Aug 17, 2026 · 2 hr 3 min · 15 segments
Plus, new numbers in the industry, workbots to help with author work and a spicy zeitgeist take on how media is destroying women.
Thomas UmstattdHost
Jonathan ShuergerHost
And our leading story is Barnes & Noble is cracking down on local author events.
You've dreamed of sitting in front of the store at Barnes & Noble, and that dream may never become a reality, and that may not be a bad thing.
So according to Jane Friedman at the bottom line, Barnes & Noble stores nationwide received a corporate memo on how to handle local author events.
Friedman reports that stores hosted many local events in recent years, but they produced little profit.
One bookseller summarized the core instruction as a rejection of the practice that places a table at the front of the store and allows the author to approach passing customers.
In those cases, the local author gains foot traffic from the store without bringing extra customers of their own.
The new guidelines will require that stores should avoid front-of-store tables for local authors who lack a proven draw.
Events must generate additional customers rather than rely solely on existing store traffic.
So these kinds of awkward tables where a local author sits awkwardly at a table trying to get complete strangers to buy their book is awful.
99 out of 100 people would never buy your book because even if it was the most bestest book in your genre...
And so you have these authors who are trying to convince somebody to read a romance when they've never read a romance before in their life or a zombie book or a horror or a business nonfiction.
And our leading story is Barnes & Noble is cracking down on local author events.
You've dreamed of sitting in front of the store at Barnes & Noble, and that dream may never become a reality, and that may not be a bad thing.
So according to Jane Friedman at the bottom line, Barnes & Noble stores nationwide received a corporate memo on how to handle local author events.
Friedman reports that stores hosted many local events in recent years, but they produced little profit.
One bookseller summarized the core instruction as a rejection of the practice that places a table at the front of the store and allows the author to approach passing customers.
In those cases, the local author gains foot traffic from the store without bringing extra customers of their own.
The new guidelines will require that stores should avoid front-of-store tables for local authors who lack a proven draw.
Events must generate additional customers rather than rely solely on existing store traffic.
So these kinds of awkward tables where a local author sits awkwardly at a table trying to get complete strangers to buy their book is awful.
99 out of 100 people would never buy your book because even if it was the most bestest book in your genre...
And so you have these authors who are trying to convince somebody to read a romance when they've never read a romance before in their life or a zombie book or a horror or a business nonfiction.
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