £150m greater than Donaldson. The two writers and Jamie Oliver (£208.7m) are the only authors to have crossed BookScan's £200m threshold.
As revealed in our Review of the Year: Authors, in 2024 Donaldson once again retained her crown as the UK's bestselling author. Over the past decade, Donaldson has routinely outsold Rowling in volume terms by 1.5 million to two million units via BookScan, chipping away at what previously seemed like Rowling's insurmountable volume lead. Donaldson should now win the race to be the first author to sell more than 50 million copies through the TCM, a mark she will most likely hit in late summer this year.
"It's not a job for the faint of heart, or the impatient. But for those of us with brains that crave this kind of work, it is bliss."
I love facts. For example, the construction of the Empire State Building used 50,000 steel beams and 203,000 rivets. Some people would feel nothing at all about this information, while others might find it mildly interesting. Me? Well, as soon as I heard these facts, many years ago, I started to imagine what those huge numbers looked like, and think about the manpower required to haul it into place. As my imagination ran away with itself, I thought about how proud those men must have felt to be part of creating what was going to be the tallest building in the world. I also thought about how no women got to have the thrill of that feeling. And that%u2019s how a novel is born. But this one was different from the others%u2014this one scared me a little. I felt that familiar rush at realizing that I could make something happen. I could put a woman up on the steel, in fiction at least. But to do it, I would have to learn how to build a skyscraper.
Gillian McAllister is often asked about the process behind her novels. She uses 'the age-old and hugely inefficient system of trial and error. The problem is, the trial is writing 100,000 words, and the error is deleting them'.
I'm asked often about the process behind my novels, but I'm always vaguely embarrassed by my answer: I use the age-old and hugely inefficient system of trial and error. I try one thing, for an entire draft, and then I delete it and try another.
I have always been a planner, and can't start a manuscript - or pull off a twist - without one. The document is researched, approved, and resembles what I think I want the novel to be.
But, when I start to write that plan into a book, something starts to happen. It can vary, but in general I either feel like something isn't working, isn't clicking, I am not emotionally invested, or I feel extremely interested in a small subplot or some other unexplored area of it. The feeling persists for most of the draft, but - despite thinking often about it - I just can't seem to work out why. Is it character, is it plot, is it just where I'm at? Is it that it's usually winter when I'm drafting, is it that I feel the pressure of my audience? The plot is all laid out and approved, seems to make sense, but is it that? Even though this happens every year, it kind of always surprises me that it does. And, each time, in a way, it's different.
Erin Connor on writing romance, rom-com shenanigans, and her debut novel Unromance
I have a confession to make: I'm a romance author with imposter syndrome... about being a romantic.
Like many authors of my generation, I got my start in the fantasy and paranormal trenches. I never thought I could write romance. How could I keep a reader's attention without literal life and death stakes? How do you keep them turning pages when they already know the ending - happily ever after?
But after seven shelved manuscripts and two unsuccessful trips into the query slush pile: COVID happened. And suddenly, saving the world no longer felt like escapism. I just wanted someone to tell me everything was going to be okay.
Dearest gentle reader,
Once upon a time, I was writing contemporary romance, but now I'm celebrating the launch of my second YA historical. Like most time travelers, I'm not entirely sure how I fell 500 hundred years back into the past, but I love it here, and I plan to keep writing historical stories for a long time!
Once upon a time, I was writing contemporary romance, but now I'm celebrating the launch of my second YA historical. Like most time travelers, I'm not entirely sure how I fell 500 hundred years back into the past, but I love it here, and I plan to keep writing historical stories for a long time!
I was very intimidated (okay, terrified) when I first started writing historical fiction. What if I got something wrong? What if my inbox flooded with a million "well, actually" messages from well-meaning professors who wrote their entire dissertations on the topic?
As I grew more experienced writing historical, I've grown more confident about the process, and now I'm convinced that writing historical fiction is no harder or scarier than writing fiction set in the present; it's just different.
You would be forgiven for thinking that bookshops were caught in a landslide of fantasy fiction in 2024 with authors such as Sarah J Maas and Rebecca Yarros dominating the top end of the fiction charts - as seen in our Author Review of the Year in last week's issue (The Bookseller, 17th January 2025). It was not just the spicy side of the genre represented either, with JRR Tolkien's sales rising 21.3% year-on-year through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market and Brandon Sanderson appearing inside the top 50 authors of the year for the first time. Is this a trend that's going to continue into 2025 - and, if it is, which series should we be keeping our eye on?
It is timely to start with Rebecca Yarros, as the third book in her Empyrean series - Onyx Storm - is published this week, while Fourth Wing and Iron Flame are sitting atop the Fantasy charts so far for 2025.
First published in hardback in 2023, the first two books in the series were released in paperback in 2024, with Fourth Wing placing 11th in the full-year chart, selling just shy of 250,000 copies. The paperback of Iron Flame was only released in November and has shifted 78,586 copies in its first nine weeks - 7.4% down on the equivalent period for its predecessor.
With Yarros' threequel set to storm the Original Fiction chart next week - and two more books expected in the series, although not yet announced - it is likely that Yarros will continue to be an immovable presence in the chart, not just in the fantasy genre, but at the top of the Fiction charts as well.
Global book publishing had a mixed performance in 2024, with Brazil's exports surging 266% while European markets faced declines. Physical book sales fell across France, Italy, and the U.K., where a lack of consumer confidence after another year of inflation took the blame. German and Swiss markets remained stable, with price increases offsetting declines in unit sales. What follows are brief market snapshots.
The U.K.'s independent bookshop count fell to 1,052 in 2024 from 1,063 in 2023. Indie bookstore sales had a slight decline, with unit sales down 1.7% and value down 0.6%. The Bookseller Association's Christmas Trading Survey revealed mixed results: 56% of indies saw increased year-on-year sales, while 31% reported decreases. Looking ahead, 76.6% of booksellers cited dwindling consumer confidence as their primary concern for 2025.
Six of the 14 Fiction sub-categories posted record returns last year, as the genre's annual haul surpassed its previous record by more than £50m.
In our Reviews of 2024, we have discussed Fiction's blistering 12 months, with an all-time high of £552.7m through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market (TCM), nearly £50m up on the genre's previous record, in 2023. Often in years with massive uplifts in Fiction revenue, the spikes come from just one or two categories, with the oxygen going out elsewhere. Not so in 2024, when just two of BookScan's 14 Fiction sub-categories contracted.
Six of those sub-categories bagged records, led by Science Fiction & Fantasy's TikTok/romantasy-aided 41.3% leap. Most of the sub-genres that did not nab their TCM apogee were still in fine fettle: the largest, General & Literary Fiction, hit £163.1m, its best return since 2011; second-placed Crime, Thriller & Adventure's £143.2m haul was its biggest in 14 years.
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