88. Shifts in the Publishing Industry with Jane Friedman

I'm thrilled to welcome Jane Friedman to the show! Jane has spent her entire career in the publishing industry, and I've been following her work for close to a decade. In this conversation, I ask Jane about the major shifts she's witnessed in publishing over the past ten years. 

We explore:

• the explosive growth of audiobooks
• the new tools and platforms available to writers today 
• the rise of the creator economy and its impact on authors
• the emergence of AI in writing and publishing

Jane brings her signature practical wisdom and market intelligence to help writers understand and navigate this transformed landscape. Tune in for more.

🎙️Find more on Jane Friedman here.

🎙️Find more on Nicole Meier here.

Transcript

THE WHOLE WRITER EP 88 - With Jane Friedman

[00:00:00] Jane Friedman: The creator economy is becoming a really significant factor in how authors choose to make a living. Essentially, it's where if someone starts, let's say, a Substack newsletter, or they have a really successful podcast, there are ways to monetize that, that can actually be much more effective and easier than trying to sell a book.

[00:00:22] Jane Friedman: I think if you really understand your readership and know how to use these tools for your own ends, they're very powerful for being able to continue your creative work.

[00:00:39] Nicole Meier: Welcome to the whole Writer, A place where we talk about what it means to show up as a writer, not just a better writer or a more productive writer or a published writer, but a whole one. Someone who's grounded in their voice, in their community, in their creative path, even when the world tells them to hustle, compare, or conform.

[00:00:59] Nicole Meier: I'm Nicole Meier, a multi published author and book coach who believes that nurturing the person behind the page is just as important as refining the words on it. Each week we'll explore the terrain of riding life with honesty, warmth, and practical wisdom, creating space for you to write from a place of wholeness rather than depletion.

[00:01:20] Nicole Meier: Whether you're drafting your first manuscript or publishing your fifth book, you'll find conversation and companionship for the journey here. So settle in, bring your questions and your curiosity, and let's discover what it means to write and live with authenticity and purpose.

[00:01:39] Nicole Meier: Hello, listeners. Welcome on in. I am so excited for today's conversation because I have been following Jane Friedman for what feels like close to a decade. I want to introduce her properly first, and then we're gonna get into all things publishing, industry insights, and maybe even what's to come down the road.

[00:01:59] Nicole Meier: So first, let me introduce Jane. So Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry with a focus on business reporting and author education established in 2015, her newsletter. The bottom line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals.

[00:02:18] Nicole Meier: In 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World. Jane's expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, the Atlantic, the Today Show, wired Fox News and BBC Friedman's Impact on publishing education spans multiple formats and audiences. Her book, the Business of Being a Writer is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs.

[00:02:46] Nicole Meier: She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops and her long running newsletters, electric speed, and the bottom line exemplify her commitment to helping writers navigate the publishing landscape. Welcome Jane. 

[00:03:00] Jane Friedman: Thanks for having me, Nicole. Glad to be here. 

[00:03:02] Nicole Meier: I'm so happy you're here. And truth be told, when I met with my writer's group a few nights ago, I said, well, I'm gonna have Jane on the podcast.

[00:03:09] Nicole Meier: And they all just shot a million questions at me because you really are. I know that people gush about you all the time. I'll gush a little bit for you, but you know, you are our resource. I mean, you really are. You have your finger on the pulse and you're the reason that we know what's going on in the industry because as a creative, as a writer, it's really hard to keep up with everything all at once.

[00:03:30] Nicole Meier: And so thank you for doing that for us. 

[00:03:32] Jane Friedman: Yeah, it's hard even for me to keep up, so I can't even imagine the individual writer navigating it all. 

[00:03:39] Nicole Meier: Well, this is a beautiful segue to my first question for you. So you recently wrote about how publishing has changed since 2015. Can you share a few of the most significant insights?

[00:03:51] Nicole Meier: Talk about a little bit what you highlighted in that piece, if you will. 

[00:03:55] Jane Friedman: So it probably wasn't the things that, at least my close readership expected, because I started by saying, I don't know that things have changed that much in the last 10 years, at least if I compare it to like 2005 to 2015, which there was incredible transformation.

[00:04:14] Jane Friedman: You know, that's when Amazon started to become enormous and they launched the Kindle and eBooks. So it almost felt like. What I wrote was, I don't know, just an ordinary trend article rather than outlining something monumental that had occurred. But that said, the last decade has seen the growing importance of audio as a format.

[00:04:37] Jane Friedman: And since I'm not a audiobook listener myself, and I don't really listen to podcasts, I really thought it was a fad, but it is not a fad. It just keeps growing and growing and growing. And we're seeing more people kind of jump in or more companies jump in with offerings. So Spotify, for example, entered the audiobook market in 2023.

[00:05:00] Jane Friedman: We've seen expansion of audiobooks across the globe, and it's now outpacing ebook sales in terms of dollars earned for the big publishers. So it's a really important format, and it has been instrumental in helping publishers stay healthy and profitable. So that was the big one that I put in the mix on the self-publishing side.

[00:05:22] Jane Friedman: Something I outlined was how direct sales are becoming more and more important, and this isn't something I really expected. There's a lot of reliance on platforms like Amazon or distribution through Ingram Spark or other players, and. It's just been really, I think, encouraging to see how self-publishing authors have been able to engage with readers directly, whether that's in person at conventions or festivals, or just doing a really tremendous job in speaking to their readers directly through email, social media, patronage groups.

[00:05:59] Jane Friedman: Crowdfunding and selling directly so that they keep more of the profits. And so that to me is just encouraging from a sustainability perspective and not having to rely on Amazon for your sales. 

[00:06:11] Nicole Meier: Yeah. Well the first thing you mentioned, really, I was nodding along as an author. I have made some nice deals selling my book to audio separate from the publishing deal, so my agent sometimes will hold those rights back.

[00:06:26] Nicole Meier: I have to say, you were saying it's proved beneficial, lucrative, whatever for the publishers, but I will say on the author side, yes, I've appreciated those deals as well. Yeah, and the direct to market or direct to reader, I mean, that's really exciting and I think people's ears are gonna perk up when you talk about that because you're right.

[00:06:44] Nicole Meier: When I started writing over 12 years ago, that wasn't really something I've ever even thought of that was possible. So it is kind of exciting. 

[00:06:52] Jane Friedman: Yeah, and there are new tools and platforms that are making it so much easier to sell direct, because at least when I got into the business trying to sell a physical book directly to a reader, that was not something you would typically do as an individual.

[00:07:08] Jane Friedman: There are all sorts of logistical challenges, but now you have tools like Book Vault, Andi, that make it pretty straightforward. It's not that much harder than setting up a PayPal account or something like that. Right. 

[00:07:21] Nicole Meier: Which is so exciting to me. People like to be empowered and take their own creative endeavors into their hands, and I agree with you.

[00:07:28] Nicole Meier: I see that more and more so now. It'll be interesting to look back 10 years from now and see how that has grown or not 

[00:07:35] Jane Friedman: indeed. Yeah. I think the other thing that kind of plays into that is the enthusiasm in the last few years for deluxe editions, and this gets more onto the traditional publishing side, but indie authors do it too, is creating these higher priced.

[00:07:49] Jane Friedman: Limited editions with bells and whistles to sell to the most ardent fans. 

[00:07:55] Nicole Meier: Yes. Very cool. Okay, so speaking of things that are changing and trends, I definitely wanna talk to you about AI that's on everybody's lips right now. I have a few different questions, but let's ease into it. So I would love to know what you think for writers of all genres.

[00:08:13] Nicole Meier: So fiction, nonfiction, memoir. What should they be, I guess, most aware of when thinking about AI at this moment in time? Because I've talked to writers who use it for research, some for book narration. That seems to be coming up more and more these days, but many, many are very wary. Yes. So what are your thoughts about this?

[00:08:32] Nicole Meier: I know that's kind of a big question. 

[00:08:34] Jane Friedman: Well, maybe I'll start by outlining the most accepted uses across the industry. So you mentioned one of them already, which is AI narration, so sometimes called synthetic voices and major publishers are doing this. The major platforms that sell audio books are accepting AI narrated audio books and like it or not, I think there are going to be some negative effects of this, like price pressure on the market.

[00:09:01] Jane Friedman: Generally speaking, I think it's accepted this is gonna be a feature of the marketplace. I don't think that means all audio books will be voiced by synthetic narrators, but it's going to become increasingly prevalent. And I think in some ways it's a good thing for accessibility reasons and the fact that a lot of books would never make it into audio because of the costs involved in human narration and production.

[00:09:26] Jane Friedman: So that's a fairly accepted use. I'm not saying everyone's happy about it, but that's moving forward. The other use that is somewhat accepted but still contentious is AI translation. So it's very costly to translate books into different languages. It often prevents authors from entering other markets, even if there would be good sales, just because the costs are significant.

[00:09:49] Jane Friedman: I'm gonna set aside some of the problems related to distributing in another market where you don't know the native language, but certainly both traditional publishers. And independent authors are taking advantage of increased sophistication in AI translation. And there are already firms now starting to be established that you can hire to help you.

[00:10:09] Jane Friedman: 'cause they've trained their models in a way to retain cultural resonance in the new language that tools are so much better than they used to be. So it's not just a rote like. Sausage Factory translation. It's really taking into account the nuances of the destination, language and culture. So that's gonna happen more and more.

[00:10:30] Jane Friedman: Okay. I think when most writers ask about this, there's kind of like a two-sided fear. One, how will their rights be abused? And then the other side is how might their opportunities be reduced or how might they be blackballed if it's discovered they used AI in any capacity. And right now it's just a really gray area.

[00:10:54] Jane Friedman: When it comes to agents and traditional publishers. I would say the large majority do not have a formal AI policy. Some of this is due to waiting to see how it all unfolds. There's just so much uncertainty. But there are agents already who are putting. Let's say check boxes on their submission forms, like on Query Manager, where a lot of people will submit their query or materials.

[00:11:18] Jane Friedman: There's a checkbox where the agent might ask you, did you use AI to assist you? And it's kind of a broad question, what does that really mean? Right? And the biggest concern by far is that writers are using AI to generate the material wholesale. And I don't even mean like the query and synopsis so much as the manuscript itself, because.

[00:11:40] Jane Friedman: Currently, US law doesn't allow you to have full copyright over AI generated material, and so publishers and agents alike need assurance that whatever you've produced can be protected under copyright law. Right? The wrinkle, however, in my mind, is that there is no software or service that can tell you with a hundred percent certainty what is AI generated.

[00:12:04] Jane Friedman: It's all just probabilistic guessing. And so there's also a lot of false positives getting thrown by these softwares, and it's, in my mind, that actually does more damage. And I've even heard complaints from writers who say, I've been rejected and pushed out of publications or submission inboxes because they think I've used AI when I have not.

[00:12:26] Jane Friedman: I've heard that with nonfiction for sure. 

[00:12:28] Nicole Meier: Yeah. 

[00:12:28] Jane Friedman: Yeah. I do feel like we're in what I call the trough of despair, um, where there's just not a whole lot of sophistication yet surrounding this technology. People have different levels of literacy surrounding ai and there's a lot of accusations and blame and anger and fear.

[00:12:47] Jane Friedman: And so eventually I have to assume we're gonna move out of this trough, right? And there are gonna be more standards and norms and policy. So I'll pause there because there's certainly more to talk about, but I wanna make sure I address what you think. 

[00:13:02] Nicole Meier: Yeah, no, I mis I think that's so helpful and it is.

[00:13:06] Nicole Meier: I'm so happy you touched on, look, this is a reality of it. This is like the phase we're in, but also this is the stigma, right? So people don't wanna be blackballed, but maybe they are really stuck on either research aspect or a scene. They can't get to work. I work in my day job as a developmental editor and only one of the whole past handful of years manuscript.

[00:13:29] Nicole Meier: Could I tell, just from looking at it that Oh, this feels like ai because it, it was just so full of metaphors. It didn't feel like someone had written that. 

[00:13:39] Jane Friedman: Yeah. 

[00:13:39] Nicole Meier: But I didn't wanna accuse anybody. Right, right. So we all play this weird dance around it, but I do like the idea that there could be some guardrails in the future.

[00:13:50] Jane Friedman: Yeah. For full disclosure, I use AI daily to support my writing process. I don't use it to write, not necessarily 'cause I'm ethically opposed to that, but because it's not good, right? It's not for the standard that I need to achieve. It's nowhere in the ballpark, but I have found it so useful to support research.

[00:14:14] Jane Friedman: I will create folders of materials. For it to reference specifically like research I've done on a piece, and then I'll feed in my entire piece and say, okay, based on the research I've uploaded and publicly available materials on the web, can you see any assertions in this piece or facts that would be incorrect or that you would flag?

[00:14:35] Jane Friedman: And that has actually saved me on a number of occasions from saying things that would be misleading or in fact, not at all accurate. So I do think it's a powerful tool and I think we will eventually find ways to use it that are appropriate for whatever the context is. I think that's the other difficulty that the context really.

[00:14:57] Jane Friedman: Matters here. 

[00:14:58] Nicole Meier: It does. It does. Okay. So again, you've given me a great segue. We're going to talk about the Anthropic case. I wanna really back up for people who aren't totally familiar, so I know you can help me do that. But I also wanna mention that I am one of the authors that is kind of mixed in this.

[00:15:15] Nicole Meier: I've looked at my books, two of my four titles have been used. I'm very, very confused. Of what my part is, what's going to happen. So for those who are saying, Nicole, what are you talking about? Can you just kind of give us a brief definition of what's going on? 

[00:15:30] Jane Friedman: Yes. The Anthropic case is one of many lawsuits.

[00:15:36] Jane Friedman: I want that to be clear because it's not the final word, and it's not the only case that might affect how things proceed in the future, but it is by far the earliest and most important case where. Rather than going to trial, there was a settlement between anthropic and the plaintiffs, which are authors for piracy of materials.

[00:15:59] Jane Friedman: So the judge found that AI training on copyrighted material was fair use. That means it's legal. That means no payment is due to authors for the training of the models. Now, other judges might find differently. The wrinkle in this was that Anthropic had used existing databases that have been circulating for years and years of pirated books.

[00:16:23] Jane Friedman: These are typically in PDF form. They've long been known to publishers and to the authors Guild. Everyone's tried to get these pirate databases down. The tech people all know they exist, and so they're like, why don't we just go and take those 7 million titles? From the pirate database and use it to train our model Easy P, right?

[00:16:44] Jane Friedman: And so that's what they got nailed for the piracy. And in the United States, if you do something like that, just flagrant piracy, the damages can become astronomical. Like up to, oh, I don't quote me on this, but I think it's like up to maybe $150,000 per title. So it's really significant. So before the case went to trial, the two sides agreed that Anthropic would pay $1.5 billion to the rights owners of any title that was pirated.

[00:17:17] Jane Friedman: Right. So within a certain timeframe. Yeah. Right. And so w rights owners is the key word here. 'cause authors aren't the only ones holding rights in these books. If the publisher is actively selling and distributing that book, they're also a rights holder. So the math here. Comes out to somewhere around $3,000 per title due to the rights holders.

[00:17:43] Jane Friedman: That's gonna be split probably in many cases, 50 50 if it's like a commercially published title as opposed to like a textbook. And those payments could be made as early as next year, like summer of next year. Authors don't really have to do much to get that money. All you have to do is check to see if your book is in the database, and that database should go, like the settlement will make the database available for people to check as early as tomorrow, I think, right?

[00:18:12] Jane Friedman: October 2nd. Yeah. So you'll be able to go to the anthropic settlement website, search for your name or title, see if it's part of the class, and then you'll be able to submit your claim. Or if you want to opt out and sue Anthropic yourself, you can do that. But I would take the money. 

[00:18:30] Nicole Meier: Yes. I'm so happy you laid that out.

[00:18:32] Nicole Meier: It was very clear the way you did it, so thank you. But it is confusing because you were saying a split 50 50 between the publisher and the writer, and I think that varies between which publisher is taking what stance and nobody really knows who's on first. So I. It's confusing. 

[00:18:48] Jane Friedman: Yeah, it is. It is. And we haven't even talked about cases where is there disagreement between the publisher and author about whether rights have reverted or are there multiple authors and a publisher, or what if the different authors on a book disagree?

[00:19:04] Jane Friedman: But they have provisions for all of those situations. So again, the settlement website is something to bookmark and go to if you're affected. 

[00:19:13] Nicole Meier: Right. Okay. Thank you for explaining that. Let's give a shot of hope to people listening, because I can't imagine that sort of first time or even second time authors are thinking, well, now I'm scared to put my book out.

[00:19:27] Nicole Meier: Now this feels like this is a never ending thing. What can we say to encourage people that not all books will be pirated, that it is worth taking the risk? I mean, what's coming up for you when I ask you that question? 

[00:19:40] Jane Friedman: Well, some people see this settlement and if there are other settlements because there was piracy at other companies too.

[00:19:48] Jane Friedman: Some people see this settlement as a huge windfall for both publishers and authors, almost like getting a bunch of money on a technicality, and I have sympathy with this perspective. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I understand where it comes from that the fact that Anthropic and some other companies took these titles for model training.

[00:20:06] Jane Friedman: Was there really any market harm? Cause like, did you lose a sale because of this? Probably not. Now, you may feel like the AI training is not fair use and certainly there may be cases and I think it will reach the Supreme Court. Actually, is this fair use or not? You know, you may feel like that was not fair.

[00:20:27] Jane Friedman: You should have been paid a licensing fee. But I do think in the future, and certainly these cases show the tech companies can't just willy-nilly decide to do whatever they want without there being repercussions. And we are seeing licensing marketplaces like Microsoft just launched one that allows publishers and others to come in and say, okay, let's come to an agreement about what we have here.

[00:20:50] Jane Friedman: And if you train on it, here are the fees that we should receive. Also the Author's Guild has partnered with a licensing organization called Created by Humans, which is looking to, again, like Microsoft, create this marketplace where AI companies that need material for training have a place to go centralize.

[00:21:12] Jane Friedman: It's easier, easier than pirating, easier than doing something that's legally shady so that everyone feels like they've been fairly treated. 

[00:21:21] Nicole Meier: Okay. I didn't know that last part, so that's great that you shared it. 

[00:21:25] Jane Friedman: Yeah, so authors shouldn't feel like this abuse will just continue indefinitely, but I will say if the courts find that AI training is fair use, how much these licensing marketplaces will continue is anyone's guess.

[00:21:39] Nicole Meier: That does give me a shot of encouragement and hopefully listeners, it gives you one too. Because there's just a lot of misinformation out there as with that, everything. So it is helpful. Thank you for that. Okay, so I know that you have been on the road, you've been going to conferences, talking to so many people, panels, et cetera.

[00:22:00] Nicole Meier: So this is a great reason why I'm asking you for, uh, a little bit about trends. Everybody likes to know trends, everybody likes to know. Can you rub the crystal ball and tell us what's coming in the future? So can you share maybe just a couple things of what you see coming down the road or anything emerging that writers should just sort of keep an eye on?

[00:22:20] Jane Friedman: Something that's interested me for quite a number of years now is how the creator economy is becoming a really significant factor in how authors choose to make a living. So I think this affects nonfiction more than any other category and. Essentially it's where if someone starts, let's say, a Substack newsletter or they have a really successful podcast, there are ways to monetize that, that can actually be much more effective and easier than trying to sell a book.

[00:22:52] Jane Friedman: Right. And for my part, writing, editing a book with a publisher is a time intensive task that has really significant rewards from. Like an influence standpoint from an authority standpoint, but from an earning standpoint, I consider it terrible. It's, it's like the least meaningful money that I earn is through book sales and certainly bestselling authors.

[00:23:18] Jane Friedman: It's a different story, but for most of us, like the large majority, like a 80, 90% of authors, if not a higher percentage book sales are not going to be a living. So this is why I am so interested in how the creator economy in these different ways of monetizing your writing or your message or whatever it is that you offer.

[00:23:38] Jane Friedman: I think it's, some people see it as a negative because it's tech companies with platforms that overly influence what gets seen. But I think if you really understand your readership and know how to use these tools. For your own ends. They're very powerful for being able to continue your creative work.

[00:23:56] Jane Friedman: And I, obviously, I'm exhibit A for some of this. I have a paid newsletter. I offer online education, and I don't need a publisher to get my message out to writers. I reach my audience on my own. So I think this creates some really interesting dynamics where. Agents and publishers sometimes have to convince authorities, experts, influencers, to spend their time doing a book that might not have a lot of financial payoff.

[00:24:23] Nicole Meier: Okay? 

[00:24:24] Jane Friedman: Yes. Or you know, they have to offer a big enough advance, or they have to offer deals that are gonna be interesting for that person and that they're gonna see an effect on the rest of their business that's positive. The other thing that is interesting to me that's developed in the last few years is how.

[00:24:41] Jane Friedman: Big publishers have had to be more flexible in the arrangements they offer to successful self-published authors. So we're seeing imprints being established at major houses that actually are meant to work with indie authors in ways that are innovative and collaborative source books. Bloom Books is one that I'm thinking of here.

[00:25:04] Jane Friedman: There's Simon Maverick, which is Simon and Schuster's audio book Imprint that focuses on indie authors doing well, and then bringing them into audio, and there are other examples out there. Entangled would be another. And so studying the authors who are succeeding on their own and then bringing them in to help them with very targeted areas.

[00:25:25] Jane Friedman: It's often print, retail distribution because the authors have often already nailed the digital side, whether that's ebook or audio, but they need that help with the retail presence. And so the publishers work with them on that, and it truly is collaborative based on the conversations I've had with these publishers.

[00:25:44] Jane Friedman: They recognize the author has market insight into the readership that maybe the publisher doesn't, and so they're actually listening to that, which sometimes feels like a miracle, you know? Yeah. At least from when I started in the industry where the publisher was always right. Yes. The drawback, I guess, for authors is that.

[00:26:05] Jane Friedman: These deals, these flexible deals are available once you become successful. And so there's still this feeling of, I do, I really have to pull myself up on my bootstraps here to earn that level of collaboration. So there I can see how someone consider this unfair, but compared to the earlier environment that I observed, this seems like progress.

[00:26:25] Nicole Meier: Okay. Good to know. Okay, so the two things that we highlighted right there are the creator economy and the collaborations and the sort of. Empowering people who have what, as you say, pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, right? Yes. And working with the traditional kind of gatekeepers. So that's really exciting.

[00:26:44] Nicole Meier: Yes. And I know you're just starting to talk about this. I got today's newsletter, but really there is also the merging and collaborations of different presses, whether they be small or hybrid, that seems to be kind of gaining traction too. 

[00:26:58] Jane Friedman: It's very interesting to witness. Smaller publishers and also hybrid publishers forming these collectives.

[00:27:06] Jane Friedman: So Stable Book Group is a collective that was formed earlier this year that mixes traditional publishers and hybrid publishers. That's really new to me. I haven't seen something like that happen before. It happened again when Forefront Andria combined under a single group, and there was just within the last week, two major hybrid publishers, amplify and Greenleaf.

[00:27:33] Jane Friedman: Some of the oldest in the US have been acquired by Civica Media, which is a new entity, private equity backed, and Civica Media's intention is to acquire more. Across all types of publishing companies. And so I'm certainly keeping my eye on that. And I think part of this is what's driving it is economies of scale, better distribution.

[00:27:57] Jane Friedman: The fact that it's really hard to publish or be a publisher today when you've got a smaller number of titles if you're trying to leverage better deals with platforms or retailers or whoever it happens to be. So I can see why that's happening, although. Having worked in traditional publishing, sometimes I don't quite understand when publishers come together under a collective, when they're not serving the same readerships, which I don't really see that being the case with the mergers or acquisitions I just described.

[00:28:33] Jane Friedman: It's just trying to make a bigger entity rather than create something that is going to better serve a particular readership or demographic. 

[00:28:42] Nicole Meier: That's interesting. I hadn't thought of it from that angle. But this is why, okay, listeners, this is why it's so important to really, and I'm gonna plug Jane's newsletter, but tap into what's going on now and what's coming, because if you are just leaning on resources or information, you know, from 5, 6, 7 years ago, that's just not the case anymore.

[00:29:03] Nicole Meier: And so it's really important to know what are my options? What are the publishing paths? What trends are happening? What's changing? How's AI affecting things? Because it really, in my mind, changes on a regular basis. 

[00:29:17] Jane Friedman: Yeah. Especially with ai, there is so much happening every single week, especially with publishers making deals with AI companies, or finally establishing AI policies.

[00:29:28] Jane Friedman: It's just there's always something new to discuss. 

[00:29:31] Nicole Meier: There is, there is. Well, I could talk to you about all of these topics for so long, but I know that your time is precious. So let's leave listeners with something that they can take away. I'm telling them they need to subscribe to your newsletter, but Jane, if you were to tell them, look, if you're looking to publish, whether it's indie or traditional or somewhere in between, here are maybe one or two resources or things that I would encourage you to keep an eye on.

[00:29:57] Nicole Meier: What would those be? 

[00:29:59] Jane Friedman: If you are looking at the traditional publishing market, I always recommend making publishers marketplace part of your education or research process if you're looking for an agent, I just think it's really invaluable to understand who the deal makers are, what the traditional industry is talking about and subscribing to that site, even though it's expensive, I think is worth every dime.

[00:30:23] Jane Friedman: Agreed. And then for independent authors, I would probably be taking a look at organizations and resources like Ally, the Alliance of Independent Authors, which does work similar to me, but it's just focused on the interests of self-publishing authors. So they have a newsletter and a podcast looking at issues.

[00:30:44] Jane Friedman: And there's also the Independent Book Publishers Association, the IBPA that does similar work. And draft to digital is one of the key distributors for self-publishing authors, and they have a really solid podcast and resources at their website. 

[00:31:00] Nicole Meier: Very helpful. Okay, and finally, let's remind people where they can find you, Jane.

[00:31:06] Jane Friedman: I'm at jane friedman.com. That's where you can find all my newsletters and education. 

[00:31:11] Nicole Meier: Great. Thank you so much for doing this. I know that people will be eager to listen and probably take notes, so it was great talking with you, Jane. Thank you. Thank you, Nicole. Okay, listeners, thank you so much and we'll see you next time on the Whole writer.

[00:31:31] Nicole Meier: If you want to check out my coaching programs for fiction writers, visit nicolemeier.com. That's M-E-I-E-R. And if you like this episode, I'd love you to take a minute to leave a rating and review for this podcast. This will help more writers like you to discover the show. And to get going on their writing journey.

[00:31:51] Nicole Meier: Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, happy writing everyone.