I am about a week late on reporting this story, but while I was catching up on news Sunday morning I noticed that a Publishers Weekly report on book sales...Continue reading
Category: DeBunking
The Authors Guild Rehashes Bogus Author Income Survey as a “New” Report
Earlier this week The Publishers Authors Guild released a report that “explores the factors leading to the decline in the writing profession. Alas, this report is based on the flawed...Continue reading
27% of Americans Have Not Read a Book in The Past Year (That Year Was 2018)
Earlier today a certain blog known for not crediting their sources reported that a quarter of Americans had not read a book in the past year. While that factoid was...Continue reading
The eBook Revolution Never Happened, and Other Comforting Myths
Have you read the ten-year retrospective on the ebook revolution that Vox published a few weeks back? Go read it, and then come back here so I can point out...Continue reading
Are You Ready For The Next eBook Boom?
The legacy book publishing industry is fond of telling itself comforting myths. For example, one myth that just crossed my desk was the idea that younger readers preferred print books...Continue reading
UK Audiobook Revenues to Eclipse eBook Revenues in 2020, and Other Impossibilities
Back in 2014 everyone was excitedly repeating the claim that Amazon made up half of the UK’s online retail. This idea lasted until about ten minutes after I fact checked...Continue reading
The Whole “Library eBooks Kill Retail eBook Sales” Idea Makes No Sense
I was working on a blog post this morning on Scholastic ebooks being in OverDrive when I got to thinking about the current uproar over library ebooks. It seems a...Continue reading
When Has Writing a Book Ever Not Been an Elitist Pursuit?
On Tuesday The Guardian engaged in the book world’s favorite pastime. No, not ebook-bashing. No, not baseless Amazon fear-mongering. (Let me try this again.) On Tuesday The Guardian engaged in...Continue reading
The “eBooks Are Dead” Nonsense Has Spread to Australia
If there’s one constant in the news industry it’s that there’s no end to bad coverage on any given topic, including ebooks. Sometimes the bad reporting is the result of...Continue reading
When the Publisher Drops the Ball, Or, YA Author Pulls Debut Novel Following Criticism of Its Depiction of Slavery
Q: When is an outrage not an outrage? A When the publisher screws up, and hands reviewers a book that wasn’t ready. The hot story this week in the publishing...Continue reading
The Authors Guild Claims Author Income is Down
Sorry to keep beating an old drum, but a new survey report on author incomes was released late last week, and it is just as useless as the previous ones....Continue reading
PSA: Good e-Reader Fact-Check
It has come to my attention that there is still some doubt as to whether a certain blog has a reputation for being less than reliable with its reporting of...Continue reading
Report Shows Retired UK Authors Are Earning Less Than the Minimum Wage
When I wrote about a recent survey of Canadian author income last week, I pointed out that this type of report is almost always flawed in that the survey group...Continue reading
Survey of Canadian Author Incomes Shows Retired Authors Aren’t Earning Much
One of the favorite pastimes of the publishing community is sharing author income survey reports, and wringing hands over the results. The reports are usually bullshit for various reasons (more on...Continue reading
Quartz Uses AI-Written Article to Show Problems With AI-Generated Fiction
There’s a lot of hype surrounding AI right now, and not much in the way of substance. In many cases a purported AI system is little more than a concatenation...Continue reading
