← Book Riot - The Podcast
Book Riot - The Podcast
The Neil Gaiman Story Gets Worse, Best-Selling Books of 2024, and The Price of Books with Kathleen Schmidt
01:16:03
Jeff and Rebecca talk about the very, very ugly details emerging about Neil Gaiman, 2024's best-selling books, audio-first publishing, and more. Then, Kelly Jensen and Kathleen Schmidt talk about the price of books and what effects they have.
Loading summary
Transcript190 lines
- [00:03]
Rebecca Schinsky
If you need three new reasons to love Jack wraps at Jack in the Box even more.
- [00:07]
Jeff O'Neill
Here they are.
- [00:08]
Rebecca Schinsky
Chicken fajita, chicken Caesar and delicious starting at $3. Coincidentally, those are the same three reasons.
- [00:15]
Jeff O'Neill
You should come to Jack in the.
- [00:16]
Rebecca Schinsky
Box right now at Jack. Every bite's a big deal.
- [00:23]
Kathleen Schmidt
This episode is brought to you by Amazon.
- [00:26]
Jeff O'Neill
Sometimes the most painful part of getting.
- [00:27]
Kathleen Schmidt
Sick is the getting better part. Waiting on hold for an appointment, sitting in crowded wa rooms, standing in line at the pharmacy. That's painful. Amazon One Medical and Amazon Pharmacy remove.
- [00:38]
Jeff O'Neill
Those painful parts of getting better with things like 24.
- [00:41]
Kathleen Schmidt
7 virtual visits and prescriptions delivered to your door. Thanks to Amazon Pharmacy and Amazon One.
- [00:46]
Jeff O'Neill
Medical Healthcare just got less painful. This is the Book Riot podcast. I'm Jeff O'Neill.
- [00:54]
Rebecca Schinsky
And I'm Rebecca Schinsky.
- [00:56]
Jeff O'Neill
And we've got an interesting show for you today. We're going to do two segments. The first segment is a kind of a shorty version of a regular episode to do some news talk. Frontless foyer. And the B segment. Well, Rebecca, tell people in the B segment.
- [01:09]
Kathleen Schmidt
Yeah.
- [01:09]
Rebecca Schinsky
So in the second half of the show, you will hear our colleague Kelly Jensen, one of our great writers, one of our editors on the site, speaking with Kathleen Schmidt, who is a longtime book publicist and writes a great substack called Publishing Confidential about what tariffs might mean for book prices and book consumers here in the US and just I guess as a programming note, we're gonna be trying more of this in 2025 secondary segments to the show with interviews. On next week's show, you'll hear me talking with the author Jami Attenberg about how she got started and now goes about running a book fair for a local school in her neighborhood in New Orleans to ensure that every child goes home with books from the book fair, how they fundraise and plan for that. And we have some other interesting stuff coming up this year.
- [01:54]
Jeff O'Neill
Speaking of other interesting stuff, over on First Edition, I had the great pleasure of speaking to Nnedi Okorafor Reading Life on the occasion of the publication of Death of the Author, her new novel. You'd heard us talk about it as one of the, you know, few candidates, top of the pile candidates for it. Books of the Month unfortunately was washed out by Onyx Storm, which I guess also is a programming note. After this we're going to record the a Patreon episode which will come out, I guess after this episode. But the next Patreon episode is going to be our first hot list check in of the year. This time What I've got is are two categories for Rebecca to help me wade through the I'm Pretty Sure Abouts list and the what do you think of these lists as a hot list? Check in. So that is where we kind of see what books are cooking. They've got a little juice, a little heat and turning of the calendar is an odd moment because you're kind of running on the fumes of 2024, but really when you turn that calendar, it seems like a lot of the wind comes out of those sales point. Just using all the analogies that I've.
- [03:00]
Rebecca Schinsky
Got right now, couple weeks of January have been like just really pretty quiet in terms of title focused book news. And then as we get into the newsy news of the show this week, there are only really a few news stories but one really big story that is dominating publishing.
- [03:15]
Jeff O'Neill
So check it over there on the Patreon Akora 4 on first edition and I think that's it. Let's do our first sponsor break and we'll get into the big news.
- [03:27]
Rebecca Schinsky
This episode is sponsored by People Pleaser Breaking Free from the Burden of Imaginary Expectations by Ginger Duggar Vuolo Stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook. In People Pleaser, New York Times bestselling author Ginger Vuolo shares her personal journey of constantly seeking approval from others and how she found her true identity. From childhood to early adulthood, Ginger Duggar Volo followed the expectations of others, never taking the time to discover who she truly was. It wasn't until she asked herself the question, who am I? That she realized she was a people pleaser. This realization led her on a journey of self discovery and ultimately taught her to rely on God for her approval and sense of self worth. People pleaser is available January 14th everywhere Books and audiobooks are sold. Again, stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook People Pleaser by Ginger Duggar wolo Be Honest.
- [04:23]
Ginger Duggar Vuolo
When's the last time you had a homemade meal? We get it.
- [04:27]
Rebecca Schinsky
Between meetings, workout classes and the kids.
- [04:29]
Ginger Duggar Vuolo
After school sports, who's got time to cook? That's where HelloFresh comes in. No matter how busy you get, HelloFresh.
- [04:36]
Rebecca Schinsky
Has everything you need to get an.
- [04:37]
Ginger Duggar Vuolo
Easy home cooked meal on the table. With flavor packed recipes like Parmesan Herb Crusted Salmon, you'll be filling your kitchen with the cozy aromas of a homemade.
- [04:46]
Rebecca Schinsky
Meal in no time.
- [04:47]
Ginger Duggar Vuolo
So go ahead, try HelloFresh. It's homemade made easy. Learn more@hellofresh.com I've got a confession to Meet Rebecca.
- [04:54]
Jeff O'Neill
Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca. Read all the Neil Gaiman stuff. I couldn't do it, man. You said not to.
- [04:58]
Rebecca Schinsky
You don't have to do it.
- [04:59]
Jeff O'Neill
I can be your. Your interlocutor. I'm not sure what to say. Well, I think what to tell people.
- [05:06]
Rebecca Schinsky
I really want to direct readers to this and also give our listeners and also give them a big warning. So back in the summer, we talked about it when a podcast called the Tortoise broke the news that five women, first it was two, and then there were three more had come forward with allegations of sexual assault against Neil Gaiman that had taken place really over the several decades. At the time, I remember us talking about, like, surely someone is going to do a big investigative piece about this. And the money was on Elizabeth Harris and Alexandra Alter from the New York Times. It turns out Lila Shapiro of New York magazine delivered the big investigative piece. It dropped this Monday. It is the COVID story of this week's New York magazine. It's titled There Is no Safe Word, which tells you some things already going in. The allegations here are. Well, the piece is long. It is very detailed. Shapiro spoke with four of the five women who had gone on the record for the Tortoise podcast and four more women that had come forward in other capacities. She notes in the piece that at one point Amanda Palmer, who was Neil Gaiman's longtime partner and is now. They're now in the fifth year of a protracted, ugly divorce process. Palmer noted to one of the women who reported assault to her that this was a pattern and that at that moment, 14 women had gone to Amanda Palmer to tell her that they had had these experiences with Neil Gaiman. It is quite damning. This is, I think, Weinstein levels and then some in terms of the details of the behavior. So go very gently if you go at all. It is. The piece is very graphic and incredibly disturbing. It's the kind of thing that it's important that a record exists. It's important that these women get to tell their story and that these pieces of information are out there. But it is like all the trigger warnings in the world. The title that there is no safe word of the piece refers to something that one of the women said to Lila Shapiro. Many of these women who had not met each other at the time that they were speaking to Shapiro reported very similar experiences with Gaiman, that they are alleging that he engaged in BDSM and kink type behaviors, but without consent. And if all you know about BDSM and consent is what you learned in 50 Shades of Gray, you seem to know more about it than Neil Gaiman does. Because the line between a BDSM practice and abuse is consent. And these women are saying there was no discussion ahead of time. We did not talk about our boundaries. When I said no, he did not respect no to all kinds of behaviors. Some of them quite humiliating and terrible. So if you go into this piece, be gentle with yourself. Know that you're going in to read something that is very graphically descriptive and quite horrible. But I am so grateful to Lila Shapiro for the reporting work that she's done. I can't imagine what it was like to spend six months in the details of this story. And it's notable that it took six months, you know, to get all of these pieces together.
- [08:18]
Jeff O'Neill
Did her homework.
- [08:19]
Rebecca Schinsky
So yeah, that is where we are with this. We will have a link in the show notes.
- [08:23]
Jeff O'Neill
I'll just say that Lila Shapiro, I didn't think of her as a potential. I guess one of the people, a person that would do something like this. I should have though. I spoke to Lila Shapiro on an annotated episode. I think it was the one I'm now doing this at the time about the handbook for mortals and the juicing of the New York Times bestseller list that underwent that. She's done a lot of long form pieces for Vultzer in New York Magazine. In the literary and cultural sphere. I respect her quite a quite a bit, if that matters to anyone. I thought I would say that there. I'm not going to be reading this. And I will also say, I guess it's newsworthy that Gaiman made a boilerplate kind of whatever. I'll link to that too. I don't want to talk about it. But in the fullness of here are the things that are happening. I don't think you'll be surprised about the kind of language he uses because we've seen this before anyway. I don't know, man, just from hearing what you said. I've read some other things about this. I haven't looked at it directly. I've kind of looked it off of reflective surfaces, to be quite honest with you. I guess I wasn't expecting it to be like this, but I don't know what I was expecting. What kind of summer child am I? I mean, what's happening?
- [09:39]
Rebecca Schinsky
I mean this stuff is. Stories like this are always bad. The particulars here, the things that he allegedly subjected these women to are just on the really side of bad, of abusive, of like a complete lack of regard for a person's right to tell you what they want to have happen or not happen to their own body and to respect it in terms of like response from publishing. New York Times covered the piece the next day and had spoken with some of the publishers and they noted in the piece that was Elizabeth Egan and Alexandra Alter, that while like mainstream media was picking this up, publishing's response and responses for some of Gaiman's collaborators had been what they called subdued, which I think is a Jenner. But HarperCollins and Marvel and W.W. norton, who have all published Neil Gaiman, have confirmed that they don't have any new upcoming titles coming from him. As of a PW piece that came out this morning or yesterday afternoon, Dark Horse Comics is still working on a statement. There are no statements from either his literary agent or his speaking agent, though PW noted that tab or a section of Neil Gaiman's website that had formerly had agent contact info is now down. Something is going on there. I want to believe that people have reasons for this taking so long to address. I had written about this in Today in Books and PW actually reached out and told me like we were waiting to get our own comment requests returned from publishers, which I understand. And I also think there's a way to summarize this so that the news is available to your readers that this is going on as soon as it happens and then follow up with how publishers have responded. But we've had six months of notice. Like I know that this is a complex situation, but I also. We run a small business and if we knew that a story like this was coming, like allegations come out in July and you know someone is going to investigate this like you're coming to the New York Times at some point. How are there not statements already drafted? How were there not contingency plans? How has legal not had like, you know, speech one and speech two lined up? For which one do you grab? I'm very angry about the fact that this was allegedly done to these women. And I'm sure that's bleeding into my interpretation of events here. It's likely that it is, but I'm really concerned that we have not heard any sort of, not even full throated, any sort of like medium throated denunciation of relationships or support for Neil Gaiman from his publishing professional relationships.
- [12:15]
Jeff O'Neill
I would think they're going to come at some point. Yeah, I could see that. You should have something I can't imagine. Well, I can imagine a lot of things actually, now that I say that you shouldn't be blindsided by this kind of investigation. If someone says there's a rock, I think you should assume there's worms under it. And maybe there are worms that are actually scorpions, which sounds like this what it turned into. I'll say I have a little bit of grace for these folks in the publishing industry or Dark Horse, whoever, because they're not his family, they're business partners. Right. And this behavior is something. He didn't do this to them, but he has done something to them. Right. And I'm not going to call it victim. It's not. They're not. Well, maybe they are. I mean, I think there's a way of understanding these people that are in their powerful. You're in business with that they hitched your wagon to and they've turned out to do have done some really bad stuff that you yourself would never do and you hate. But you've got contracts, you've got legal and you've got royalty statements and Gaiman's got lawyers and you got to be very careful because people get countersued. And we just see this with this ends with us crap that's going on right now. I'm going to give a little more. I'm okay giving a little more grace to business partners and people that are tangled up with someone like this because it's a goddamn mess now. I don't know how much time there is a time where it's too late or whatever, but I'm sure there are people grieving there to some degree that I work with on these titles that care about these projects, that maybe care about him. I don't know. It's nasty. It's a nasty business. And he deserves not to have anyone pay him no mind except for civil courts or criminal courts or whatever. But I do think they're not just corporations, Right. These are actually people in these companies and I don't know who knows what their relationships are. So I've got a little more space for it, but not much, not much.
- [14:11]
Rebecca Schinsky
I think if this had dropped by surprise, it had. If it had been like the morning we all woke up in the New York Times, had the huge piece about Harvey Weinstein and everything changed. I think I would have more space for it, but the like, there was six months of warning that there was a rock and there were probably worms under it and what are you doing? Like there's a real business incentive to separate yourself and distance from, like, distance your business from a relationship to someone that has these stories out. I really want to believe they have reasons. I am just also having a hard time doing that. And I do know, like, I heard from some bookseller friends who said, you know, we didn't know what to do with it this summer because the allegations that came out through the Tortoise podcast, at least they were reported, were relatively vague. Like, we knew something was there and they were waiting for what is going to be in a big investigative piece. And now that it landed and the details are what they are, it was like, that was the thing that these folks needed as the. The push to like, okay, now we have confirmation of exactly how bad it is, the game and books are coming off of their shelves. I got a bunch of messages from readers when I posted about this on Instagram who were like, well, this is what takes him off of my personal bookshelves that, like, knowing how deeply it has been investigated and now reported and what the details of it are. So maybe folks at HarperCollins or wherever are like, revising whatever statements they had considered based on how bad this is. I hope that that is the case. It's just disturbing to be almost a full Business Week into this and have not really had acknowledgement of it. Like, I think I would appreciate, as both a consumer and a member of the industry, if somebody from one of the publishers comes and just says, rather than no comment or just, we don't have any books coming from him, like, this is deeply concerning to us and we will say more soon. Like, just tell me.
- [15:59]
Jeff O'Neill
I think that's. I think that's the piece that I don't quite understand is you can do a. I know, you know, we know, you know, we know one of those kind of situations. Like, I don't think that would be impossible at this point.
- [16:12]
Rebecca Schinsky
And it was like, I mean, like, the books page of it, People magazine's website had this. Entertainment Weekly had this before Shelf Awareness. Put a summary of it up. Like, I just don't know what we're doing here. If this is not the big story, like, top story of the week, and it's probably several weeks, especially as our jobs, I think it's going to be.
- [16:34]
Jeff O'Neill
The story of the year.
- [16:35]
Rebecca Schinsky
I do, too.
- [16:36]
Jeff O'Neill
Neil Gaiman, who was. And I'm using the past tense even without realizing it, actually, which is telling who was in line to be up there with the Stephen Kings of the world, right?
- [16:51]
Kelly Jensen
Certainly.
- [16:51]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. I think already was up there.
- [16:54]
Jeff O'Neill
And frankly, if he cared more about writing, he's doing a bunch of TV and film and comic book stuff, which is anyone who wants to do that. I don't care. King just writes books and lets other people handle the rest of the stuff. And frankly, he is not shy about saying when something doesn't work for him. Gaiman, if he had been interested in publishing a book every year and had 40 of them, would be up there would be the spec fic. It's hard to say because King is. It's not high fantasy, whatever you want to say. The world Gaiman worked in, he was going to be up there. And I was comparing people to who's going to be the next Gaiman, like the V. E Schwab's of the world and people like that, or there at Morgensterns or Susanna Clarks or, you know, who's going to inherit that mantle of a mainstream writer of speculative fantasy, otherworldly, super. Maybe supernatural fiction is the best way of putting it. And that this has come so late in the reckoning that began several years ago is important to understand at some level. I also think the other thing that people should keep in mind is the. We've had a lot of experience with different versions of this story and some people have. I don't know. Exonerated is not the right word, Rebecca. But I, I think the burner, the afterburners are off a little bit, especially when there is an. Allegations that were as vague as the ones that happened because some of them have turned out to be unsavory but not criminal. I don't think. And I think we're still, we've. We've talked about this for. How do we get. But this, this is, this is across a line. I think that everyone can kind of get behind or you can see, just looking at the Facebook comments alone on the, on the, the piece that we.
- [18:43]
Rebecca Schinsky
Pushed is like, it's so bad. I would summarize these behaviors that he's alleged to have done. I like, I couldn't bring myself to say them out loud to Bob.
- [18:50]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, I mean it's, it's so there's. I think this. Maybe there's a certain amount of denial happening, was happening around the vagueness of it. Again, even that vagueness stuff is not what you want to be. No one wants, no one wants to hear that talked about someone in their life or that they work with or that they care about or that they are. But this really seems to have crossed a chasm pretty quickly. And I don't know. I don't know how we're gonna get to a place where it cannot be 14 women that have to be, you know, kept in the dark from each other and then enablers and lawyers and hush money and all the payment stuff that goes on. Like, maybe the stories like this will help people earlier in their experience, find some help or talk to someone or let someone know or. I mean, they went to Amanda Palmer, so they tried to save someone to something. It doesn't sound like she did a wonderful job there. I, again, I didn't read the specifics of it.
- [19:52]
Rebecca Schinsky
She, like, she played a role in bringing them into his life as well. There's a great Ghislaine Maxwell analogy.
- [19:59]
Jeff O'Neill
Wonderful. That's that. Great. Perfect. Terrific. This is the worst.
- [20:03]
Rebecca Schinsky
It is.
- [20:04]
Jeff O'Neill
So anyway, that's where we are. And I don't know that I'm going to need to hear much more about this story, honestly.
- [20:13]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. I mean, I'll be very surprised if we don't see criminal proceedings somewhere. These allegations are in multiple countries.
- [20:21]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah.
- [20:22]
Rebecca Schinsky
And I do have some space for, as you were saying, like, individuals who had relationships with him. This is a lot to process. I can't imagine waking up one morning and reading this story about someone I had worked with.
- [20:32]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah.
- [20:32]
Rebecca Schinsky
And as is noted in I can't remember if it's the Lila Shapiro piece or the New York Times piece, like, Gaiman and Amanda Palmer's wedding was at the home of Michael Shaban and Ayelet Waldman, the writers. And so those couples have been friends. And Waldman and Shabin, when asked for comment, did say variations of like, I need time to process this. Like, we are trying to take all of this in and make sense of it. And I think that's fair. That's what I wanted for from publishing as well. Like, tell us that you see this acknowledge to readers who are, you know, concerned to upset, to heartbroken to discover this about a person whose work may have been important to them, that, that you see this and you are doing something about it. And then we will, of course, let you go do the things that you need to do before you can make an official statement. But just the, like, the, the level of hesitation around it has seemed concerning. And I thought it was notable that, like, in the New York Times piece, the very next day they're like, publishing seems subdued about this, and that's not something that I ever want to take without looking at it critically.
- [21:37]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, I think part of that, I mean, Waldman and Chabon's response might be one from the publishing and books industry a lot because he was very much a. Like, he would dress up and do Christmas carol readings and, like, lines around the block, like, it's hard to overestimate the kind of figurehead element he had in the world of like, storytelling writ large.
- [22:00]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, you mentioned the Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively stuff a few minutes ago. There are some comparisons to be made there because Baldoni, like Gaiman, had also built a portion of his career and public reputation around being an outspoken feminist, being an ally for women. And so there's a lot of sort of like extra layers of betrayal that many folks in the industry are feeling from someone that they thought was an advocate for them.
- [22:28]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, me thinks the slime ball doth too much protest.
- [22:31]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. To paraphrase Shakespeare, in my experience, the men who are going to ride for you don't have to put on T shirts and tell you that they're going to ride for you. They just saddle up.
- [22:42]
Jeff O'Neill
All right, let's move on here. No segue helps. There's nothing to be done. Even in my extensive experience of segueing Simon Schuster audio first imprints. Let's talk about this idea first. Right. Enough books come out. Remember there was a time where it was cool for a book to get an audiobook version or like unusual, exciting. I don't really understand the economics of audio first.
- [23:08]
Rebecca Schinsky
Well, I think in this piece that we're looking at, which is Simon and Schuster is doing an audio first imprint called Maverick that's going to be helmed by Jason Pinter, who has one of the more interesting careers in publishing.
- [23:20]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, he does. He really does.
- [23:21]
Rebecca Schinsky
He's done a whole. We should get him at some point. He's done a bunch of interesting things. They are looking, I think first at books that have been published in print and digitally by self published authors and have been some level of successful. And then they will publish Simon, Maverick will publish the audio version. And it seems to me then that the authors retain the print and digital versions. But in terms of like just trying to launch a book as audio first that doesn't already have some sort of print or digital edition already available, that would be, I think, a relatively new and uncommon thing and also might be kind of an interesting way to do it because audiobooks are so ascendant right now.
- [24:02]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. And there are some publishers that do audio only as part of what they do. I guess. What I never. It didn't really occur to me now to wonder about how do you know you have a book that's a good fit for audio, but you're kind of yada yada ing the printer ebook version of it? And there must be some, right, that there are certain genres or Marketing channels or these seem to be pretty genre y the voice of the book. Yeah, these seem to be genre on the whole, it seems to me just kind of looking at it 50, 50 split between things that appeared in print in some form or text in some form. I should say that they're going to pick up and do the audio production and distribution and then half of, you know, originals. Audible has their own original line for that matter. But Audible is. They don't care about print because they don't sell print. Even though I don't know that. That whole thing is a mess to me. But Simon, you know, they're a print distributor. So that Simon's doing it, Pinter's doing it is interesting. But the meta point too is this is under the KKR umbrella. Remember I'm sort of keeping our eye on what is Simon going to do as their private equity.
- [25:07]
Rebecca Schinsky
Right.
- [25:08]
Jeff O'Neill
Seems like a fairly normalish slash innovative idea. I don't know how many audio only imprints on though. Yeah, we should get. I'd be curious to hear about what makes for a candidate for an audio first slash audio only enterprise. I kind of feel like I can see the shape of it, but I can't articulate it.
- [25:28]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, it made me think about how the Martian was originally self published and Andy Weir had done the audiobook for it himself. And the voice of that book is so perfect for an audio performance. Both like the language but also just the characters vibe. I can see reaching for things like that. I think genre does lend itself particularly well and memoir perhaps, but it looks like. And Pinter has a pretty storied career in genre, so.
- [25:55]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, he's a genre guy. That's a good point. Yeah.
- [25:57]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, makes sense for him to be looking at this. But also in terms of like Spotify is regularly serving audiobook recommendations. You know, just when you open up your Spotify homepage, you don't have to go looking for audiobooks, they're just right there. Folks who have Audible or who use Amazon are seeing audiobook recommendations frequently. So maybe they're just trying. Like what happens if we just put a book in the world in audio and see if we can get some uptake and reader interest on it. Because you could go then from like this is doing well enough in audio that we think we can justify the expense of a print edition or an ebook or both.
- [26:30]
Jeff O'Neill
Is the lift of the ebook that much though? You've got the COVID already, you've got the language, the print I get like.
- [26:36]
Rebecca Schinsky
That'S a whole thing manufacturing. Yeah, most of these, of the ones that have been published in some capacity that Maverick is going to pick up for audio are available as Kindle ebooks, but not necessarily in print. And so maybe that is something that I could see publishing doing more of. Like this is available digitally only as either an ebook or an audiobook. And that there is not a print edition unless we really see a lot of demand, especially for the genre stuff that maybe comes in and out of vogue faster.
- [27:07]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, we're beginning our triage of the year in books as it comes to sales in 2024. This pieces and publishers weekly again, the top 10 best selling books of the year. Plus kind of an overarching, you know, what was the story? The small increase in sales, the top 10. We should do this as a regular episode or a Patreon or whatever. We should look at the top 10 bestsellers of every year that we'd be doing the Pod and Reverse Power. Rank them. Because if this isn't the least Jeff Friendly list of books that have been in the top 10, I don't know how I would swap it out. Have I read any of these? Yeah, I read two of them.
- [27:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
Atomic Habits.
- [27:46]
Jeff O'Neill
And let me just say that one of them we cared so much for, we put it behind a paywall because we didn't want to put on blast the book.
- [27:53]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, I've read Atomic Habits. It ends with us and Fourth Wing here, notably for listeners, the Women by Kristin Hannah sold almost twice as many copies as Iron Flame and Fourth Wing combined.
- [28:07]
Jeff O'Neill
Here's the thing I don't really know about. This is special editions, deluxe editions, paperback.
- [28:13]
Rebecca Schinsky
Are we combining all the ISBNs?
- [28:15]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, there's only one ISBN for the women. I am. I'm guessing this is by ISBN.
- [28:20]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, are all the ISBNs for fourth wing combined?
- [28:23]
Jeff O'Neill
I don't think that's how this works. I generally don't think how this house works. But you're right. I mean, even if it isn't. Well, let's see. Iron Flame. I'm trying to remember what came out when they were both backlist last year. Right. Or they were 2023 releases because they came out, you know, in six months apart.
- [28:40]
Rebecca Schinsky
Flame was last year?
- [28:43]
Jeff O'Neill
No, I think it was 2023. It was November 2023. I think I'm looking at the right thing in my notes now.
- [28:48]
Rebecca Schinsky
Okay.
- [28:48]
Jeff O'Neill
Anyway, having said that, it doesn't detract from the fact that the Women was an awesome hit. And I haven't read this. I probably, if I had, I probably this would be my favorite book on here. The McFadden phenomenon. The housemaid is going to be made into a movie.
- [29:00]
Rebecca Schinsky
I think it's a Florence, coming out in December. Who's that?
- [29:03]
Jeff O'Neill
Who's gonna be in it? Florence Pugh.
- [29:04]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh, I don't think that's Florence.
- [29:07]
Jeff O'Neill
Anyway, for some reason I had Florence. It doesn't matter. Atomic Habits Backlist. We got a couple of Hoovers, got two Sarah J. Mosses. Romantasy is not my bag. Hoover's not my bag. And then the women. I've read some Kristen, I like it fine. A lot of people love the women. As I said before, 9% increase in the sales of romance book last year, graphic novel were up. Sorry. Down 12%. And that's something I feel myself in looking around at graphic novels, to be honest with you, I could. There's just not as many that are. Charles Burns has a big one out this year, but they still come up as much, to be honest. In terms of category, young adult fiction was down 5%.
- [29:47]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah.
- [29:48]
Jeff O'Neill
I wonder if a lot of those young adult fiction are reading up into some of these Romantasy titles.
- [29:52]
Rebecca Schinsky
Maybe they are. And in terms of like comics dipping, I wonder if the big boom we had in comics and graphic novels, you know, five, 10 years ago, was also in like the peak Marvel, like comics were the thing that we were all doing. And not all comic books are superhero comics by any stretch, but it was like in the cultural zeitgeist to be more involved in a comic, like for casual readers to have comics be part of their reading diet. Gonna be really interesting to see what happens to this list if the TikTok ban does actually go through. Because TikTok has said that they are not gonna be following the rules of the ban, which would just be no updates to the app and that the app can't be available any longer in, you know, iPhone and Android downloads, but that they would shut the app down completely. And so if TikTok just completely goes away, like, that's goodbye to Barnes and noble, hot on TikTok tables. How are we selling books to the kids? Where are the girlies going to go?
- [30:47]
Jeff O'Neill
I was thinking about this today, actually. I was talking about with. With our co worker Clint and I was like, one of two things are true and again, I don't know what's actually gonna happen. Maybe I'm trying not to pay attention to too much politics that doesn't affect me or it can affect me in.
- [30:59]
Rebecca Schinsky
My local terms, but anyway, that sounds healthy, Jim.
- [31:02]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, it's. It's a struggle. But let's say thought experiment, that book, Book Talk TikTok actually follows through on this. They pulled out. No one can use it, let's say for 30 days before they figure something out. I. I find it very difficult to believe that the end game here is TikTok will not be available in the United States. Whatever.
- [31:20]
Rebecca Schinsky
Me too. But.
- [31:21]
Jeff O'Neill
But who knows. But let's just say there's a 30 day. There is no TikTok. Right. One of two things is true. Either TikTok is super important for books or especially a specific kind of book, or it isn't. And we're going to find out if that happens. Because if it is super important, then you would expect these kinds of titles not to sell as well for 30 days. And maybe there's some lag and you know, people pick it up and they have memories. But people's habits change quickly. Especially young people's habits change quickly. And maybe they're all on Red Note or whatever else it's going to be. I don't know, maybe they go to Instagram reels and just sucks up the air or it's not that important. Then things will kind of trundle on like they were they they would before. I will find both results interesting.
- [32:01]
Rebecca Schinsky
Me too. I'm just curious about what's going to happen there.
- [32:03]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. Let's do Frontless Foyer before we wrap up the show today, Rebecca, what have you been reading in this segment that's brought to us by? Thriftbooks is a place where you can get an endless selection. You can't. You yourself can't take an endless selection because you don't have an infinite space. But your selections know no bounds because books, video, music, gifts, games at the best prices to fill your library. And that library then fills your imagination. Childhood classics, undiscovered titles, adventure everyone and every budget. I just bought some stuff from Thriftbooks yesterday. I got four titles I was looking for. $34 with free shipping is what it came out to be. It read more, spend less. Also with Thriftbooks, reading rewards every purchase gets you closer to a free book. New used DVDs and Blu Ray too. Free shipping on orders, over 15 bucks. Thanks to Thriftbooks for sponsoring this chance for me to ask Rebecca what she's been reading.
- [33:02]
Rebecca Schinsky
I read my first greedy Hendrix. I read and you hated it. Wayward Girls. I loved it.
- [33:07]
Jeff O'Neill
Oh, you loved it.
- [33:08]
Rebecca Schinsky
Okay, I've been Hendrix pilled. I get it. Like I was really curious about how, like how the way that I had heard Grady Hendrix described was actually going to land. Like, it's horror, but it's kind of zany. And it's funny, but it's horror. Like, what does that feel like to read? Turns out it's a great time. So Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is set in the late mid-70s. It's before Roe versus Wade, and it is about a bunch of teenage women and young women, young adults who are sent to a home for unwed mothers late in their pregnancies in Florida by families who are trying to, you know, hide them away because they're ashamed, because this is what we did to women who got pregnant out of wedlock. And the people who run this place are terrible. They are terrible. The girls are justifiably hate them and want to fight back. They feel very powerless about what's being done to them. The bookmobile comes to the home for unwed mothers one day, and a kindly librarian slips the main character a book about witchcraft. And the girls start to do some of the practices, the spells that are in the book, which the book's contents seem to modify themselves and expand and, ooh, book.
- [34:20]
Jeff O'Neill
Tardis. Nice.
- [34:22]
Rebecca Schinsky
And they are able to. To start to take some revenge on the people who, who run the place. But if you're familiar with witchcraft kinds of stories, anytime a witch does you a favor, you're going to owe the witch something.
- [34:35]
Jeff O'Neill
That's right.
- [34:37]
Rebecca Schinsky
And the librarian witch comes a call in, and that is really when things take a turn into the. The horror realm. For being about 500 pages long, this one really moved. I read it over just the course of, like, two days. Super, super fun. I will give some trigger warnings, like if you have any squeamishness or any stuff around, like traumatic birth scenes, this one's probably not for you, but it was a really good time. And also out this week, deeply in the shinsky wheelhouse, I'm reading a Learning From Silence by Pico Iyer, which is kind of. It's a memoir, but in, like, little snippets, not in a linear narrative based on the silent retreats that he's been going on at a Benedictine monastery in Big Sur for the last 30 years. The first time he went there was right after his family lost everything in a fire in California. So the book is coming out at a complicated time.
- [35:37]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, no kidding.
- [35:38]
Rebecca Schinsky
He writes some about that, about, like, you know, realizing that his mother had lost everything in her home, that the home was gone, that he was sleeping on a friend's floor when the friend was like, you should go stay at this place. And that this, like going and staying in this very silent, beautiful place unlocked something for him. So even when he is living in Japan, where his partner and his kids are, he comes back to the US like, he splits his time between Japan and California, but he comes back to this monastery a few times a year, every year for somewhere between a week and a month or two, and spends a lot of time in silence. And so like my meditation portions of my soul really love it. He's. He just writes beautifully about the things that we learn about ourselves and that we're able to see when we silence all of the other input. And that separating yourself from the world in that way is not about avoiding the world, but about accessing something so that you can go back into your life, back into your relationships, into service for others with a deeper understanding and a better way of seeing things. I'm about halfway through it. I really love it. It's going to be one of my favorites.
- [36:46]
Jeff O'Neill
I love. I love him. I'm going to listen to this at some point. I don't know.
- [36:49]
Rebecca Schinsky
That would be great on audio.
- [36:50]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. So I'm way behind on Frontless Way reporting, and I think I need to do some. I need to do something a little different here. So as usual, I went to a proximity reading at the end of December into early January. I'm going to read some things that I haven't talked about on the show. You tell me which two you want me to say something about. Okay. You ready?
- [37:06]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yes.
- [37:06]
Jeff O'Neill
The Serviceberry by Robin Wall kimmerer. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. Cabin by Patrick Nicholson. I Heard Her Call My Name by Lucy Sante. The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan. The Dictionary of Fine Distinctions, Language City by Ross Perlin and the Light Eaters by Zoe Schlange. Schlong, S, C, H, L, A, N, G. Schlonge, I believe is how you would say that. Rebecca, which are you most interested in hearing about?
- [37:28]
Rebecca Schinsky
I need you to start with the Dictionary of Finding Distinctions.
- [37:31]
Jeff O'Neill
Terrific. A Give me some distinctions. Now it's off the top of my head. So this book is most. Was most fun to me. I did flip through it on my own. It's very. It's not text. Like each page has a couple of words in X versus Y. Do you know the difference with this versus this? We started using around my house as a game where someone would open up to a page and do you know the difference between hay and straw? Do you know the difference between a veranda and a porch? Very interesting. How About a trattoria and an osteria, that kind of stuff. And I'm not going to spoil it. No spoilers here.
- [38:07]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. You texted me about flotsam and jetsam.
- [38:09]
Jeff O'Neill
Flotsam and jetsam. I didn't know Rebecca.
- [38:11]
Rebecca Schinsky
I thought they went together.
- [38:12]
Jeff O'Neill
They do. Well, they can. One of them are things that goes out from. And one that comes into. It's like, very interesting. Yeah, interesting. Okay, so for you, I think it would be. It's a fun read. I'm actually going to give it to a friend of mine for his birthday. He doesn't know this yet because he likes this kind of stuff, like I do, but I think there's a version of this that's a game, you know, that's cards and like, you know, do you get the point? Or you can just play the. The thing like it's more fun with other people.
- [38:39]
Rebecca Schinsky
Sure.
- [38:39]
Jeff O'Neill
What's the difference between, oh, a javelin and a spear, the mace and a flail. Like, my son who's in the military history was all over these. It was. It's super fun. It's a great gift book, but it would be really fun as a game. So if you're going away for the weekend with your family or you're going to visit family and you might be looking for something to do, it's pretty cool. So that's one. What else do you want to hear me talk about?
- [39:03]
Rebecca Schinsky
Super fun and, you know, like, I guess smartphones are what did away with bathroom books. Remember how bathroom books were a thing?
- [39:10]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, that's right.
- [39:11]
Rebecca Schinsky
It seems like this would have been a good. That's a fun. Like put a copy in your guest bath or something. I'd like to hear about small things like these because I've been looking at it and thinking about seeing the film.
- [39:20]
Jeff O'Neill
So it's a novella by Claire Keegan. It's set in Ireland, I think, in the 80s. It didn't feel super contemporary, but also didn't feel like it was 1911 or something like that. It's a working man and his family around Christmas time. It's A Christmas Story. I read around Christmas and the main character is out doing his rounds, right. I think supplies coal, like firewood or just kind of just fuel for people to heat their homes. And one of the stops on his route is a convent. And in the course of servicing the convent, he. I don't want to spoil it. Sees something that gives him pause and he has a decision to make about if he's going to do something about it. And that's all I want to say. It's beautiful. It's heartbreaking. I'm going to get choked up thinking about right now. Every sentence is gem. It's polished and pruned to an exquisite detail to the point where the language kind of falls away. There's a kind of. There's the kind of writing where it's.
- [40:19]
Rebecca Schinsky
Mm.
- [40:20]
Jeff O'Neill
You're noticing the sentence, like, wow, look at that. And then there's the kind of writing where your eyes glow and you just.
- [40:26]
Rebecca Schinsky
In it.
- [40:27]
Jeff O'Neill
You just kind of fall into the snow globe and you don't even. You don't even remember that it's a snow globe. And that's what really happens there. It was terrific.
- [40:34]
Rebecca Schinsky
It was really so glad to hear it. I feel like I chose well, you know?
- [40:38]
Jeff O'Neill
And now that I say this, I wonder if it's gonna happen. I cannot let it go. I have to say I heard her call. I heard her call. My nine by Lucy. I didn't go back and look, but I think it would have been one of my 10 favorite books, my 10 best books. I read last year, Lucy Sante. It's her memoir of transitioning late in life. I think we had a holiday recommendation request for transitioning. And I'm so mad I didn't. Hadn't read this yet, because it would have. I would have jumped up and down about it. She transitions as an older person, and it's told. She tells it in two kind of timelines of her life. One as a younger person, like a memoir of pre Lucy and the memoir of transition. And they go together brilliantly. A memoir. This person has led a life that was interesting without the transition piece. As a writer, as a New Yorker, as someone who was hanging around in interesting places in the 80s in the village, and having just a wonderful, wonderful and interesting and painful life, but as a reading experience, quite wonderful. And then this added layer, this later stage of, I think they. The egg, the. The hatching, I think is the. The metaphor that she uses. I. I was completely compelled by it. I listened to it on audio. A real writer's writer kind of effort with a real human story. Yeah, I just, you know, we need. We're gonna. We need a bunch of these. We're gonna get a bunch of these. But this one's going to be damn hard to beat, I have to say, as a story of transition.
- [42:14]
Rebecca Schinsky
And it is included in Spotify Premium. I just. So I will be. You sold me. I'll be listening to it.
- [42:19]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, I just. I listened to it and I just flew through it. I was one of those. I was finding times like I'm going.
- [42:24]
Rebecca Schinsky
To press play Scrub the Bathtub now, right?
- [42:26]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, I didn't know I could do. I could. I didn't know I could do this while listening to an audiobook and here I am anyway. So yeah, those are great, but a real fun reading time. Maybe I'll come back to other ones and certainly will be fodder for future recommendation requests. All right, with that, let's go to Kelly and Kathleen bookriot.com listenforshow notes podcastookriot.com and then the Patreon patreon.com BRpodcast Kelly and Kathleen are up next.
- [42:55]
Kelly Jensen
Hi everybody, this is Kelly Jensen and I am excited to have a slot in this week's Book Riot podcast to have some real talk with an intelligent and level headed literary world voice about what the impact of the proposed tariffs under the new administration will have for books and readers. You may or may not remember that back in 2018 the literary world was dealing with a particularly unique challenge. The price of paper was contributing to some issues with printing books and thus there is a potential for book prices to rise. I did some back of the Envelope Math in September 2023 to see if the paper crisis and the challenges of printing seen through Covid had indeed shown any impact on the cost of a book. And it did. It was not huge and most folks probably never even noticed, but the average price of books across every sector from children's to YA to adults, saw just a small increase overall. But now, knowing what we do about how books are printed, especially books with color pages and of unique sizes like cookbooks, most are done overseas. Where and how will you know where and how impending tariffs will hurt not just those books but readers who want to seek them out? I have a lot of questions about it and wanted to know and think about the impact of these tariffs on books and readers here in the United States. So I'm really, really excited to be joined by Kathleen Schmidt today. Kathleen is the founder and CEO of KMS Public Relations and has over a quarter of a century of knowledge working in the book. Her work, which you can read at her substack Publishing Confidential that will be linked in the show Notes, has been a really level headed and phenomenally insightful look at the reality of today's publishing world. The good, the bad and everything in between. So thank you so much Kathleen for joining me. And I was just I will say this ahead of us even talking and my first question is that both of us are on the men from being sick. So our voices are going to be really fun to listen to right now.
- [45:02]
Kathleen Schmidt
Thank you.
- [45:04]
Kelly Jensen
Kathleen, I would love if you would start by introducing yourself and sharing anything about you and your background that you think listeners should know.
- [45:13]
Kathleen Schmidt
Sure. I've been in the publishing industry for about 30 years, which I can hardly believe. I've held positions mostly in publicity and marketing, but I've also been a literary agent, an associate publisher, an acquiring editor and I ghostwrote a book called the Little Book of Goat Yoga, which is not a well known fact, but there you go.
- [45:41]
Kelly Jensen
I did not know that.
- [45:43]
Kathleen Schmidt
I did. And having all those positions has put me kind of in a unique spot in the publishing ecosystem because there really isn't anything I haven't done or haven't seen. So that's why I started my substack. I can talk about the industry writ large because I've seen so much of it and experience, like the nuts and bolts of it in a way that a lot of other people have not.
- [46:11]
Kelly Jensen
Right. And you bring like experience from so many different angles of it and you're able to talk about it in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming for people who are not familiar with like how publishing operates. But it's also really insightful for those who do kind of have an idea how publishing works and offers this perspective that is, like I mentioned before, level headed and not like quick to jump on worries and fears about what could happen.
- [46:41]
Kathleen Schmidt
Yeah, I've seen way too much to absolutely panic about anything right now.
- [46:46]
Kelly Jensen
I mean, the publishing world wouldn't still exist, right? Like if, if, if all of these fears and worries and like dooms actually happened.
- [46:56]
Kathleen Schmidt
No, it would be, you know, a constant, you know, a constant drill going off where everybody had to leave their desk and run to another department. So no.
- [47:11]
Kelly Jensen
So let's first talk a bit about where and how publishers produce printed books. My understanding from the research and interviews I did in 2018 about this is that there is an industry wide challenge in accessing paper thanks to the consolidation of a lot of printers nationally and more globally. I would love if you would talk about that a little bit.
- [47:33]
Kathleen Schmidt
Yeah, I think, you know, the thing with printing is, you know, to get integrity of it. You know, most books or majority of books are printed domestically, meaning in the United States. You know what, what happens is, and I don't think a lot of people know this, is that, you know, publishers have certain printers that they, they favor and when there's a situation, I'm going to throw the volume one book in there. When you have a situation like the Obama book, where it's a thick book, you need a lot of paper to print it, you need a lot of time to print it. What, you know, what Penguin Random House was able to do probably is to go to their preferred printer and say, this is what we're printing. And that printer kind of moves every other job off the slate. So if you're another publisher that uses that printer, you may find yourself in a position where your printing is being delayed because A, they're using all the paper for the Obama book, and B, you know, that is a huge money making job for that printer.
- [48:46]
Kelly Jensen
Right.
- [48:48]
Kathleen Schmidt
So, you know, when things are going as they should in a normal, you know, in a normal season where there's not an Obama book, usually right now there, there isn't so much a paper issue, I think that things have leveled out from the pandemic.
- [49:09]
Kelly Jensen
Sure.
- [49:10]
Kathleen Schmidt
And I don't think we're experiencing the delays that we did when the supply chain was getting back on track.
- [49:19]
Kelly Jensen
That makes sense.
- [49:21]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah.
- [49:21]
Kathleen Schmidt
But the other part of it is that some of the paper is imported from Canada. So when we talk about, you know, tariffs and, you know, usually people go right to printing in China and how much it's going to cost to ship those books over to the States, you also have to think about where you're getting, you know, paper from. So paper is not just created in the United States, it's also imported from Canada. So if we're talking about a 25% tariff, which is what I believe Trump is talking about for Canada, you're talking about a substantial raise in the price of paper, which could be very problematic for publishing.
- [50:05]
Kelly Jensen
And I mean, that 25%, I would assume, would have to be passed along to the consumer at some point.
- [50:14]
Kathleen Schmidt
It would have to be. I mean, you know, as you were saying before, you know, the price difference is not that, it's not that big from what, from before 2018 to now. And that's been a problem that publishers have struggled with for a while. Because if I look back 20 years ago and I look at how much certain books were at that time, say 2295. 2195. I remember when I was at Dutton, we did an experiment with a particular book and we did a summer special of 1999, which was unheard of for a hardcover.
- [50:56]
Kelly Jensen
Yeah.
- [50:57]
Kathleen Schmidt
The prices haven't gone up that much. They haven't increased that much. And that's problematic for the industry. But at the same time, the industry knows that it's competing for consumer dollars that they're, you know, that consumers are reluctant to necessarily spend on books.
- [51:20]
Kelly Jensen
Yeah, that's. That that makes sense. And really, just as I'd mentioned, like back of, you know, the envelope math, it was under a dollar, about a dollar in terms of like, increases, which is not that much. No, that kind of leads into my question. And you touched on some of this a bit. But what have you seen in terms of prices of books? Like, what has increased in cost? Maybe you can speak to whether that is a certain style of book or genre. What is increased? What do you think has stayed relatively stable? And do you think that a growth in accessing ebooks by the average consumer, which those are often at a lower price point than hardcover editions, has that changed the sort of print runs made of books and taken some of that pressure off paper costs?
- [52:12]
Kathleen Schmidt
Well, I think that. Not. I think I know that when the publishing industry knows that they can raise the price of a certain author's books. And I'm gonna, I'm going to bring up the Romantasy category because that's, you know, front and center right now. So if the publisher, you know, if Rebecca Yarrows, its publisher, is looking at how big her books are, big, meaning they're, they're long, they're like bricks.
- [52:46]
Kelly Jensen
Yeah.
- [52:46]
Kathleen Schmidt
They can get away with charging more for those books because she's got the audience that will definitely pay, you know, for them. And, you know, in, in economics, there's this thing, it's always, you know, the consumer, what the consumer is always willing to pay. It's, they call it wtp Willing to Pay. So if you're, you know, trying to price anything, you're, you're testing it out first. You're seeing if, you know, this specific book can hold a $35 price point. Now when you consider that, you have to think about, if it's a bestselling book like Rebecca Yarrows, it's going to be discounted by 20%, probably at BNN, it's going to be discounted on Amazon. I'm not sure what kind of discounts Target, you know, Target has. I think they also discount best sellers. But you have to counter in that the discount's going to happen. So you have to price it high enough that you're still recouping whatever costs, you know, were set out to make the book. Now, that's a, that's one situation when you're talking, when you're talking about a debut author who has a modest platform, maybe there was a little buzz surrounding the acquisition of the book, you really can't go that high with that price because you are testing it out in the market. And, you know, publishing doesn't do market research in that they don't do, like, screens like movie, where they do audience testing and things like that. So you're really. The test is putting it out on the bookshelf and seeing if people will buy it. And my argument has always been for some of those debut novels to come out as paperbacks at a lower price point so that consumers would be more likely to take a chance on it. And the thing about ebooks is that while they're. While they're priced lower, they're not priced that much lower. Like, they're not priced low enough where consumers aren't complaining about how expensive they are. Okay, so what. What you get usually in, in the ebook world is people who have Amazon prime and get in and Kindle Unlimited. Those are the people that benefit from, you know, some of what goes on with. With ebooks in the first place. Because now, you know, there are certain, like, romance authors that I read. Their entire collection is on Kindle Unlimited right now. So while I am paying, you know, in theory, to have that access, I'm not paying for the individual books. And that's where it works best. I don't think it. I don't think there's such dynamic pricing for your regular everyday ebook. Sometimes I even look at the prices. I look at that hardcover price versus the ebook price and decide to get the hardcover because I'm like, it's only $5 more expensive. So I don't think it's going to make that much of a difference.
- [56:00]
Kelly Jensen
This is kind of a curveball I'm throwing in, and only because you brought up some authors whose books have gotten the special edition treatment in the last couple of years. These gorgeous hardcover, gorgeous sprayed edges. Do you think that that has had an impact at all?
- [56:19]
Kathleen Schmidt
I do. I was just talking with someone yesterday. There's a book that just got published today. And it, I think, you know, this is like, I've heard of it four times in a week, which means I'm gonna buy it. It's called the Death of the Author. And I have heard that that book is very nicely designed. Like, it has the frayed edges, it has, you know, the, like embossing. It's really pretty. And, you know, to me that signals, you know, it's more literary. The publisher wants to make a splash with it. You know, people will pay more attention to it. The special editions, you know, that are produced, I think, are deluxe editions. I think you have to do those things because it's like a collector's item for some of the audience that reads those authors.
- [57:14]
Kelly Jensen
That makes. That makes perfect sense. Let's talk now about the tariff piece of this all. What is your understanding of how tariffs, if implemented by the new administration, would directly impact publishers? Like, where do you, you think that will hit them? And then in response, where and how do you think this would show up for the average consumer? I'm not talking about, like library markets, because I know that's a whole different conversation. But for the average person who wants to buy a book.
- [57:46]
Kathleen Schmidt
Well, if you're talking about. First, let's talk about what kind of books are most likely to get hit with tariffs. So we're talking about four color correct books, any illustrated books, board books for little kids, children's books that are illustrated, things like that. Those are generally printed in China because it's less. It's less expensive to do so. The ink is less expensive, the paper is less expensive, the printing costs are less expensive. When we talk about tariffs, we talk about taxing those items to a certain percent. And I think what was thrown around was 15%. So you're paying, you, the publisher are paying 15% more to import those books that you're having printed in China. And you were having them printed there in the first place because it was less expensive. Now it's more expensive. Not only that, but after, you know, during and after the pandemic, when the supply chain was getting back on track, the containers that books were shipped in were more expensive. Publishers absorbed the cost for that. You know, you absorb the cost for shipping, and shipping depends on how much fuel is costing. So if the fuel is being, you know, taxed higher, you're paying more for that. Everything down to like, getting the, getting the books off the ship onto a train to get to the east coast costs money. So if you're talking about a 15% tariff on those goods coming over from China, the publishing industry is going to have no choice but to raise prices on those books. And what started happening after the pandemic was that at least you know, where, where I was at the time, which was Skyhorse Publishing, which they have a whole cookbook division, is that they, they were becoming a lot more picky about which cookbooks they publish or which, which four color, you know, books that needed to be printed overseas, they take on because of the.
- [60:10]
Kelly Jensen
And that makes sense. Like, that was one of the questions that I was curious about is if we will see publishers responding with being pickier about books that they're publishing and maybe having smaller lists or, you know, making decisions about whether or not it makes sense to print something in four color or full color versus sticking to the black and white with which maybe they can then print domestically at a better rate.
- [60:40]
Kathleen Schmidt
Right. And I think, you know, during the pandemic, there, there were, there were some books that we printed domestically that were for color because we didn't have another choice and they were expensive. You know, the other thing you have to keep in mind is that, you know, any, any of those books that get printed, you want to print enough where you're not going to have to go back to press. So that's like a terrible guessing game for publishers to have to take on, because what would happen is, and again, I'm referencing post pandemic because that's really when the supply chain was absolutely bonkers. You had to decide what you're printing with going to be, because whatever got shipped from China, that was it, it would take months for you to get a reprint. So what publishers are going to run into with the tariffs are the same kind of problem because they don't want to pay the expense twice. So if they have a cookbook say, you know, that they're coming out with, they're going to have to estimate the best that they can what the first printing should be, because they know that a second printing is going to be very costly.
- [61:57]
Kelly Jensen
Do you think that there will be any, I guess a better way to phrase this is, do you think that there'll be an increase in maybe going ebook first or considering like digital first to gauge what sort of interest there might be in like print runs to cut down on unnecessary costs?
- [62:17]
Kathleen Schmidt
I think that that's interesting, an experiment that has sort of been done before and it didn't go so well. So I think, you know, for, for time, years ago, what they were trying to do, and this has been talked about on and off for, for years, is, especially with cookbooks, is making them sort of more interactive, like an interactive ebook. You know, you get the ebook, maybe there's a link to a cooking video in it or something like that. I've never caught on. People don't seem to like cookbooks as ebooks. So I don't think that that's really going to work. And as for kids books, I mean, I think what has happened, you know, with Barnes and Noble cutting way back on that category is not going to, is not going to change. That's going to stay as is, they're still going to be very particular about what, what books of those they take on, you know, and this isn't only a retail problem, it's a literacy problem, which is a whole other episode. But, you know, they, they, you know, they only take on a certain amount of risk with middle grade books and kids books, and that's not going to change. So publishers are really going to have to make Meet the Moment and figure out what kind of pricing will work for them, considering tariffs that will be imposed and then what kind of publishing programs they're going to run because of that.
- [63:52]
Kelly Jensen
So we're really at a space that it can be either an opportunity or a space where we just see less. And when I say opportunity, I mean, mean, like to get creative and to think kind of outside the box. But in an industry where like, the margins are so tiny, that itself, you know, presents a risk.
- [64:14]
Kathleen Schmidt
Yeah. I mean, what you'll see is a lot of what we have already seen, which is that, you know, celebrity cookbooks or cookbooks from people with these huge platforms, you know, are the ones that publishers are willing to acquire because they know they'll make money from them. And, you know, if you're a newbie coming in and you have like a very modest platform, I think you're going to run into problems getting published.
- [64:45]
Kelly Jensen
Yeah. Just because you don't have, like, you're not a guarantee.
- [64:50]
Kathleen Schmidt
You're not a guarantee. And you know, publishers are well aware of the fact that, that they're going to have to put out a lot of money to make that book work. And you know, and you also have to consider something in the publishing ecosystem like a Costco, which, you know, used to sell those, used to take a huge number of cookbooks and could make a publisher's fiscal quarter by doing so. They're not doing it anymore.
- [65:16]
Kelly Jensen
Right, right. So there's a lot of like, it's like an octopus. There's so many, like, tentacles going on that it's not as simple as, you know, the tariffs are the problem. Like, that's one part of many problems that are all coming together at the same time to create this like, moment of big question mark, I guess is the best way to describe it. Like, we don't know. We have no crystal ball. We can take some guesses, but it's hard to kind of see where publishing will be, you know, two years from now, I guess is the best way to kind of guess, like.
- [65:49]
Kathleen Schmidt
Yeah. And it'll also affect those author advances because. And then, you know, how you know, it's going to be a question of, you know, how quickly is the publisher going to recoup those costs. You don't know.
- [66:06]
Kelly Jensen
Right, right. What is, as we get to kind of, of wrapping up our conversation here, what is one thing that you would like the average book lover to consider when it comes to purchasing, sharing, borrowing, or I should say and slash or reading books in 2025?
- [66:27]
Kathleen Schmidt
I would just say that, you know, if, you know, if you notice that the price of books is increasing, it's not to punish the consumer, it's to keep the publishing ecosystem flowing and to also, you know, hopefully better pay the people who work on those books. So I would definitely keep that in mind as a consumer. You know, I, you know, I am a big advocate for better pay for publishing people, especially at a junior level. And that can't really happen unless, you know, especially if tariffs are coming, unless prices are increased on books. And I would just ask a consumer to think about all the people that it takes to get a book out into the marketplace.
- [67:20]
Kelly Jensen
Yeah, and that makes so much sense. Like, the average person doesn't like, tune into all this stuff in the same way that, like those of us who are steeped in, you know, know, the book world are. But it's so much like that $30 price point, let's say, like that is not just the cost of the physical book itself. It's the author's pay, it's the editor's pay, it's the publishers pay, it's the marketing and publicity pay. It is, you know, all of these pieces. And when you do the cost breakdown, you're like, nobody's making much money off $30 hardcover book. It's hard to wrap your mind around.
- [67:59]
Kathleen Schmidt
Yeah, I mean, it doesn't, you know, in, in all honesty, it, it doesn't cost a ton to create a book. Right. But it does, you know, the rest of what you're charging is to pay the author, pay the staff, you know, and, and all that that goes along with it. So you just have to keep that in mind when, when you're buying book. And also keep in mind that prices have not increased that much in a very, very long time.
- [68:29]
Kelly Jensen
And really, a dollar from, like I said when I did 2018-2023 is not that much money. That's not a huge increase. Especially when you think about the costs increases in so many other sectors of, like, the things we interact with and purchase every day.
- [68:45]
Kathleen Schmidt
100%. Yeah.
- [68:47]
Kelly Jensen
Is there anything else you would like to add about tariffs, about publishing? Anything coming up that you'd like to share with listeners.
- [68:56]
Kathleen Schmidt
I mean, what's been on my mind lately and I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to write about it is the impending TikTok ban. I, here's where my thinking is right now. I think it's going to get banned, but I think it's going to get unbanned, you know, not long after it's banned. So then the question is, you know, how do publishers approach that? How do authors approach that? And what if it's, you know, a prolonged process where, you know, TikTok agrees to be sold to a US entity without their algorithm, Then what happens? So that's very much top of mind for me right now.
- [69:38]
Kelly Jensen
Yeah, we're recording like the week that it's going to be banned. So it's, it's very topical.
- [69:44]
Kathleen Schmidt
It's, it's 100% going banned. There's no doubt in my mind. But I. Would I panic right this second? No, I would not. I, I think that we have to see how this plays out. And I also think that people have to remember that, you know, China does not want it sold with the algorithm because that's their secret sauce. You know, that's ByteDance's secret sauce. So if it is sold to a US entity without the algorithm, that changes everything on the platform. And I think it's a discussion, you know, I'm honestly surprised that book publishers haven't, you know, publicly lobbied for it not to get shut down. But I think it's, you know, it's worthy of a lot of discussion of where, where booktok goes next.
- [70:37]
Kelly Jensen
I, like I said at the top of the show when I was giving an introduction, I just really appreciate your very like, even handed approach to all these things. You know, it's, it's not panic, it's okay. We have to watch what's going on, we have to think about it, we have to look at all of the pieces and all of the elements that go into this before having a, like rush to the, is going to ruin everything or, you know, any other like doomsday scenario. So I hope that listeners who have tuned in found this enlightening and I, I hope also helpful and maybe alleviate some of the fears. Like we, we can prepare for and anticipate price increases but you know, do so knowing that it's not to like stiff the consumer, it's to, you know, keep the industry going, which is what we ultimately want.
- [71:26]
Kathleen Schmidt
Exactly.
- [71:28]
Kelly Jensen
Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me and I will link to your wonderful substack in the Show Notes and I'm also going to post in the Show Notes or pass along to post in the Show Notes an article that came out yesterday right before we hopped on to record in the Comics Journal about the impact of tariffs on comics publishing, which is something that, Kathleen, you touched a little bit on illustrated books being something that might be impacted and so listeners who want to learn more can check that out and learn more.
- [72:08]
Rebecca Schinsky
Thanks so much for listening this week. Now please enjoy this excerpt from the audiobook of people pleaser Breaking Free from the Burden of Imaginary Expectations, written and read by Ginger Duggar of wolo.
- [72:19]
Ginger Duggar Vuolo
Even though I knew my family was a little unusual and stood out in my Arkansas hometown, my parents made a point of us spending time with a lot of other big families. Families who also needed a 15 passenger van to get to the grocery store. Families where the children were stacked into rows upon rows of bunk beds at night. Families who looked and talked and dressed and homeschooled a lot like mine. Granted, we put a lot of effort and time into being with these other families, attending conferences and events, but they were what I saw as the norm. Families who were living life like my family was the same. It wasn't until I was 10 years old that my family's super size would become something of a national phenomenon. That was the year a cable network, tlc, featured a documentary on our family, back when There were just 14 kids. While I didn't know any life different from the one I had, people outside of our big family, community and lifestyle were fascinated by the number of kids and how life worked for a bigger than average household. It's a paradox I still find myself sorting out today, that while I thought my life was utterly normal, even with all the siblings around me and television cameras always in my face, there was an audience who saw my life as anything but normal. For the next 17 years, my family, my upbringing, my life would be featured on television through specials, two different series, interviews, and all kinds of other broadcasts. There's a saying that fish can't see water, meaning that when you're in the middle of something, when it's your whole world, when it's what you breathe and swim in, you can't see things for what they really are. I'd say in many ways, that saying captures what much of my life was like. I didn't know what I didn't know. In one of my previous books, Becoming Free, indeed, I laid out the experience of growing up in not just a big family, but in a religious system known as the Institute and Basic Life Principles iblp. It was controlling, male centered and legalistic under the ironclad grip of a leader named Bill Gothard. It was important to me in that book to point out specific theological errors of that system to help equip others to understand and find freedom from cult like organizations that undermine the power and beauty of how Jesus teaches us to live. Whether you've already read that book or were meeting here for the first time, I wanted you to have this background as context. That religious system and its requirements were at the core of how I saw myself and how I judged myself. The echo of that system's demands would ricochet off of the fragile edges of my soul for years, inflicting damage that at some level I could feel but couldn't see until I experienced the healing medicine of Gospel grace. Where did that change begin? Enter Jeremy Volo I told a friend recently that of all the big personalities in my life, my husband Jeremy is the biggest and my favorite. He has a way of drawing a crowd with his wit and humor. He's the life of the party, the guide on our adventures, the person who knows how to have fun. He's joy personified. He grew up on the other side of the country from me. He traveled the world as a professional soccer player and he is regularly the guy behind the mic talking about his faith. We met when he came to visit my sister Jessa and her husband Ben at a Gothard conference. Jeremy wasn't part of the Gothard group and it showed. It was obvious that he loved God, that he cared deeply about people, and that he wasn't afraid to laugh, to have a different opinion and to ask hard questions. It was like all the windows were thrown open when Jeremy entered the room, airing out the stuffiness and letting the fresh breeze in. It was also kind of terrifying. He was so handsome and so fun and so alive. Because I was so steeped in the IBLP way of looking at things, I thought it was a potential step into sin to even acknowledge that I was attracted to Jeremy, that I felt my heart tugged in his direction. I didn't say a word about him to my sister Jessa at that first meeting. Not a giggle, not a blush. But here's the thing about Jeremy. He's going to shoot his shot, whether on the soccer field, in the pulpit, or in any other area of his life. He did that for me because of the religious system I was a part of. He had to run an unfamiliar obstacle course of permissions conversations and even a 50 page questionnaire to begin the process of pursuing me. When we were both on a mission trip to Honduras in El Salvador just a few months after meeting, my nerves were all over the place. And once we fell in love, the vibrancy of Jeremy's outlook, faith and devotion began to crack open a wider world of mercy and grace to me. As our love story grew, I found myself seeing something unexpected, that there was light and lightness on the other side of the door of shame and condemnation. Jeremy didn't just show me that he lived it. We got married in 2016 and today we have two daughters, Felicity and Evangeline. We live in Los Angeles, California where we work, serve our church, spend sunny days outside with the kids, splurge on our favorite coffees and continue to build a story for our family with Jesus Christ as the cornerstone. And it's where my healing continues. If you've known nothing of my story before now, or if you watched every episode of my time on television, I want to make sure as we start this journey together that you have my perspective on my past and on my present. Not what a videographer or editor on television thought you should see. Not what a magazine says, not what a rumor claims or a paparazzi shot shows. I want you to hear it from me. From the downfall of Bill Gothard to the horrible revelations about one of my siblings, here's one of the most important things I've learned. I won't live a lie. I've seen what happens when we pretend to be one thing, when we perform and posture while our reality is something else. And I've seen what happens when you and I are honest about our challenges, our struggles, our fears and our mistakes. The light gets in. The grace shows up. Freedom is the experience of truth. Old friend, new friend. However, we found each other, here we are today. Thank you for being here. It's my prayer that in sharing another chapter of my story, you find help healing and freedom in your own.