What The Heck Is Going On With Publishing?

Beth and Lisa discuss the 2026 publishing landscape. From the end of prestige imprints like Dial Books to the flood of AI content, they explore why the industry feels increasingly "disposable" and "noisy."

Key Discussion Points

• The Shift to Content Management: Private equity firms are replacing veteran editors with "content managers" to prioritize franchises over literary prestige.
• The AI Explosion: Of the 4 million books published in 2025, approximately 3.5 million were AI-generated, burying human authors in the Amazon ecosystem.
• The "Trope" Trap: Acquisitions often require specific TikTok hashtags—like "Enemies to Lovers"—to ensure easier, data-driven marketing.
• Indie Press Opportunities: Smaller houses are thriving by focusing on niche audiences, such as middle-aged readers, that the "Big Five" often overlook.
• No More Developmental Edits: Overworked editors no longer have time to "fix" books; manuscripts must be 100% publication-ready before querying.

Tips for Authors

• Build Early: Identify and connect with your audience directly rather than relying on a publishing house to do it for you.
• Polish Fully: Use your community or coaches to ensure your work is flawless before submission, as agents and editors are spread too thin to provide heavy revisions.

Next Guest: Author and 5th-grade teacher Colby Sharp joins the show on April 27th.

Connect with Us

• Submit your "First Pages" for an on-air critique!
• Follow Writers with Wrinkles on Threads (our new crystal ball) and TikTok.

Ready to turn your manuscript into a published book? Writers With Wrinkles Press handles editing, cover design, formatting, and distribution, and you keep 100% of your royalties. Visit WritersWithWrinklesPress.com and write CONFETTI on your submission to get $500 off your publishing package. Your book. Your moment. Let's make it a celebration.

Transcript

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Beth McMullen,: Hi friends. I'm Beth McMullen

Lisa: And I'm Lisa Schmid.

Beth McMullen,: and we're the co-hosts of Writers with Wrinkles. This is season five, episode eight. This is an Ask Beth and Lisa episode, and today we are asking what the heck is going on with the publishing industry.

Lisa: There's lots of questions swirling around in my brain and none of them are good.

Beth McMullen,: Well, I mean, it's been like a. A steady drip, drip, drip from like, say the second half of 2025 and into 2026. But you've been seeing lots of conversations on threads, which is like our new crystal ball.

Lisa: It is threads is really interesting. It's, it's a very, I I, it reminds me a lot of Twitter of olden days where it was just kind of fun and you're just, I see so much publishing news and writer news. It's just fun. It's, but like, not all the news that's coming out is fun.

Beth McMullen,: No.

Lisa: there's just this morning, was it this morning?

I don't know. All the days seem to, to like Mel together.

Beth McMullen,: to ask because I, I can't keep track of days anymore since my kids left the house and went onto their lives. I have no, no idea what day it is.

Lisa: Visions of you just wandering around your house, drinking cold coffee and smelling your cats.

Beth McMullen,: with my cup of coffee wandering from room to room going, what day is it? This is the problem of working at home for yourself. need a, I need like a boss. That's why I need you to boss me around because it's

Lisa: I.

Beth McMullen,: I'm, I am hopeless. I know. I know. I do a good job. Right? Do I get a good performance review?

Lisa: Some days you do, some days you don't.

Beth McMullen,: Oh my God. I'll

Lisa: You take way too much vacation time and that bugs me.

Beth McMullen,: lot of vacation time. I will

Lisa: You're always gone.

Beth McMullen,: am always,

Lisa: There is, we have a calendar for the two of us and it shows like Beth, there's like a big line of like weeks where Beth is gone and then like one day I'm gone and Beth's like, oh my God, where are you?

Beth McMullen,: I really am. You were gone yesterday. I'm like, what is happening? Where are you going? Why are you not, why are you not answering?

Lisa: I just texted you one picture. I was crossing over the Bay Bridge on my way to San Francisco yesterday,

Beth McMullen,: God,

Lisa: there was a cruise ship in the harbor, and I'm like, oh, look. Pretty. I mean, San Francisco is such a beautiful town

Beth McMullen,: is so

Lisa: It's just beautiful there. And the weather was gorgeous and I dressed for San Francisco weather.

I had like a long shirt on. I got outta the car and I was like, oh my God. It's like Sacramento. What's going on? 

Beth McMullen,: It's been

Lisa: I.

Beth McMullen,: crazy lately, like so, warm and sparkly and beautiful and it's the kind of weather that when you come and visit California, and I say this from experience, it's what happened to me. You come to San Francisco and you're like, I have to live here. I'm going to move, and you go back home.

In my case, I went back home to New York and I was like, well, I'm moving to San Francisco. Goodbye everybody. It's just like too nice.

Lisa: I have two funny stories in regards to this. So at one point, I'm a California girl from California, and at one point I moved to Seattle and I lived in Seattle for like four or five years. I don't, it was just one of those. , Whim things where it's like, oh, I think I'll move to Seattle. No reason just I'm going there.

And Seattle is always overcast. It doesn't mean it's always raining, it's just always overcast. And when the sun comes out, people freak out. They just like, they're down at the lake. They're just like, oh my God. It's like madness. They're like elves doing back flips everywhere. And so one day I flew back to Sacramento to visit friends, and it was in July, and I came through the phone bank and then I landed in Sacramento.

It was just, I had completely forgotten that it was summer, and I went home and packed up my little Suzuki Samurai.

Beth McMullen,: God, those

Lisa: And drove on $25. Like that was like, I think I have enough gas money to get home. And drove back to Sacramento. Never looked back. I was like, it is too rainy up there or too cloudy. I mean, it was just too, too much.

Like California is

Beth McMullen,: it. I mean, part of the

Lisa: no.

Beth McMullen,: I left New York is that I couldn't take, I couldn't take January, February, March, and half of April. I was so depressed. It was

Lisa: Yeah, it's a lot.

Beth McMullen,: Difficult. And then when I got to San Francisco, I was like, wow, it's February and I'm in a good mood. You know?

It was

Lisa: Yeah.

Beth McMullen,: foreign feeling to me.

Lisa: It's beautiful. So then the, on the flip side, I live in Folsom, which is I live in, it's like right by a, and I'm not kidding, a Rattlesnake migration trail like. I live, it's rattlesnake country. And so usually when it starts swarming up, when I'm out walking, I walk a bike path. It's, it's, black.

And so I can see, like if I see a stick in the distance, I'm like, oh my God, is it a rattlesnake? 'cause they're everywhere. And yesterday or day before yesterday, I sent you a picture and I posted on my Instagram account. I wasn't paying attention. It's too early for rattlesnakes

Beth McMullen,: is,

Lisa: and I. I know, but, so there's this one little curve where there's a bunch of rocks and my friend and I were joking the day before about like, oh my God, this is the rattlesnake area.

Like this is where they all live and, and hang out. And I was walking and I wasn't with her. She couldn't go on the walk with me. And I came around the corner, all do, do do not paying attention. And all of a sudden there's like a rattlesnake right in front of me and I'm just like, oh my God.

Almost feed my pants. I'm like, oh my God. And I jump back and then I'm like, I need to take a picture. So I'm like, bumbling

Beth McMullen,: Rattlesnake,

Lisa: my camera and it wouldn't let me open. It couldn't just the face recognition 'cause my sunglasses and I'm ripping 'em off and I know it's just looking at me like, WTF, like why are you what you.

Beth McMullen,: supposed to run away?

Lisa: I know. Well, then he turned around and was going back into the bushes as he should, because I'm a big, dumb human, like five or six feet away. But I got him before he disappeared, but he was a big one. He was big.

Beth McMullen,: one. That was like some Indiana Jones level snake business

Lisa: It is great, but they're everywhere. So yesterday he caught me off guard and I've let people know in the community the snakes are out 'cause it's my responsibility as the snake watcher to, and I always am. Tell like my son when he was little, I'm like, the minute it gets warm, you are not allowed anywhere where there's bushes or grass, just stay on the path.

Beth McMullen,: mean, they're so perfectly camouflaged. It's like really impossible to see them until you're right on top of them, which is like.

Lisa: Yeah.

Beth McMullen,: Kind of shocking. I don't have a problem with snakes. I just don't wanna get that close to them, especially

Lisa: Yeah.

Beth McMullen,: like that can actually bite you and cause all sorts of problems. So, yeah, I don't, I get it.

Lisa: They're the color of dirt. And if you don't, if you're not like paying attention, like the, I back in probably like 15 years ago, I used to do this one run that was a trail run. I don't like looking back and I hate snakes. I'm like, why did you do this? There's this like. Damn that they had a trail going over it.

And I used to run that all the time, and my record was nine rattlesnakes. Like you would be running and all of a sudden you'd see it and you'd be like, oh my God. And you'd jump over it. And now I look back and I'm like, what were you thinking? Because you know me, I'm the biggest sissy on the planet. Like I think if there's like a bear anywhere, I won't go on a hike.

Like I'm like out of there.

Beth McMullen,: that from experience. I do, I do. I did a

Lisa: So let's.

Beth McMullen,: once and I was with a friend of mine who's a veterinarian and. We are doing the, the race and all of a sudden up ahead of us, we hear like this screaming, like this group of people just screaming. And I of course am like, what is happening?

Is somebody getting attacked? Is there like, you know, and of course we get up there and there's a giant rattlesnake right in the middle of the path. And it was like a paved bike path. And so of course my, my veterinarian friend was like, Ugh, what is wrong with you? People goes up, gets a stick, like shoes him off the path. It was so funny and people were screaming like, I actually thought somebody was in the process of being murdered.

Lisa: Okay. They're not from California.

Beth McMullen,: I don't know. No, they were from California. They probably just like, don't get out a lot or something. I don't know. There was something going on and it wasn't good. Anyway,

Lisa: they're, I, I just judged them and I screamed yesterday and.

Beth McMullen,: Can we somehow link the rattlesnake to what's going on in the publishing industry? It's

Lisa: my God.

Beth McMullen,: been bit by a rattlesnake or something.

Lisa: know what? It's bad news. Keeps biting us in the ass. That's what it is. How's that for a transition?

Beth McMullen,: perfect. That's a perfect transition. I like it. like, 'cause you've been talking to me, you are kind of our, our Twitter mon or our, not Twitter. Ugh. Don't say that word.

Lisa: It.

Beth McMullen,: monitor. So then I kind of looked around and I found some some, some reporting in Publishers Weekly and publishers lunch about like what is happening. And there are a couple of things that are like a little bit I think the big one was just the penguin random house, the dial books for young readers is no longer.

Lisa: Yeah.

Beth McMullen,: I mean that has been around since 1961. It's kind of a prestige imprint and everything that I was seeing, like the stuff going on at Simon Schuster Ette Penguin, it's like the death nail for mid list authors and like prestige imprints and prestige editors and veteran editors.

Those are the ones who seem to be getting the acts.

Lisa: It's depressing. I just saw an agent had posted that he just, I think he was in acquisitions or something with one of his clients and the editor got laid off and I'm just like, my heart is breaking for whatever author is out there. That right now is so excited. 'cause the minute you hear you're in acquisitions, that's like you're soaring with hope.

And I just think of all the authors right now that are. Really sad, and it just, it, it just sucks, you know? Yeah. What do you even say?

Beth McMullen,: this is something I read that I found really disturbing. So some of the people that SNS. Let go Simon Schuster. Let go. Remember they are owned by KKR, which is a private equity company. Private equity companies the businesses that they acquire to produce money and lots of it. So this is not a surprise.

When I saw that KKR was taking over Simon Schuster, I kind of shrugged my shoulders like, well, there goes Simon and Schuster. Everyone was, I think everyone in the back of their mind was kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. But so they let go a couple of really high profile veterans, like these are people who help or edited, you know, Pulitzer winners and, and high prestige books. I read somewhere that the. The consensus is that KKR is moving toward a quote unquote content management model, prioritizing books that can easily be turned into franchises over like literary, literary prestige. So instead of an editor, you're gonna have a content manager, right? So like, how can we take a book and slice and dice it into a million pieces to create all these content channels that will produce money? And eyeballs and I was like, wow, that sounds really awful. Like I don't wanna read these, wanna read these books. The world is of publishing, I think is being designed for people who are 20 and spend a lot of time on TikTok. what it feels like, right?

Lisa: Yeah, it feels like I don't, it just is I, there was this clip going around of a it was a gal reading an a letter that an editor had posted in Reddit. And it was the editor was saying how for years, she was like, I'm sitting in the airport and I'm paraphrasing all this. I'm sitting in the airport and on my way to another conference and trying to put on my cheery face and thinking about how much I hate my job as an editor because for years I've acquired things I don't wanna acquire.

Hoping it will. Earn me political capital so I can actually buy something I want. Like she's just, she's been like acquiring all these things that she knew the publisher wanted because of its commercial value or whatever, whatever. Her reasoning, hoping that someday she could acquire something she actually wanted, and she'd reached the point where she absolutely hated her job

Beth McMullen,: Isn't

Lisa: and oh my god.

I just, I mean, it is just, the state of publishing is just like, I, I don't even know what's going on with it. It just feels as dark as the rest of the world right now.

Beth McMullen,: I read something about how, I think this was a penguin that was doing a wave of voluntary buyout, so basically trying to push out anybody who's senior, like senior staff people with

Lisa: Right.

Beth McMullen,: and that kind of moving toward a goal of a younger, cheaper workforce that relies entirely on data for making their selections rather than reading something and being. Moved by it to the point where you think, I love this and I need to acquire it, so that you're essentially kind of data silencing the selection of books rather than the human reaction a book. thought that was kind of fascinating too. I mean, it makes sense, right? Because that way you are. If you continue to deliver the same thing that is doing well, then you know until it stops doing well, then you're guaranteed to, to get some return on your investment.

Lisa: There's again, I'm on social media way too much like

Beth McMullen,: No,

Lisa: a problem.

Beth McMullen,: your job.

Lisa: It is my job. Well, it's so funny 'cause my husband's like, you're on there all the time. And I'm like, okay. I do marketing for writers with wrinkles myself for our company. I'm like always on there. So I can't help but see everything.

I'm the social media person and there was a, an agent that was saying, I've. Just because like I don't always sign the best writer that comes across my desk. Like she said, there's, there's books that come across my desk that are beautifully written that, that I love the story and they're far better writer than maybe the next person I signed because that next person I signed had a story or something, a book that was more compelling in the sense of being able to sell it.

So she's like, we don't always sign the best writer out there. We sign the book that we can sell. And that has changed Dr. Dramatically over the last five, 10 years. Like something that she would've signed 10 years ago. She looks at it now and is like, this is an amazing book. It's well written. It's, you know, it's perfect, but I can't sell it.

So she, passes on it and moves on to the next one that's not as well written, but she knows she can sell it.

Beth McMullen,: I feel like some of this too is creating this this downstream effect from the big. Publishing companies that we're talking about you're gonna have more indie presses that are specializing in particular segments of the market, that are being underrepresented by the bigger houses, but still have a big enough to be viable.

I was looking at a tiny press that focuses on beach reads and. Books that feature middle aged characters, like things that, your young person who's now an editor at SNS is not gonna buy because they're like, who would ever read this? I would never read this. Like, forgetting that there's this huge audience of middle aged people who have a lot of money and are happy to buy books.

So, I mean, I think you're seeing, you're gonna see more. Stratification, kind of like everything is being down into little, like you only read what you wanna read. You no longer have to get like the whole newspaper and absorb all of that. You can just pick the stories that you like. So it it, that's the thing that creates that echo chamber, unfortunately.

But people are able to slice and dice what they consume down to like very specific things that they wanna read or they wanna look at or they wanna watch. Then that is kind of driving this idea that we can only acquire things with dragons. You know, feeling of we only need dragons. I think too, we can't overlook the Baker and Taylor bankruptcy because that left some of these big publishers holding, know, holding the bag and being, getting back millions and millions of dollars.

So they're in the, they're in the hole, , because, and they went into chapter 11. Just like this week, I think, but that doesn't mean they're gonna get any money back. So of course you're gonna start laying people off because you've gotta balance your books. And you just lost $20 million because Baker and Taylor went under. So, it's, it's a little boring, but those massive unpaid debts are, are problematic for the industry as a whole.

Lisa: I think there, there's this other conversation happening where they're talking about, and this is going to like kid lit middle grade, and we just had this conversation also with one of our guests that's that's gonna be dropping who's a, an elementary school librarian, elementary or middle school, I can't remember.

But anyway, she's a, she. Yeah, she's a librarian. And she's like, I just wish that editors would come in and actually have conversations to see what kids want to read, because they're not acquiring what kids want to read. Like that's, there's, I feel like the publishing industry is so out of touch and one of the things.

That she made a comment on, and I've seen several people discussing it, is so many people are chasing Newbury Award winners or, you know, they want that next big award-winning book. And that's great because those books are needed, but not everyone's going to want to read that book. And so they're not, they're taking.

There's too much emphasis on that instead of like, let's publish things that kids wanna read, like fun adventures, whatever, fart jokes. Like this is all like, go back to when you were a kid. Like you, you wanna read stupid stuff along with of course the important information the important stories. But it's, it seems like there's a, a, a disconnect between publishing and the marketplace.

Beth McMullen,: Oh yeah, absolutely. I wish that these editors would just go sit in a elementary school library, middle school library and see what the kids are talking about and what they wanna read, and there's room for all of it. mean, you're not saying don't publish the kind of issue driven books, but you're saying it'd be nice to have a balance where you had some of the fun stuff too, so the kids don't read one page and if that's not their jam, they're done. And then it's

Lisa: Right.

Beth McMullen,: them back, you know?

Lisa: Yeah, well, and it's just go, go do a ride share with a carpool like. Moms picking up kids. The stuff that gets said in those car, you're just like, these kids are kids. Like they, the things they say, they're, they're vocabulary things. They're talking about, they're like, they're kids. They're just, being goofy and silly and that's, they're forgetting that.

It's like these kids just wanna laugh and it's.

Beth McMullen,: it, it's just, it's so, I don't know. It's so, there's so many things that feel shortsighted in the industry right now. I read something about how some. Some publishing houses are just focused on kind of what they're calling Trope publishing. And if your book doesn't fit a specific TikTok hashtag like Enemies to Lovers or things like that, then the editors are being told don't acquire it.

'cause it's too hard to market. So, I mean, it's the cart before the horse, right? You're like. Nobody can write a book that's just a book that came to them that they think is gonna be great because maybe it doesn't fit into these silos and you can't get it published. I mean, that's why I really think there's room for these small indie publishers to really carve out specific space for themselves because of, there's so many really good books that are just getting tossed to the wayside, right?

Like we're, nobody wants to publish them 'cause they aren't able to be fit into a TikTok hashtag.

Lisa: Well, and the other thing is, with, especially with these, the books that they want to get that award because it gives them prestige. That's where they're putting all their marketing dollars. So everyone knows about that book, but then they have this whole other list that's not getting any attention that just.

Die out there that nobody gets to find because they haven't given it any attention. 'cause they're like, we want that, we want that, that book that we can show like, yay on, on socials we, a Newbury Award winner, this winner, and it just, then everyone else gets shuffled off to the side and they're creating their own problem, like with.

They're losing readers for a reason and everybody's screaming, like when, , into the void, when I went to that a LA, everybody was talking about, shorter books, fun. Like we, these kids are just. They're not, they're just reading the same books over and over again they're reading Dog Man and diary of a Wimpy Kid and da da da because they don't know about these other books.

'cause those 'cause libraries, librarians don't know about 'em.

Beth McMullen,: No, and they're, they're published. There's less of them now. And it's almost like self-defeating because only publishing certain things that fit a certain category and then the kids don't wanna read them and then the kids aren't readers. And then you don't have any readers for your adult stuff because nobody learned to love reading when they were young.

And that, you know, it just seems, I don't understand anything.

Lisa: Now.

Beth McMullen,: It doesn't make any sense. , I feel like it's just such a. Strange approach. I did read too that like pr, traditional PR jobs within publishing are being done away with, and being replaced by people who are essentially content managers and people who are savvy on like TikTok and able to produce that sort of content.

So rather than try to reach, different people through various channels. All your money's going into producing TikTok content for the book. 

Lisa: I know a lot of people are on TikTok. I went on it one time for a hot second, and it was so chaotic and crazy. My brain exploded. Remember, you're like, join TikTok, as writers. Just so like I let everyone know, writers with Wrinkles has an account on TikTok. I actually signed up and I looked at it and then I exited.

I told Beth and Mike, I'm never going back on there again. And it's, it was too much.

Beth McMullen,: Yeah. I don't think I can handle it. I

Lisa: Well, it was like, it was like 50 people screaming at me all at once and I was just like, stop yelling at me. I'm getting off here now.

Beth McMullen,: Oh, this is terrifying.

Lisa: It was.

Beth McMullen,: think, like, I think the, the out the, the output of all of these changes and all the stuff going on in publishing is that. I have never in my life not finished so many books that I've started. I will start reading and I will last 25 pages, and then the book is so bad, it's so dull.

It's got no sharpness. It has no freshness. It doesn't sound like anybody. That I, that I abandoned it. And I, until like a couple years ago, I always finished my books that I started. Like I, I could always find a reason to finish them. And now it's like they are utterly disposable and it's hard to find ones that are good amongst all the noise.

Lisa: And I think it's, I think in, in part, a lot of that's due to like the, the turnover in editors. Like, it's like getting your book is getting passed from person to person because so many people, so nobody is. You know that invested in this book enough to like stick with it because then they get laid off and then it gets passed to somebody.

Or there's a, people aren't getting editorial letters, they're just saying here you're basically going into copy edits. Like it's, everything has changed so much and it's because all the editors are getting laid off and the ones that are still there. Are, , a lot, oftentimes relatively new, and they're getting so much on their desk that they can't manage it or they don't know how to manage it, and none of this is their fault, And

Beth McMullen,: It's totally not fair to them to

Lisa: it's not,

Beth McMullen,: a bunch of people and then say, okay, your one job is now three jobs. Welcome to

Lisa: yeah,

Beth McMullen,: Yeah. I mean, that's

Lisa: exactly.

Beth McMullen,: like. When I worked with my editor at Aladdin, which is an SNS imprint, was doing like seven people's jobs, you

Lisa: Yeah.

Beth McMullen,: the books was like one tiny slice of all of her responsibilities.

And I was like, I don't know how you managed to do this for however many books you have in your stable, you know, 10, 12, whatever. I mean,

Lisa: Right.

Beth McMullen,: would struggle to survive one because. You know, she was like in charge of her of a, a little mini business within the business, and like presumably you hire the editors because they're good at editing, but in, in truth, they need to be like MBAs.

Lisa: Well, they have to do like all the profit and loss statement. I mean, there's, I remember, I think it was, I think it was Rachel Stark in that interview that she told us she was with Disney at the time. She's moved since then. But she was kind of tell, and I think it was her telling us like everything she does in the day, and it, you're right.

15% of it was editing, everything else was managing a business. It's like, okay, where is like, why isn't the structured better so that somebody else is doing these jobs that are running a business instead of her just doing what she was hired to do and be an editor?

Beth McMullen,: Yeah.

Lisa: mean, imagine, imagine a perfect world where editors, oh my gosh, got to edit, like.

That's what they're supposed to be doing. And they're being forced to do all these other things just to maintain their job and they're underpaid and then they're getting laid off. And then, the cycle continues. And then you see it's reflected on the pages. And it's not fair to the author who's spent years writing a book and is handing their precious baby over to them with the belief system that this is going to serve them.

And then. And then they get upset with the editor and then the cycle, 'cause it's just one thing after another and it's just unfair.

Beth McMullen,: And I think some of it too, when you go back to the idea of, of the editors being replaced by content managers, it's because I think there is this move toward turning the selection of the books and the editing of the books over to ai and then you're sort of as the. The quote unquote editor, you are more like a project manager because you are moving this thing through the various systems that have been put in place to replace the people who used to do this job. I don't think anybody wants to say that out loud, but that feels like to me where we're going. I mean, AI is already embedded in. submissions, processes, it's already embedded in things like translations, stuff like that. So you've got, got it there. And honestly, if you're owned by a private equity firm, they make money by getting rid of the human labor. And they're not interested necessarily in quality books. They're interested in their bottom line, and their bottom line is gonna be if there's less people that they have to pay.

Lisa: Well, the other problem is, is there's so many people that are now are using AI to write books who are querying those. Books. And so they're like clogging up the system. And I was looking at one editor was, or it wasn't an editor, it was an agent. And she was like, I can tell in a query letter if it's been written by chat GPT in two seconds and I will like delete you outta the system.

So it just, PS for the record, don't shot GPT for your writing. Like it's just, , it's obvious and I think it, it's. AI is like the fast food of writing. It's just junk and it's just.

Beth McMullen,: are huge. I just published a substack about this, that there were 4 million books published in 2025. 3.5 million of them. Maybe that might be a little bit high, but ballpark. Are AI generated books, which means there's no human doing it. It's just some person who's, who's shoving out 10 books a day Amazon, into the Amazon ecosystem, hoping to get some hits.

You know, they'll usually come up with a title that's adjacent to a popular title. So people click on it and they pay their 99 cents or whatever. And it's like a mess. I mean, it's made a mess. It's so. It's just noisy. It's just garbage.

Lisa: Well, and then with, because of all those on, like, on Amazon, it, it buries all the real books, because they're just flooding the system with all this AI crap and then the real books get buried. That's my reasoning to see why my numbers are so low. We're sitting.

Beth McMullen,: I mean, that's three, that's 4 million books in one year.

Lisa: Yeah, that's insane.

Beth McMullen,: about add, add up the 10 years of books, right? I mean. It's insane. It's an insane proposition right now. I mean, it really just means that you have to be proactive in finding your audience and delivering to your audience directly.

Lisa: Well, and I also think when you're querying, you have to really, really know like what your market is when you're querying because. Agents are looking for that more and more. I mean, they always have, but I think it's just become even more of a hot topic of like where exactly in this weird, bizarre field of publishing right now, am I going to sell this?

And so you have to know your comps and to know your comps, you have to read a zillion books in your same category, and you have to pick ones that. Are are gonna show, like, this is where you can market it because and you just, you have to know it's being sold out there and you have to like really figure it out.

Beth McMullen,: And I think that that's connected to these indie presses, these small traditional publishing houses carving out their space and they know their. Audience. They know how to get to their audience. They know how to market to their audience, which is huge. Like you're, you're cutting out the middleman.

They're coming to you directly. They know what kind of books you publish. They know they like those books, so your audience shows up. Is really, it's a very, it's crazy that in all of this, like. Social, sort of screen moderated universe that we live in. It's still the most important thing is person to person con communication.

Like sort of contact with another person, like you're in my audience, I'm talking directly to you.

Lisa: Right, and I, my first experience was with Jolly Fish Press, and I talk about this a. All the time. It was an amazing experience. That was, it was joyful and wonderful. And they're kind of a mid-level indie press. And they produce really good books and it's, I think those kind of.

Publishers are gonna be more and more sought after because with all these Big Five Pub, I mean, they're all just like, merging, cutting, laying off, dah, dah, dah. But then you have, like, over here, they're just slow, steady, wins the race, acquiring good books, and just, doing what they need to do.

They're, they're like the tortoise and the hare. They're the tortoise back there. Just like, what, we're gonna keep plugging away and doing our thing and, and producing quality books, and you guys can,

Beth McMullen,: like you know, your identity.

Lisa: right.

Beth McMullen,: you like, you know your lane and you're gonna stay in it and you're gonna do what you do and people trust you and they trust your output. they buy your books. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense. I think the challenge then becomes finding, finding those publishers who put out the stuff that you like to read. I mean, I think discoverability. Especially when you're talking about 4 million titles in a year, it becomes like, it's no longer publishing. Publishing isn't a big deal, but discoverability is

Lisa: Right.

Beth McMullen,: to find the stuff that you wanna read, and I think something like a small publisher that puts out the type of book, you know you enjoy, you're going to keep going back to them because now you've discovered them and it's easy, right?

If I just go

Lisa: Right.

Beth McMullen,: pick up whatever it is that they're selling, then some of the. Question marks are removed from the process

Lisa: Yeah. And every time.

Beth McMullen,: it's complicated.

Lisa: It is complicated and every, and I just, I feel like I hate I don't feel like, I mean, we're always like doom and gloom, doom and gloom. I mean, there are bright spots out there because there are still, there's still books being published and, and the, the, the publishing wheel still keeps turning, but it's just figuring out how to navigate it through times like this when,

Beth McMullen,: has been around a long time. It's not going anywhere, but it is definitely changing and I think trying to approach things the way that we did 10 years ago is no longer gonna work. I think. takeaway is that you, as the author, have to start very early figuring out who your audience is and not relying on the publishing house to do that for you.

And the, the, the beauty of that is then if you change publishing houses or you wanna go self-publish, your audience with you, you know your audience. It's not something that has been decided upon by the publishing house, and they know but you don't like, that's your. Audience. It gives you a lot of flexibility, I think.

You know, really good books are still coming out. It's just that I think,, you have to work in a different way than you, you used to.

Lisa: The one thing I keep hearing, and I think we've talked to a couple people on the show where they were saying that the more polished the book is the more they're willing to look at it because, and agents to look at it because. Publishers don't have like the same, , they don't have as many editors, so they're looking at, at something and saying how,, how publication ready is this, because we don't have time to do developmental edits.

We don't have time to, do all the normal steps that you would. Think like with my first experience with, there was a whole process of developmental, that are, we just went through all the normal steps. That's not the norm in every house anymore. And so it's one of those things where you really, truly more than ever have to have like a publication ready book.

To go on submission or to go on query because you can't, you can't waste that opportunity. Don't think, oh, the editor will help me, or my agent's gonna help me. That's not the case. Like maybe it was at one point, but that's not the case anymore. So your book has to be the very best it can be.

Like it's, that's.

Beth McMullen,: nobody, there's no, no time. These editors that we were just talking about who are doing 17 jobs, editing is a tiny bit of them. They're not gonna developmentally edit your book. You have to do that. You have to get someone to do that, and that can either be somebody you pay or somebody you trade.

You know? Maybe they do it for you, you

Lisa: Right.

Beth McMullen,: Whatever it is. It's like that's where you have to reach into your community and find a way to get these things done and that it's not gonna be perfect, but you have to get as perfect as you can get it.

Lisa: Yeah,

Beth McMullen,: Before

Lisa: that's, that's doing the work. Like don't, don't jump the gun. I've jumped the gun before. It doesn't feel good when you get a rejection in 10 minutes.

Beth McMullen,: No, it's true. And I've said this to my, my book coaching clients where they're like, well, won't this just get fixed, fixed after I get an agent? And I was like, well, no, because you're never gonna get the agent like it. It's idea that they're somehow gonna see your brilliance when it's not literally on the page where it needs to be. That doesn't happen anymore. Again, everything is changing and you just have to, you have to try to keep up, you know?

Lisa: Well, and it's the same.

Beth McMullen,: to our show 'cause we are trying to keep up.

Lisa: Well, the same, it's the same thing with your agent, because a lot of people will say,, is your agent editorial? And it's just like, what? That's, that's not a question to be asking anymore because the thing is they're going to be receiving, like I think my agent opens up like once a month for like a week, and she gets hundreds and hundreds.

Of queries and that's the same across the board and they don't have time to go through your manuscript and, and do that for you because they've got clients that they need to go on submission. They need, they're busy and they don't get paid until

Beth McMullen,: Their job

Lisa: a book sales.

Beth McMullen,: more clients. Their

Lisa: Right.

Beth McMullen,: serve the clients they already have. So your manuscript that you have sent to them is going to be read when they're on the train or on an

Lisa: Right,

Beth McMullen,: or you know, before they go to bed or whatever. Few minutes they carve out here and there to read new stuff.

Their priority as it should be. Is their existing client base,

Lisa: right.

Beth McMullen,: their needs and what they need. And that's gonna take the bulk of their time and effort. And that's exactly what you want in an agent. But remember, so when they're taking that five minutes, over a cup of coffee to glance at your manuscript, it has to be as good as you can get.

It can't be something that you're like, eh, they'll fix this later.

Lisa: Yeah,

Beth McMullen,: Not gonna happen. We say that all the

Lisa: that's,

Beth McMullen,: and it's worth repeating endlessly.

Lisa: yeah. I think that's, that's the moral of.

Beth McMullen,: This is a good episode. This could, we could talk about this for hours, but we've already talked about it for 42 minutes and 39 seconds, so that probably is enough. All right, I think our next guest is Kolby Sharp.

Lisa: It is. I'm excited. I'm so excited. I've been a fan of his for years. I've been watching his content. He's also an author, but I believe he's a fifth grade teacher and he comes on with books and talks about books and he's just, his, just his persona. Everything about him screams positive. And so I actually reached out to him 'cause I'm like, I wanna meet Kolby Sharp.

I wanna be friends with Kolby.

Beth McMullen,: See, that's why we love having the podcast because when there are people, we're like, it's a cool person. We wanna talk to them. We just ask

Lisa: That's what happens.

Beth McMullen,: Mm-hmm. So he will be our, he will be our end of April, episode April 27th. So be on the lookout for him. are gonna try to do a couple of first pages here and there, so please keep sending those to us and we will get those out as they arrive and we have time to do them. until next time, happy reading, writing, and listening. Bye, Lisa.

Lisa: Hey Guys.