1. The Distribution Sector Dealt with Disorder
Shrinking distribution options created an ever-more challenging landscape, especially for independent publishers, throughout the year. The situation has become serious enough for indie publishers that the heads of various associations and smaller presses are working on various plans to offer indie presses more distribution options.
The challenging distribution landscape took center stage in March, when Small Press Distribution abruptly shut down after struggling for years to remain a viable distributor for small, and mainly literary, presses. Earlier in the year, in an effort to modernize SPD’s nonprofit operations, its executive director, Kent Watson, moved to outsource the actual warehousing and distribution of clients’ books to Ingram Content Group and Publishers Storage and Shipping in hopes of upgrading the services it could provide. But facing a combination of a decline in grants, slow sales, and the cost of moving warehouses, SPD fell into too deep a financial hole. The company filed for dissolution shortly after.
The bulk of SPD’s clients were small, and drew little interest from the more established distributors, many of which are now part of large trade publishers. A few smaller companies, such as Asterism, moved to fill the void, and while many presses found new homes, they incurred extra costs nonetheless.
In November, National Book Network—which, with about 150 clients, was one of the few remaining larger independent distributors—announced that it too would close, offering its publishers the chance to move to Simon & Schuster Distribution Services before it ceased operations in 2025. In a letter to clients explaining the decision, NBN executives wrote that, with large publishers and Ingram Publisher Services now dominating distribution, “smaller players such as NBN find it difficult to match the economies of scale that the big boys enjoy just by virtue of their size.”
2. The Influence of AI Exploded, for Better and Worse
The implications of the impact of generative artificial intelligence on numerous publishing practices—from administrative tasks to content creation—simmered throughout the year. At the annual meeting of the Association of American Publishers, CEO Maria Pallante called the current period “the most complex time in the history of publishing.” She said that the principal challenge facing the publishing community at present is to advocate for new laws and policies that can protect copyright industries as changes in technology move at a rapid pace. At the same time, publishing leaders acknowledged that, in the words of Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger, the industry “can’t bury our heads in the sand. AI is here to stay.”
Rasenberger made her comments following the November disclosure that HarperCollins had signed a three-year licensing agreement with a large tech company, reported to be Microsoft. Under the opt-in agreement, the company would pay HC $5,000 apiece for any nonfiction book that it used to train its large language models, to be split between HC and authors. While HC is the first trade publisher to sign such an AI agreement, academic and professional publishers including Taylor & Francis and Wiley had previously reached deals of their own, with Wiley signing two agreements worth a total of $44 million.
Meanwhile, copyright lawsuits filed against various tech companies continued to work their way through the courts in 2024, and the Authors Guild filed a new lawsuit accusing AI startup Anthropic of copyright infringement for allegedly training its AI tools on books without authorization. In an effort to alleviate the need for lawsuits, a number of startups were launched this year, including Created By Humans, a company launched by Scribd cofounder Trip Adler. The company, which has since partnered with the Authors Guild, aims to serve as a bridge between creators and tech companies interested in licensing rights to use in training their large language models.
3. Book Publishing’s Freedom to Read Efforts
In the teeth of a years-long political attack targeting libraries and the freedom to read, publishers have stepped in with several legal actions, and in 2024 those actions yielded results. In January, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision to block key provisions of HB 900, Texas’s controversial book rating law, agreeing with plaintiff publishers and booksellers that the law—which would have required vendors to rate every book sold for sexual content or be banned from doing business with Texas schools—likely violated the First Amendment.
In August, the Eighth Circuit delivered a mixed decision, vacating an injunction in a publisher-led lawsuit over Iowa’s book banning law SF 496, but at the same time rejecting the state’s core argument: that decisions about library books are “government speech” and thus not subject to First Amendment scrutiny. And in Florida, a federal judge allowed a lawsuit led by Penguin Random House over book bans in Escambia County to proceed, expressing skepticism over the county's government speech argument. At a pre-trial conference in December, judge T. Kent Wetherell, a Trump appointee, urged county officials to settle the case.
Still, there is plenty more freedom to read drama on tap in 2025. As of this writing, the Fifth Circuit is once again considering the government speech argument via a closely-watched book banning case in rural Llano County, Tex., in which county officials have argued that the Fifth Circuit should reverse its own decades-old holding in Campbell v. St. Tammany Parish School Board, a 1995 decision that has long served as an anti-censorship bulwark for librarians. And in Florida, six major publishers have filed a major challenge to two provisions of the state’s “harmful to minors” law, HB 1069, arguing that the law’s unconstitutionally vague language has led to thousands of books—including many classics—being pulled from classroom and school libraries.
Meanwhile, in a significant move, Penguin Random House—by far the publisher most active in taking up the freedom to read battle—hired a new senior level policy manager to help fight book bans, a sign that the publisher is interested in getting more upstream in the political and legislative battles over books, rather than having to sue later.
4. Protests over War in Palestine Roiled PEN America
The deep political divisions in the country led to the cancelation of the PEN America Literary Awards this year, as well as the organization’s World Voices Festival. The cancelation of the awards ceremony followed months of steadily mounting criticism of PEN America over its response to Israel’s war in Gaza that culminated in 28 authors withdrawing books from consideration for the awards, including nine of the 10 authors nominated for the organization's top prize, the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. The cancelation of what would have been the 20th edition of the World Voices Festival followed the same lines: criticism of PEN’s response to the crisis in Gaza led to widespread withdrawals by authors who were set to attend the event.
As 2024 drew to a close, PEN announced that Suzanne Nossel, who had led the nonprofit for more than a decade and was the focus of much of the criticism of the organization, was stepping down as CEO, and would take the helm of the human rights nonprofit Freedom House on January 7. Chief program officers Summer Lopez and Clarissa Rosaz Shariyf are serving as interim co-CEOs as the free speech organization conducts a nationwide search for its next leader.
5. Hachette Book Group Changed Shape, with Some Growing Pains
Penguin Random House and HarperCollins began extensive reorganization efforts in 2023, as did Hachette Book Group, which initiated its own wide-ranging restructuring program beginning with the move last November by parent company Hachette Livre to bring the Hachette Book Group and its U.K.-based counterpart, Hachette UK, under “a new English-language management structure,” with UK CEO David Shelley taking the helm for both companies. In 2024, HBG continued an extensive restructuring that lasted into late summer.
A centerpiece of the restructuring was the further integration of Workman Publishing, which HBG had acquired in 2021 and agreed, as part of the deal, to keep all Workman employees for three years. As part of the reorganization, which involved layoffs in the Workman division, Algonquin Books was moved into Little, Brown, reporting to newly appointed president and publisher Sally Kim. Algonquin Young Readers was likewise moved into Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, where it was placed under president and publisher Megan Tingley. The Hachette Books and Hachette Go imprints were also dissolved as part of the restructuring.
Workman Publishing Group EVP and publisher Susan Weinberg is set to retire at the end of 2024, and Kristin Kiser, SVP and publisher of the Running Press Group, will become president and publisher of a new division, called the Workman Running Press Group, effective January 1. Sources explained that the makeover of HBG was designed to promote “key team members” and add “extra roles” in “areas where the market is strong” while "cutting back in areas where the market has weakened.”
HBG ended the year with a reaffirmation of its commitment to the American trade publishing business when it acquired Union Square Publishing from Barnes & Noble. Under the purchase, all staff, publishing assets, and trademarks of Union Square Publishing, formerly Sterling Publishing Co., were transferred to HBG.
6. Consolidation Continued, and Job Loss With It
HBG’s purchase of Union Square was just one of the many acquisitions that have consolidated the publishing industry over the decades. A PW analysis of government statistics found that the number of people employed in book publishing in the U.S. fell to 54,822 in 2023, down from 91,100 in 1997. If accurate, that represents a loss of about 40% of traditional publishing jobs in less than 30 years.
In addition to consolidation—and prior to the rise of AI—new technology has helped to make publishing more efficient than it was during its period of peak employment. These new technologies, along with the retooling the industry underwent following the Great Recession of 2007–2009, are among the major factors in the business’s shrinking workforce.
Still, despite the significant decline in publishing jobs, industry sales are growing—although that growth is not keeping up with inflation. While publishing industry data is notoriously tricky to pin down, given shifting accounting methods and data sources, the trend lines are nevertheless clear: book publishing employment has dropped by about a third, and sales have, albeit modestly, continued to tick up.
7. Spotify Shook Up the Audiobook Market
Spotify entered the U.S. audiobook market in November 2023, offering more than 200,000 audiobook titles at launch, and its presence had a big effect on sales of the format in 2024. Under Spotify’s model, premium paid subscribers are allotted 15 hours per month to access digital audiobooks, with users able to pay $10.99 to “top off" their time with 10-hour blocks if they wish to keep listening. In the spring, Spotify added a new audiobook subscription tier, dubbed the Audiobooks Access Tier, offering a slightly less expensive but more limited option for users interested in streaming audiobooks on the platform.
Industry executives have credited Spotify’s entrance with helping to keep the long-running audiobook sales boom moving forward in 2024. According to the AAP’s StatShot program, sales of audiobooks were up 27% in the first nine months of 2024 over the comparable period a year ago, with digital audio sales at reporting publishers topping sales of e-books.
Though it hasn’t released sales figures, in April, Spotify published data suggesting that audiobooks are proving successful in terms of attracting listeners: since launching its audiobooks program last fall, the company said, one quarter of Spotify Premium users had "engaged" with audiobooks. The company has 602 million monthly active users worldwide, 236 million of which are paying subscribers, but it does not offer specific data for the U.S. market.
In addition to delivering new customers and new sales of its own, Spotify is also credited by industry insiders with forcing Audible to increase its marketing support for audiobooks. More than one attendee at the Frankfurt Book Fair commented on the size of the Audible stand at this year’s event, and an even more important sign as to how seriously Audible and its corporate parent, Amazon, are taking the Spotify challenge came in November, when Amazon Music Unlimited made it possible for users in the U.S., U.K., and Canada to listen to one audiobook per month from Audible's catalog for free.
8. Major Shifts Hit North American Bookstore Chains
North America’s two largest bookstore chains headed in different directions in 2024. Under the direction of James Daunt and backed by its owner, private equity firm Elliott Advisore, Barnes & Noble embarked on its most aggressive store opening program in many years. The retailer opened about 30 outlets in 2023 and, after initially planning to open 50 stores in 2024, Daunt raised his target number to 60 in early November, noting that strong sales at B&N’s existing outlets encouraged him to be more aggressive in 2024. (B&N began 2024 with 609; it is not yet clear what its final number of stores will be at the end of 2024, once store closings are factored in.)
In another sign of the health of the retailer, B&N acquired the Tattered Cover, the 53-year-old Denver bookstore chain known for its staunch defense of the freedom to read, for $1.83 million in June. Tattered Cover retained a majority of its 70 employees across its four Colorado locations along with its name and branding, in keeping with a strategy Daunt has followed when acquiring such venerable U.K. brands as Blackwell’s, Hatchards, Foyles, and Hodges Figgis.
Despite its successes, B&N did suffer one major loss this year, when Len Riggio, who revolutionized the bookselling business—first by making B&N the dominant bookstore chain in the U.S. and then by opening hundreds of superstores—died on August 27 at age 83.
While B&N grew in 2024, Indigo Books & Music, Canada’s largest bookseller, underwent a retrenching. In May, a group of investors led by Canadian billionaire Gerald Schwartz, an Indigo board member and the husband of Indigo founder and CEO Heather Reisman, acquired the company and returned it to private control. The acquisition followed an extraordinarily difficult few years for the retailer, beginning with declining sales through its physical bookstores during the pandemic and a cyberattack that crippled its e-book sales. Indigo's sales slump continued through the final quarter of 2023, when revenue dropped 12%, and its net income in the period fell to C$10 million, from C$34.3 million in the last quarter of 2022.
9. Religion Book Sales Have a Stellar Showing
While trade sales in general have struggled to reach the highs of the early pandemic years, one category has done very well: religion books. According to the AAP, sales of religion books rose 7% in 2023, easily beating the 0.8% decline in overall sales. Sales stayed strong in 2024 and were up 18.5% through October, with Bibles as the main engine drivers, according to executives in the sector. Doug Lockhart, SVP of sales and marketing for HarperCollins Christian Publishing, told PW that he was not surprised by the Bible bump: "There's a lot of angst in the world today, and people are looking for answers."
The sales momentum in the religion category was strong enough to convince PRH, in October, to launch the Penguin Random House Christian Publishing Group, a new standalone entity that will expand and build upon on the publisher’s existing evangelical Christian publishing programs. According to the announcement, the expansion involves several personnel moves and additional resources devoted to the company's Waterbrook & Multnomah, Image, and Forum imprints. The group is being led by Campbell Wharton, who has been promoted to SVP.
10. Traditional Publishing Heavyweights Went Hybrid
The challenges facing traditional publishing in the post-pandemic years has led more and more industry insiders to try their hand at nontraditional methods of putting out books. While hybrid publishing has been around for years, it received a jolt of media attention in March, with the formation of Authors Equity. The company was cofounded by former PRH US CEO Madeline McIntosh, who serves as its CEO, with Nina von Moltke, the previous president and director of strategic development at PRH US, as its president, and Don Weisberg, the former CEO of Macmillan, as senior advisor. Among the company’s initial financial backers were five authors, including James Clear, Louise Penny, and Tim Ferriss.
Like other hybrid publishers, Authors Equity offers no advances, but pays authors a higher percentage of a book’s profits than the percentages offered in traditional contracts used by the large publishers. In addition to giving authors the chance to earn more money—while relieving the publisher of paying upfront advances—another difference the company’s founders cited from traditional houses was a commitment to “long-term collaboration" with authors and plans to give books the time and attention to find an audience. Along those lines, the publisher pledged to offer its authors “flexibility” and “transparency” in the publishing process, making decisions jointly in the best interests of each book. “We’re in it from day one," the founders promised, "and for the long haul."
