Kentucky News Service Is Planning A Print Product (printweek.com, Ray Schultz)

This October, the adult and children’s/young adult segments had polar opposite results—sales of adult books rose 10.2% in the month over 2019, while sales in the children’s/YA category fell 10.2% for publishers that report results to AAP’s StatShot program. Gains in the adult segment were led by an 18.2% increase in sales of trade paperbacks, and both digital formats saw double digit increases as e-book sales rose 13% and downloadable audio sales increased 12% over 2019. Overall, in the first 10 months of 2020, adult trade book sales rose 9.1% over the comparable period in 2019 at publishers who reported sales to AAP.

There is an idea about magazine media that Madeleine Frank Reeves, senior editor at Country Living, would like to confront head on. As an editorial intern in New York, she was told over and over again that to work in magazines you have to pick up and move to New York and then look for a job. “That’s simply not true.” She also suggests that many of the more harsh critiques of the industry are unfair and not necessarily accurate. With all the depressing headlines lately, there are still positive stories to be told. Data suggests that 91% of adults have read magazine content in the past six months, and magazines still show the highest return on advertising spend (per the 2017 MPA Factbook). “Many more titles are launching than closing each year, and the industry is still growing, in part by finding new ways to create revenue so that we can continue to bring incredible content to readers,” Reeves says. “I know I’m biased, but magazines are important—there’s real value in being able to flip a page to a beautiful opening spread and get drawn into a story you would have never otherwise seen, especially in a time when what people read is so dictated by what their friends are posting on social media.” Click Read More below for more of the story.

The Federal Trade Commission, supported by 17 state attorneys general, finally filed its long-awaited antitrust lawsuit against Amazon yesterday. In a 172-page complaint, the government alleged that the e-tailer “uses a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies to illegally maintain its monopoly power.” The use of that power, the government continued, allows Amazon “to stop rivals and sellers from lowering prices, degrade quality for shoppers, overcharge sellers, stifle innovation, and prevent rivals from fairly competing against Amazon.” The immediate industry reaction to the news of the suit was uniform: “What took so long?” Or, in the words of Melville House publisher Dennis Johnson, that it was “about fucking time.” An industry lawyer, who wished to remain anonymous, gave a more nuanced view in wondering why it took the government so long to act, pointing to the infamous buy button case in 2010, when Amazon pulled Macmillan’s buy buttons in a dispute over e-book terms.