The Ink Sink: Recent Episodes

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Hugo Awards’ scandal continues + What are the BookTok-ers angry about today?

(Please note that this episode was recorded before theaccusations around Neil Gaiman were published. If you or someone you know needs support, there are confidential resources here to help. Please take care of yourselves and remember that you are valued.)

Book buddies! Media maniacs! Fiction fiends! Anyone who wants to know just a little bit more about their favorite stories – and what’s next – welcome!

Follow, support, and yell at us wherever you’d like! Alllinks on our LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

Note: there is some cursing in this episode. Sometimes the chosen one has to nope out of an adventure with some strong language. And we support that.

Listener Feedback: Luna tackles Hugo

We spoke about the controversy around the Hugo Awards a few months ago. The back and forth hasn’t stopped, but our friend Luna took a deep dive and helped us out. So the Hugo Awards organizers seem to have pre-emptively excluded creators that they thought would not go over well at an awards ceremony in China… and forgotten that the rest of the world might have a problem with that? Whew, what a cluster.

If you found a better rabbit hole on a story we covered and want to tell us more, please do! Email us at InkSinkPodcast@gmail.com or reach out on our Facebook or Instagram, our DMs are open!

Also, how are you feeling about the Hugo Awards now? Let us know!

Diving into the news today:

• Follow Publisher’s Weekly’s “This Week inLibraries” newsletter: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/edition/libraries.html
• A Wired writer is big mad at “Fanbinders”for making a profit on other people’s work: https://www.wired.com/story/pull-to-publish-fanfic-senlinyu-manacled-fanbinding/
• From TikTok, this situation feels thesame, but legally it’s extremely different: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLJLgBkP/
• We talked about ARCs in Season 2: https://youtu.be/T_UFw1qwsVc
• Cozy fantasy gets some mainstream love: https://reactormag.com/coming-to-terms-with-cozy-fiction/
• Love T. Kingfisher? So do we! See some of herbooks on our recent reads list: https://bookshop.org/lists/what-we-re-reading-20648183-3934-47b4-aebd-e8457216d11f *

Celebrating marginalized peoples in publishing means we are all in on celebrating Ada Limon’s amazing achievement in being named one of Time’s Women of the Year for 2024. But also one of her poems is going to space!

Read with us!

• Mark of the Fool by J.M. Clarke is a cozyfantasy adventure that centers around a hero who has had quite enough of this, thank you. It isn’t available on Bookshop.org, but you can find it at your favorite store through Goodreads.
• Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur tore Annie’s heart out and then healed it back together. Now, you. *

• Annie’s also reading Mass Effect: The CompleteComics, because we’ve gotta keep it high and low out here. *

• Disclaimer: if you make a purchase from one of ouraffiliate links, we may earn a commission. But more importantly, Bookshop donates to small independent bookstores with every purchase. It hasraised over $32 million to date!

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It's National Poetry Month! In honor of Kali's favorite month, we are sharing one of her favorite episodes: Poems Make You Cry

We have an annotated transcript for this one up on our Substack, here: https://open.substack.com/pub/theinksink/p/poetry-words-and-rhythms-to-make

Scroll, shop, and chat with us wherever you'd like: https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

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Spotify’s audiobook service is here! But what does it meanfor independent authors? We dive into the publishing news. Plus, we celebrate two unsung women from history who finally get their due!

Warning: We swear in this episode. Leigh Bardugo’s protagonist has to put up with some bulls***.

You can support us and see our transcripts on our LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

Our sources for this episode:

• A breakdown of high fantasy and low fantasy fromBook Riot: https://bookriot.com/high-fantasy-vs-low-fantasy/
• Spotify boosts popular audiobooks: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/audio-books/article/94253-spotify-reports-exponential-audiobook-growth.html
• As the publishing industry digests Spotify's audiobooks program, independent authors notice the terms have shifted: https://writerbeware.blog/2024/02/19/outrage-over-new-terms-of-use-at-findaway-voices-forces-change/
• This sad but necessary story about what librarians have to put up with: https://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/story/School-and-Public-Librarians-describe-on-the-job-harassment-censorship
• Very cool new literature prize: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/04/books/inside-literary-prize.html
• A long-overdue congratulations to Hannah Bond, whom you can now read about in depth: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/14/books/hannah-crafts-biography-gregg-hecimovich.html
• Celebrations: Ángela Ruiz Robles invented an early e-reader: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/obituaries/angela-ruiz-robles-overlooked.html

Read the books we talked about in this episode: Disclaimer: If you purchase a book through one of our Bookshop links, we receive a commission. But more importantly, Bookshop also supports independent bookstores with every book sold. They’ve raised over $30 million so far!

• Harrow the Ninth: a devastating, dizzying book written in second person that Annie will love til her dying day: https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781250313218
• The Ninth House: dark academia meets gritty urban detective meets magic secret societies, it’s every bit as good as it sounds: https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781250751362

Chapters:

00:00 Intro03:35 Corrections corner06:37 Spotify boosts audiobooks, what’s it costing independent authors?15:52 Librarians are still dealing with bulls***19:29 A new literary prize for incarcerated people debuts22:22 Celebrating two amazing women who never got their due28:44 Annie is reading The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo35:28 Kali Koda – No, wait, it’s the outro

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We’re still on Goodreads, and we’re not ashamed. But the Hugo Awards are a P R O B L E M.

Join us for this week’s news as we dive into the latest from the world of books and reading.

This is our podcast for book nerds, fiction fiends, and lit witches! (NOT liches!)

Warning: There is some cursing in this episode. Annie * loves the Olympics.

Subscribe, support, and shop on our LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

Our sources for today’s show:

• Okay but just LOOK at T. Kingfisher’s cool book covers: https://bookshop.org/search?keywords=T.+Kingfisher
• Kali’s love for LeVar Burton means that we are HYPED: https://bookriot.com/butterfly-in-the-sky-reading-rainbow-documentary-coming-out/
• You can check out “LeVar Burton Reads,” the podcast where this man’s incredible voice is on full display: https://www.levarburtonpodcast.com/
• Smithsonian Magazine rounds up libraries’ most checked-out books of 2023: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-most-borrowed-books-from-public-libraries-in-2023-180983521/
• Some good news: 3 in 4 adults can discern real headlines from fake ones: https://journalistsresource.org/media/post-truth-fake-news-real-news/
• Parisian booksellers get to stick around during the Olympics! https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/14/world/europe/paris-olympics-booksellers.html
• Congress hears from the publishing industry on how AI will impact its future: https://pressgazette.co.uk/north-america/conde-nast-ceo-roger-lynch-ai-senate/
• What’s going on with the Hugo Awards: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/awards-and-prizes/article/94229-resignations-censures-follow-in-wake-of-hugo-awards-controversy.html
• A measured look at the "Goodreads situation": https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/17/god-forbid-that-a-dog-should-die-when-goodreads-reviews-go-bad
• Shondaland celebrates women making waves in publishing: https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/books/a45897413/these-women-represent-the-future-book-publishing-industry/
• Black women being awarded for unpublished manuscripts: https://publishingperspectives.com/2023/10/cassava-republic-a-30000-nonfiction-prize-for-black-women/

You can browse the books we talked about on our BookShop.Org page. We get a commission if you buy from our lists, but more importantly, BookShop supports independent bookstores with every purchase! They’ve raised over $30 million so far!

• Lessons in Chemistry, where a woman takes her science background to the masses through a cooking show (Bonnie Garmus): https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9780385547345
• I’m Glad My Mom Died, an account of a former child star (Jennette McCurdy): https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781982185824
• Spare, the buzzy memoir from Prince Harry the Duke of Sussex: https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9780593593806
• Fourth Wing, a book about dragons and the people who love them (Rebecca Yarros): https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781649374042
• Verity, the romance bestseller that’s been all over your FYP (Colleen Hoover): https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781538724736
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, a tale of two friends making a video game (Gabrielle Zevin): https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9780593321201
• Crush, a poetry collection about love and loss in a modern world (Richard Siken): https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9780300107890

Chapters

00:00 Welcome back!

03:34 Reading Rainbow documentary coming soon!

07:02 Americans’ favorite library books

09:30 Phew: We CAN spot fake news

12:57 Paris + Olympics: Bookselling Drama

15:50 Media is begging Congress to curb AI

21:16 Hugo Awards bowed to China

25:25 What is going on with Goodreads RN?

35:58 Celebrating the future of publishing and unpublished manuscripts from black women!

38:58 Kali is reading “Crush”

41:46 The Kali Coda

42:49 Thanks for listening!

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2023 was WILD (we do a recap today). That’s probably why we loved our cozy fantasy books last year (we tell you our favorites today, too).

Follow/support/see us on our LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

Warning: We swear a bit in this episode. As we said, 2023 was WILD.

Our sources for this episode:

• The independent romance author who faked her own death and then somehow things got worse? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/14/romance-novelist-faked-death-susan-meachen

• Book bans continued to come in hard in 2023: https://www.npr.org/2023/09/20/1200647985/book-bans-libraries-schools

• As of this writing, this is the latest in the Texan book-rating law: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/court-refuses-revive-texas-public-school-book-rating-law-2024-01-17/

• The Spine Collector, the spiritual impetus of this podcast, will be deported to a country that will have him: https://www.vulture.com/2023/03/book-thief-filippo-bernardini-gets-no-jail-time-deported.html

• We’re in a new era of digital content. Separately (?) we’re in a new era of AI. We unpack it here: https://theinksink.substack.com/p/buzzfeed-falls-and-ai-rises

• From WSJ: “Libraries Are the New Front Line in America’s Mental-Health Crisis” (https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/library-services-homeless-mental-health-e1f513b7)

• Dolly Parton, America’s gem, expands her Imagination Library: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/92981-dolly-parton-s-imagination-library-expands-national-reach.html

Want to pick up books from our storefront? You should! Bookshop.Org supports independent bookstores with every book sold. (Disclaimer: we also get a small commission when you buy from one of our links.)

• Camp Damascus, the story of a queer woman reclaiming her mind, her love, and her community (by Chuck Tingle): https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781250874627

• All We Can Save, essays from women around the world who offer hope and encouragement in the fight against climate change (edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson): https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9780593237083

• The Song of Achilles, a soulful, beautifully written retelling of the Iliad from the perspective of Patroclus as he fights for his love, Achilles (by Madeline Miller): https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9780062060624

• Beware of Chicken, cozy journey through a fantasy land with farming, roosters, and mystical quests (by Casualfarmer): https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781039448094

• Swordheart, the hijinks of a suburban widow and her mystical guardian as they travel through a wild fantasy world (by T. Kingfisher): https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781039448094

00:00 Welcome back to the Ink Sink!
03:22 Romance author says “JK, I’m alive!”
06:07 Book bans keep rolling
12:54 The Spine Collector Saga
16:59 The new world of digital news
23:38 Publishing jobs are growing
26:10 Librarians are bada**
30:42 Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library expands
32:00 Favorite books: Swordheart
34:03 Favorite books: Beware of Chicken
37:23 Favorite books: Song of Achilles and All We Can Save
41:58 Favorite books: Camp Damascus and Effin Birds
45:16 Looking forward to Season 3!
50:05 Thanks for listening!

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Enemies? Lovers? Marys? Sues?

It's time for part two of our Ink Sink Tropefest! This isthe second Holiday Replay episode for Season 2 as we prepare for Season 3!

Find out how to keep up with us and support the show here: https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

Warning: We curse in this episode. We have FEELINGS about internet trolls.

Listen to part one where we covered ⁠The Chosen One and the ThreeWitches⁠.

In this episode, we cover Annie's favorite trope: Enemies toLovers.

We also cover one of the most maligned tropes in fiction:The Mary Sue.

Check out our sources here:

• Some fan commentary from Reddit: ⁠https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/ue11mp/mary_sue_isnt_real_and_she_cannot_hurt_you/⁠
• Some fan commentary from Fansplaining: ⁠https://www.fansplaining.com/articles/mary-sue⁠
• An academic study into Mary Sue characters: ⁠http://www.merrycoz.org/papers/MARYSUE.xhtml⁠
• A history deep dive from Smithsonian Magazine:⁠https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/these-women-coined-term-mary-sue-180972182/⁠
• The TV Tropes wiki: ⁠https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue⁠
• Summary of the Epic of Gilgamesh: ⁠https://www.history.com/news/what-is-the-oldest-known-piece-of-literature⁠
• A master list of enemies-to-lovers TV couples: ⁠https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahmarder/best-tv-enemies-to-lovers-couples⁠

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AI apps are taking my newsfeed by storm. Things like Midjourney and DALL-E (which make images) and ChatGPT (which makes text) are everywhere. Schools, businesses, and freelancers are all grappling with how to handle it.There are some wins, some losses, and some questions in the publishing business.Our sources for this episode:- AI roundup from the Morning Brew: https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/ai-is-creating-problems-publishers-human-authors- CNET pauses AI-generated articles: https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/cnet-pauses-publishing-ai-written-stories-after-disclosure-controversy,241859- ChatGPT making fake citations: https://blogs.library.duke.edu/blog/2023/03/09/chatgpt-and-fake-citations/- BuzzFeed doubles down: https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/digital-journalism/buzzfeed-chatgpt/- We covered the end of BuzzFeed investigations last year: https://youtu.be/MNRec-TVk6Y- Another measured take on AI, from the business side: https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/drama-angst-and-potential-abuse-dark-side-of-ai-for-the-publishing-industry/- Breathtakingly annoying take on egg prices from WSJ: Just stop eating breakfast: https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/cpi-report-today-january-2023-inflation/card/to-save-money-maybe-you-should-skip-breakfast-fSd6mz0miaAPhUFb2jgy- BuzzFeed News shuts down: https://www.axios.com/2023/04/21/buzzfeed-news-digital-media- Vice News Tonight shuts down: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/27/media/vice-news-tonight-canceled/index.htmlFollow/Support/Learn from our LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

00:00 Welcome Back to the Ink Sink01:47 The AI Juggernaut14:08 Farewell BuzzFeed News15:56 Thanks for listening!

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Erotic cookbooks and romantic baking – finally we get to the meat of our cookbook obsession. (Okay, the puns stop here. We’re sorry.)

Kali and Annie dive down into the history of cookbooks and then they take a look at the erotic cookbooks of the 1970s and the ways that writers use food to set the stage in popular fiction.

This is the beginning of our series on cookbooks, we will absolutely do Part 2. So please send us your food literature obsessions to InkSinkPodcast@gmail.com.

Warning: There is cursing in this episode. Servants in the olden days had some sh** to deal with.

Some of our sources for this episode:

· The Folger Shakespeare Library’s exhibit on consumerismin London in the 1500s-1700s: https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Consuming_Splendor:_Luxury_Goods_in_England,_1580%E2%80%931680

· The History of Cookbooks and Where We Are Today,UCLAHCI https://eatwell.healthy.ucla.edu/2021/03/08/the-history-of-cookbooks-and-where-we-are-today/

· A cool look into early cookbooks: The Library ofCongress has a cookbook that was presented to Queen Elizabeth I, purporting tobe from 1390, published in the 1700s: https://www.loc.gov/item/44031282/

· Apropos of nothing: Here’s a horror movie aboutWinnie the Pooh that was made as soon as Pooh got into the public domain. We’repretty sure they did this just because they knew Disney couldn’t sue them forit? We are constantly in awe of the human race’s capacity for ridiculousthings! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19623240/

· Using cookbooks to study genealogy and localhistory: https://repository.ifla.org/bitstream/123456789/2793/1/s07-2023-brannock-en.pdf

· Food "fakelore" has been a part of cookbooks going back centuries: https://daily.jstor.org/the-fakelore-of-food-origins/

· A deep dive on cooking in anime: Why Anime About Food and Cooking Became So Popular: https://www.cbr.com/gourmet-anime-genre-about-food-cooking-eating-why-popular/

· Many cookbooks come from book packagers, which is a business you can hear more about in our episode about why you’re wrong about Goosebumps: https://theinksink.substack.com/p/book-packaging-why-youre-wrong-about

· And yes, of course, we have a link to Anime with Alvin – a show where a chef recreates dishes from anime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcLTe8MoAV4&list=PLopY4n17t8RAHz5OSGQP6I9z7UZqAZ4WW

· Check out Quincy’s Tavern and support fellow podcast creators! https://www.quincystavern.xyz/

· And check out some of the themed cookbooks we talked about here: https://bookshop.org/lists/pop-culture-takes-over-cookbooks

· Esquire's review of the 1961 Playboy cookbook: https://www.esquire.com/food-drink/a21050/playboy-cookbook-food-15268930/

· A history of erotic cookbooks from Eater: https://www.eater.com/23160117/erotic-cookbooks-history-sexuality-playboy

· What’s the Point of Food in Fiction? by Adam Gopnick: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/04/09/cooked-books

· "This Wizard of the Cooking Stove": How P.G. Wodehouse Contributed to the Field of Gastronomy Through Anatole, the French Chef, in the Jeeves-and-Wooster Series: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/ejfds/vol1/iss2/5/

· Romance Novels Are Increasingly Getting Hot and Heavy in the Kitchen by Bettina Makalintal: https://www.eater.com/23188870/summer-romance-novels-baking-cooking

Are you ready to diversify your kitchen? See our list of cookbooksby marginalized authors here! https://bookshop.org/lists/diversify-your-kitchen

00:00 Welcome Back!01:32 Corrections Corner03:11 We’re Talking About Cookbooks!06:37 The History of Writing Down Food Stuff18:48 Where Do the Ladies Fit In?23:26 Pop Culture Takes Over 31:33 Time for Some Erotic Cookbooks40:12 Food in Romance and Pop Fiction46:27 Kali Coda47:06 Thanks for Listening!

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This week, we’re looking through trends, tools, and new words!

Warning: We do curse in this episode. We amuse the s*** out of each other.

Stalk us wherever you scroll: https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

Notes:

• Friends clip of Phoebe getting sick and having a sexy voice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXBOQAkrHAo
• The episode of Freakonomics on how horrible meetings are: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/season-9-episode-20
• New words from Dictionary.com: https://www.dictionary.com/e/new-dictionary-words-fall-2023/
• A viral roundup of famous nepo babies from Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/article/what-is-a-nepotism-baby.html
• Our episode on the rise of AI in digital media: https://youtu.be/icUnI1AgL1A
• Jordan Peterson adds another problematic thing to his list of problematic things: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/01/society-of-authors-calls-use-of-bad-reviews-for-book-blurbs-morally-questionable
• In our episode on the “fall” of English majors, we talked about a bookstore that was sticking it to haters by printing one-star reviews on t-shirts: https://youtu.be/T_UFw1qwsVc
• Read the article from Vulture that’s getting the bookish corners of the internet to roll their eyes: https://www.vulture.com/article/fanfic-romance-reylo-publishing-trend.html
• Elsewhere, Mashable rounds up some novels featuring social media: https://mashable.com/article/tech-fiction-books-novels-sillicon-valley-startups
• Millie Bobby Brown wrote a book. Or did she? https://todayinbooks.substack.com/p/millie-bobby-browns-novel-isnt-great

And if you have any funny publishing stories or meeting stories to share with us, please do! Email us at InkSinkPodcast@gmail.com.

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Fall down the rabbit hole with us as we figure out how to tell if what we see on the internet is true. Plus, we hunt the bushes for Wikipedia editors (and Batman).

You can follow, subscribe, and support us here: https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

Warning: We swear in this episode. We REALLY don't like online misinformation.

Some of our sources:

• Our episode on fact-checking: https://youtu.be/c-eS6lS584w
• Be careful about journal studies. There are best practices for looking at those: https://journalistsresource.org/health/two-studies-examine-preprints/
• Some journalists don’t look at peer-reviewed scholarly work for their stories: https://journalistsresource.org/home/user-survey-journalists-research-habits/
• Ground News: https://ground.news/
• The Associated Press: https://apnews.com/
• AI fact-checking tools from Journalism Tools: https://journaliststoolbox.ai/ai-fact-checking-tools/
• Tineye: https://services.tineye.com/

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What is behind the “good guy” trend in romance novels? We’ll tell you who Fabio blamed on Fox News. Yes. Fabio. On Fox News.We want to hear from you about it. DM us or leave a comment on your favorite podcast app: https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcastWarning, we use strong language in this episode. We have big feelings about social media browsers.This week’s sources:•Fabio goes on Fox News to rant about healthy relationships in modern romance. Guess what, blame Biden! https://themessenger.com/entertainment/fabio-the-book-cover-italian-stallion-thinks-the-publishing-industrys-portrayal-of-masculinity-is-hogwash-he-couldnt-be-more-wrong•Unexpected uses for AI: cutting through people’s biases: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/24/books/old-books-out-of-print-open-road.html•Totally expected uses for AI: Creating fraudulent books: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/09/amazon-removes-books-generated-by-ai-for-sale-under-authors-name•This year’s Digital News Report had some interesting insights: https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/5-publisher-insights-from-the-reuters-digital-news-report-2023/•Celebrating marginalized peoples in publishing: Congrats to all our comic faves! https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/trade-shows-events/article/92839-beaton-liu-takeda-win-graphic-novel-eisners.htmlIf you want to support marginalized peoples in publishing, we recommend buying their books! You can check out our book lists here: https://bookshop.org/shop/theinksink--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-ink-sink/messageSupport this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-ink-sink/support

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Welcome back! This week, we dig into some existential book problems: book bans and book excess. How do all these issues affect diverse voices? We’ll talk about it.

Warning: Annie curses in this episode, she can't pronounce "horror."

Our sources for this episode:

· Pritzker (who doesn’t have a starched collar) officially signed a law to force librariesto comply with new regulations that should make it harder to ban books: https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/12/us/illinois-public-libraries-schools-book-bans/index.html

· Responses from some librarians: https://www.news-gazette.com/arts-entertainment/town-hall-should-state-cut-off-funding-to-those-who-ban-books-local-librarians-weigh/article_3df07d1b-c3fb-5f89-ac23-55241797a645.html

· Meanwhile, media jobs being cut left and right: https://www.axios.com/2023/06/13/media-job-cuts-record

· Our episode on the new era of digital media: https://theinksink.substack.com/p/buzzfeed-falls-and-ai-rises

· Book jobs aren’t safe either: https://fortune.com/2023/07/18/penguin-random-house-buyouts-editors-book-publishing-layoffs/

· One major problem with the book business: excess and lack of planning: https://news.yahoo.com/photo-publishing-company-pile-brand-040000727.html

· KKR buys S&S: https://slate.com/business/2023/08/simon-schuster-kkr-private-equity-publishing-consolidation.html

· Our episode on the slow death of local news: https://youtu.be/wXKAPMCHx_E

We recommend supporting diverse authors by buying their books! Here are some collections:

· Books by trans authors (from The Mary Sue): https://bookshop.org/lists/books-by-trans-authors-the-mary-sue

· Books by breakout Latina authors (from Refinery29): https://bookshop.org/lists/books-by-breakout-latina-authors-r29

Follow/Listen/Watch/Troll:https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

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This week, we talk about good news out of bookstores andstudent newspapers. Plus, what’s up with publishers versus libraries?

Warning, we do some cursing in this episode. Small dogs canbe VERY violent.

Check us out on FB/IG/YT: https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

• Some good news: more bookstores! https://lithub.com/good-news-there-are-more-bookstores-in-the-us-this-year-than-last

• The ongoing Internet Archive debate: “Informationwants to be free” or “information wants to be profitable” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/13/business/media/internet-archive-emergency-lending-library.html

• Heck yes, student newspapers! https://mailchi.mp/poynter/3m735bk8za?e=e5489eccb5

• At this point, they're trolling us, right? https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/92897-judge-finds-revived-amazon-e-book-monopoly-suit-should-proceed.html

• The new president of poetry: https://lithub.com/the-academy-of-american-poets-has-named-its-first-latino-president/

• Dolly expands her Imagination Library with newcommitments from Alabama and Washington: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/92981-dolly-parton-s-imagination-library-expands-national-reach.html

Check out the books we talked about this week*:

• Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle: https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781250874627

• Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir: https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781250313225

• Yellowface by R. F. Kuang: https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9780063250833

• Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda: https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781632157096

• If you buy a book from one of our links, we earn a commission. But more importantly, a portion of every purchase through Bookshop.org goes to support independent bookstores. Thank you!

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Books like Gossip Girl, Goosebumps, and Star Wars novelizations all come from the same industry. Today, we dive into the controversial “book packaging” business. But first, you can subscribe, support, and snoop on us wherever you get your socials and podcasts! https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast Warning, we do some cursing in this episode. We talk about things you should NOT say to an eight-year-old. Our sources for this episode: 

Oh yes, the Two of a Kind books were real. With titles like “How to Flunk Your First Date,” how could eight-year-old Annie resist? https://www.fictiondb.com/series/mary-kate-and-ashley-two-of-a-kind~15612.htm

A brief look at how James Patterson runs his factory: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/10711191/James-Patterson-how-the-bestseller-factory-works.html

If you want to know more about Kaavya Viswanathan and her disastrous deal with Alloy (plus a good dive into predatory contracts), you can listen to this episode of the Missing Pages podcast: https://podglomerate.com/shows/missing-pages/kaavya-viswanathan-the-untold-story/

Our AI episode has some good information on the possible future of freelance-written books: https://theinksink.substack.com/p/buzzfeed-falls-and-ai-rises

John Barlow described his failed attempt at becoming a writer for a book packager in an article he published in Slate in 2006 when Kaavya Viswanathan was first everyone’s darling, and then a cautionary tale against plagiarism.: https://web.archive.org/web/20120128044104/http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2006/04/i_coulda_been_a_pretender.html

In an article published by the International Herald Tribune in 2006, Motoko Rich and Dinitia Smith also discussed the scandal and added a little more context around book packaging and the company that worked with that young author: https://web.archive.org/web/20070127045606/http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/27/news/pack.php

A more recent article in Bustle from 2017 seconds the direct comparison to workshopping ideas in a writers' room for movies and traditional authoring:  https://www.bustle.com/p/what-is-book-packaging-its-ideal-career-path-for-ambitious-readers-66339

An interview with Matt Baehr, Executive Director of the Book Manufacturing Institute, in which he discusses why publishers use book packagers, and it’s essentially the reason any major group outsources: specialty work that they don’t have, nor desire to have, an in-house team for: https://whattheythink.com/video/115149-trends-book-manufacturing/

So what are the issues with BP? Sabaa Tahir in Anonymous Author breaks down some of them, and it’s largely the same sort of issue you might have read about in (again) the film industry. https://sabaatahir.medium.com/anonymous-author-2da5e017d3a6

The NYT published a piece as an obit of Paul Steiner, an immigrant who opened Chanticleer Press, regarded as the first book packager in the United States, as a branch of a London-based packaging company: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/11/nyregion/paul-steiner-who-popularized-coffee-table-books-dies-at-83.html

Chanticleer Press published its first book in 1807, according to Open Library: https://openlibrary.org/publishers/Chanticleer_Press

Annika Barranti Klein with Book Riot dug into the history in an article from July 2022: https://bookriot.com/the-stratemeyer-syndicate/

Of the first four Nancy Drew novels, which have gone on to sell more than 70 million copies according to Penguin Random House: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/NAD/nancy-drew

You won’t find more from this particular packager because following the death of the Stratemeyer immediate family, it was ultimately sold to Simon & Schuster. https://abpaonline.org/find-book-producer/

Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/inksinkpodcast#checkoutModal Check out all the books we talk about on our Bookshop page: https://bookshop.org/shop/theinksink

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Watch a viral TikTok showing Brennan Lee Mulligan (a popular D&D YouTuber and “internet boyfriend”) roleplaying as an anarchist goblin: https://www.tiktok.com/@emmaeditsvids/video/7228356808497384746

The new D&D movie is surprisingly good: https://kotaku.com/dungeons-and-dragons-movie-review-budget-easter-eggs-1850294824

Just because it makes me happy: Here’s the classic scene from Aliens where Vasquez wakes up from cryo sleep and starts doing pullups: https://youtu.be/Cb8bqidtzzo

While we’re on the topic ­– check out Web of Make Believe: Death, Lies, and the Internet on Netflix. The season finale has hackers recounting their adventures, including one hacker’s roundabout way of doing research with his lawyer: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21029130/

And finally, here are the news articles we referenced in this episode:

• Authors supporting each other: https://lithub.com/whats-going-on-with-all-the-empty-author-signing-pics/

• PRH and PEN go after book banner in Florida: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/92322-pen-america-penguin-random-house-sue-florida-school-district-over-unconstitutional-book-bans.html

• Texas judge ordered books returned to a library in April: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/91903-judge-finds-texas-library-s-book-bans-unconstitutional-orders-books-returned.html

• Some hard numbers on book bans: https://publishingperspectives.com/2023/03/ala-book-bannings-in-the-usa-broke-all-records-in-2022/

• The week in libraries from Publishers Weekly: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/index.html

• Internet Archive loses its case: https://publishingperspectives.com/2023/03/copyright-us-court-rules-against-internet-archive/

• In other legal cases: Dominion settles with Fox News. This matters for defamation cases in general: https://mailchi.mp/poynter/gyhd1w8glz?e=e5489eccb5

• South Asian translated books getting their due: https://publishingperspectives.com/2023/03/the-salt-program-focuses-on-translating-south-asian-literature/

If you were interested in any of the books we recommended, you can check them out here:

• Minor Mage by T. Kingfisher*: https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781614505006

• Swordheart by T. Kingfisher*: https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781614505228

• The Mincing Mockingbird Guide to Troubled Birds, which you can see on its publisher's site here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/316490/the-mincing-mockingbird-guide-to-troubled-birds-by-mockingbird-the-mincing/

• We get a commission when someone buys a book from one of our lists. But more importantly, Bookshop supports small independent bookstores with every purchase. They've raised over $27 million for small bookstores so far!

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Warning: This episode contains discussions of transphobia and racism.

This episode also contains cursing. Because some of these people are just s*** bags.

See all our transcripts, support us on Ko-Fi, and shop our book lists here: https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

Our sources for this week’s show:

• Warner Brothers developing a new Harry Potter series: https://deadline.com/2023/04/harry-potter-tv-series-max-release-date-cast-1235323284/
• Recent controversy surrounding old Dr. Seuss books: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/04/books/dr-seuss-books.html
• Robin James writing in the Journal of Popular Music Studies: Feminist responses to the “can we separate artwork from artist” question in the era of #MeToo popular feminism: https://online.ucpress.edu/jpms/article/32/4/75/114312/Must-Be-Love-On-The-Brain-Feminist-responses-to
• Phillip Deen writing in Studies in American Humor: Separating the Art From the Artist in Stand-Up Comedy: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/studamerhumor.5.2.0288
• Fansplaining episode on writing trans characters: https://www.fansplaining.com/episodes/166-writing-trans-characters

The last time we published this episode, we received questions on where people could go to educate themselves about some of the problematic public figures we talked about. We’ve gathered some sources into a list below.

Warning: THIS LIST CONTAINS TRANSPHOBIA, NAZISM, RACISM, HOMOPHOBIA, ANTISEMITISM, SEXISM, SEXUAL ASSAULT, AND ABUSE.

• Vox gives a timeline of Rowling’s comments and actions around trans people (with links included so that you can read her statements and judge for yourself): https://www.vox.com/culture/23622610/jk-rowling-transphobic-statements-timeline-history-controversy
• (Not the thread Annie was reading at the time, but still comprehensive) Historian’s discussion of Lovecraft’s white supremacist views: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hpgbgy/h_p_lovecrafts_racism_and_views_on_white/
• From 2013, Salon gathers links to sources for Orson Scott Card’s comments on gay people (again, with links, so you can judge for yourself): https://www.salon.com/2013/05/07/sci_fi_icon_orson_scott_card_hates_fan_fiction_the_homosexual_agenda_partner/
• German composer Richard Wagner’s antisemitism entry in the Encyclopedia Brittanica: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Wagner-German-composer/Wagners-anti-Semitism
• Tippi Hedren accuses Alfred Hitchcock of assault: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/oct/31/tippi-hedren-alfred-hitchcock-sexually-assaulted-me
• The Southern Poverty Law Center’s discussion guide on sexism in the civil rights movement: https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/sexism-in-the-civil-rights-movement-a-discussion-guide
• A measured look at Gandhi’s history and legacy: https://www.npr.org/2019/10/02/766083651/gandhi-is-deeply-revered-but-his-attitudes-on-race-and-sex-are-under-scrutiny

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See all our platforms on our LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

Plus, see our brand new Ko-Fi page: https://ko-fi.com/inksinkpodcast

The books we talked about in this episode*:

• Fictitious Dishes by Dinah Fried: ⁠https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9780062279835⁠

Our sources for this episode:

• Some delicious lit to start us off: https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/04/16/fictitous-dishes-dinah-fried-book/

• Our episode on fact-checking: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/daBYHmy6BAb

• Independent bookstore employees attended a panel on how they deal with these things: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/91643-wi2023-booksellers-respond-to-book-challenges-and-bans.html

• The state of North Dakota is planning to pass some very vague laws with lots of concerning language that is meant to ban depictions of sex in books in the state: https://bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/north-dakota-lawmakers-advance-book-ban-bills-targeting-sexual-material/article_69969032-ae04-11ed-a3bb-9feda3bb0e30.html
• National Sexuality Education Standards: Core Content and Skills: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED528427
• In Wyoming, state politicians push back: https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/politics-government/2023-02-23/in-mountain-west-statehouses-conservative-lawmakers-push-to-censor-books-in-schools-libraries
• Illinois governor stands up for books: https://bookriot.com/politicians-need-to-address-book-bans/
• The Spine Collector avoids jail time, still faces $80k in fines and deportation: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/23/books/filippo-bernardini-unpublished-manuscripts-deported.html
• More from the ChatGPT debate: ⁠https://countercraft.substack.com/p/the-flood-of-chatgpt-crap-about-to⁠
• Adam Conover on AI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro130m-f_yk
• The Ozy execs are headed to prison: https://www.wsj.com/articles/ozy-media-ceo-carlos-watson-arrested-after-a-former-executive-pleads-guilty-to-fraud-355e9f89

• The original Ozy saga: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/26/business/media/ozy-media-goldman-sachs.html

• Disclaimer: We earn a commission when you buy a book from one of our Bookshop.Org lists. But more importantly, Bookshop.Org supports independent bookstores with every purchase, with over $26 million raised so far!

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We're bringing back one of our favorites from the archive. Are you seeing Dracula in your feed all of a sudden?

Enter Matt Kirkland and Dracula Daily -- a free newsletter that sends you dispatches from the classic novel.

We tackle how all this started, how wonderful the memes are, and what we want to see next.

Our sources:

Link to the substack: https://draculadaily.substack.com/about

Slate interview: https://slate.com/culture/2022/05/dracula-daily-bram-stoker-book-newsletter-jonathan-harker.html

Dumb Cuneiform: https://dumbcuneiform.com/#faq

Know Your Meme doing the lords work and tracking down dates: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/dracula-daily

Socks thread: https://cheezburger.com/10036229/beautiful-story-of-socks-finding-her-forever-home-twitter-thread

Recommendations from our survey respondents:

Infinity Train: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8146754/

The Owl House: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8050756/

Les Mis Daily: https://lesmisdaily.substack.com/

Frankenstein Weekly: https://frankweekly.substack.com/

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Today's sponsor is Kevin! He wants to remind you about books -- read 'em!

If you'd like to sponsor us, you can reach out at InkSinkPodcast@gmail.com.

Please direct any feedback for Kali to Annie's mailbox. This is the burden she's taken on herself.

Read the best of Ogden Nash, now on our "Hater's Guide to Poetry" list! (https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781566637039)

Our news sources for today's episode:

• The story of Chuck Tingle from Vox: https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/10/18/12775742/who-is-chuck-tingle-fake-explained
• The book Camp Damascus, the new YA title from Tingle and Nightfire: https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781250874627
• We talked about Tingle in Season 1, Episode 5: Banned Books Bash: https://youtu.be/gKLSxBhA6XA
• Tingle's announcement with Nightfire on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChuckTingle/status/1550665547917824000
• Our segment on how authors make money (or don't): https://youtu.be/VtYyJobee2Y?t=1019
• Breakdown of ARC controversies from Counter Craft: https://countercraft.substack.com/p/publishing-numbers-big-and-small
• Bookstore sticks it to the haters: https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=4427&share=true#m59269
• Trans support at NYT hits a roadblock: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/02/new-york-times-trans-coverage-debate
• Interview with the letter's writers: https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/news-brief-the-battle-over-nyts-lurid-tabloid-coverage-of-trans-issues
• English departments in peril? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/the-end-of-the-english-major
• Bonus link for Dollywood's recycling system: ⁠https://www.wvlt.tv/content/news/Why-is-there-no-recycling-bins-at-Dollywood-565103962.html⁠
• "What can you do with a BA in English?": https://youtu.be/fWw1gNrCwi8

Marginalized people kicking butt in publishing!

• The inaugural class of the women's prize for nonfiction: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/10/why-we-need-womens-prize-for-nonfiction
• Stirred Stories gets a write-up in WaPo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/01/28/stirred-stories-publishing-diversity/
• Fantastic (relatively) new column from “Dorthea,” supporting book lovers in need: https://lithub.com/story-type/life-advice-for-book-lovers/

Bookshop.Org doesn't have The Mincing Mockingbird Guide to Troubled Birds, but you can see it on its publisher's site here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/316490/the-mincing-mockingbird-guide-to-troubled-birds-by-mockingbird-the-mincing/

But you can see everything else we're reading here: https://bookshop.org/lists/what-we-re-reading-20648183-3934-47b4-aebd-e8457216d11f

All You Can Save collection here: https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9780593237083

Support us, follow us, and see all our transcripts at our LinkTree! https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

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AI apps are taking my newsfeed by storm. Things like Midjourney and DALL-E (which make images) and ChatGPT (which makes text) are everywhere. Schools, businesses, and freelancers are all grappling with how to handle it.

There are some wins, some losses, and some questions in the publishing business.

Our sources for this episode:

• AI roundup from the Morning Brew: https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/ai-is-creating-problems-publishers-human-authors
• CNET pauses AI-generated articles: https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/cnet-pauses-publishing-ai-written-stories-after-disclosure-controversy,241859
• ChatGPT making fake citations: https://blogs.library.duke.edu/blog/2023/03/09/chatgpt-and-fake-citations/
• BuzzFeed doubles down: https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/digital-journalism/buzzfeed-chatgpt/
• We covered the end of BuzzFeed investigations last year: https://youtu.be/MNRec-TVk6Y
• Another measured take on AI, from the business side: https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/drama-angst-and-potential-abuse-dark-side-of-ai-for-the-publishing-industry/
• Breathtakingly annoying take on egg prices from WSJ: Just stop eating breakfast: https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/cpi-report-today-january-2023-inflation/card/to-save-money-maybe-you-should-skip-breakfast-fSd6mz0miaAPhUFb2jgy
• BuzzFeed News shuts down: https://www.axios.com/2023/04/21/buzzfeed-news-digital-media
• Vice News Tonight shuts down: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/27/media/vice-news-tonight-canceled/index.html

Follow/Support/Learn from our LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

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Join Kali and listen to our podcast on YouTube!

If you listen to us on iTunes, as a heads up, Apple is the only service that charges us to put up our podcast. If you'd like to help us keep our show free on iTunes, you can support us on Spotify, Substack, or LinkTree.

If you loved our poetry episode (so many of you did!) you can check out the transcript, which has all of the poems Kali talked about. And you can check out her favorite poetry books on our Bookshop.Org list.*

Our sources for this episode:

• Why did we go apes* for The DaVinci Code? A historian answers.
• The FBI was spying on your library checkouts.
• The New York Times interviews a school librarian at the heart of a book-banning debate.
• The Harper Collins workers union has reached an agreement with management.
• T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon breaks down how much bestselling authors can expect to make.
• Contributors to the NYT want the paper to do better by trans folks.
• The Cambridge Dictionary updated its definition of "woman."

Celebrating women and minorities in publishing:

• Julia A. Reidhead will be the new chair of the Association of American Publishers.
• Four breakout Latina authors sat down with Refinery29 to talk about their experiences in publishing.

Check out the books we talked about this week*:

• Books by breakout Latina authors
• Kali continues her saga with Gideonand Harrow the Ninth
• But she's crushing on the new T. Kingfisher book: Nettle and Bone
• She also recommends Kingfisher's Swordheart
• Annie loves all these books, but she hasn't read any other books in their series-es
• She's also reading The Library Book

Listen, watch, read, and follow us with the links in our LinkTree!

• We get a commission when someone buys a book from one of our lists. But more importantly, Bookshop supports small independent bookstores with every purchase. They've raised over $25 million for small bookstores so far!

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Time for part two of our Ink Sink Tropefest!

Listen to part one where we covered The Chosen One and the Three Witches.

In this episode, we cover Annie's favorite trope: Enemies to Lovers.

We also cover one of the most maligned tropes in fiction: The Mary Sue.

Check out our sources here:

Some fan commentary from Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/ue11mp/mary_sue_isnt_real_and_she_cannot_hurt_you/

Some fan commentary from Fansplaining: https://www.fansplaining.com/articles/mary-sue

An academic study into Mary Sue characters: http://www.merrycoz.org/papers/MARYSUE.xhtml

A history deep dive from Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/these-women-coined-term-mary-sue-180972182/

The TV Tropes wiki: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue

Summary of the Epic of Gilgamesh: https://www.history.com/news/what-is-the-oldest-known-piece-of-literatureA master list of enemies-to-lovers TV couples: https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahmarder/best-tv-enemies-to-lovers-couples

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This week's news is full of questions, and we're diving deep.

Follow us on social media and see our transcripts here: https://linktr.ee/inksinkpodcast

Heard of the Icelandic Book Flood? Here's a deep dive: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/icelands-christmas-book-flood-is-a-force-of-nature-180981293/

Book ban update: foundations giving more money to help libraries buy books: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/91016-we-need-diverse-books-launches-bookssavelives-initiative-against-censorship.html

Social Book clubs: still a thing: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/dec/12/legally-bookish-reese-witherspoon-and-the-boom-in-celebrity-book-clubs

E-book price fixing lawsuit is back, for how long? https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/91089-amazon-publishers-seek-to-knock-out-revived-e-book-price-fixing-suit.html

Shadow Libraries Fought the law, but the law won: https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2022/december/in-the-shadow-library

The TikTok rumor mill blames influencers for the FBI's attention, but that seems unlikely: https://www.vulture.com/2022/12/booktoks-busy-year-plagiarism-period-drama-and-more.html

A great overview of the AI conversation as it stands today: https://countercraft.substack.com/p/the-only-sure-thing-with-ai-is-writing

Another wrinkle in the AI question, who owns the content it creates? https://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2022/12/21/who-ultimately-owns-content-generated-by-chatgpt-and-other-ai-platforms/

And in poetry: Are poems in the eyes of the beholder? https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/can-ai-write-authentic-poetry/

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Yes, Kali will make Annie cry today. 

Check out the books we cover at our Bookshop storefront: https://bookshop.org/shop/theinksink

If you buy a book from one of our Bookshop lists, we may get a commission. But more importantly, Bookshop will donate a portion of the sale to a local independent bookstore. Support your local stores today!

Our episode on what you can do with a BA in English: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/PNJlUb8BExb

Thanks for listening!

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WELCOME BACK TO SEASON TWO!

Holy shit, we're more than one person's favorite podcast on spotify! We started this last year because we just love this shit. We really appreciate all our supporters, you've made us feel like we can do this and you'll listen. We love you all so much.

Season Two is going to be LIT.

Some levity to start us off: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/books/review/literary-dinner-parties.html

Year-end roundup: https://lithub.com/the-10-biggest-literary-stories-of-the-year-2/

A look at the data from the NYC publishing business: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/financial-reporting/article/91028-new-report-finds-nyc-publishing-bookselling-jobs-fell-between-2010-and-2020.html

It's not just book publishing, mag publishing struggling too: Literary magazines struggle, taking much of the old-school writing world with them: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/03/books/astra-magazine.html

In the UK, women and minorities make much less as authors. But even worse, authors across all demographics are making less and less: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/dec/06/writers-earnings-have-plummeted-with-women-black-and-mixed-race-authors-worst-hit

In the midst of this: Harper Collins Employees strike for pay and respect: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/books/harpercollins-strike.html

Follow the latest on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hcpunion

Independent bookseller good news: https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=4381&share=true#m58567

Women and minorities killin it in publishing:

Missing Pages, a podcast about literary scandals, wrapped its first season: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/22/missing-pages-podcast-bethanne-patrick-interview-book-scandals

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Flashback to our very first episode! We started off spicy, diving into the "own voices" movement and its nuances. 

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We've all opened our phones to the news that our favorite author/artist/hero is actually a massive problem of a person.

What's a nerd to do?

Kali and Annie dive into separating the art from the artist.

Some of our sources may be paywalled, heads up!

Journal of Popular Music Studies: https://online.ucpress.edu/jpms/article/32/4/75/114312/Must-Be-Love-On-The-Brain-Feminist-responses-to

Studies in American Humor: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/studamerhumor.5.2.0288

[Check out our Bookshop page for our favorite books! https://bookshop.org/shop/theinksink]

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Whimsy! Art! History! Listen to this replay of Episode 6: The Rise of Manga in the U.S.

Sources: 

Casey Brienza, Publishing Research Quarterly (2009), Books, Not Comics: Publishing Fields, Globalization, and Japanese Manga in the United States: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-009-9114-2

Toni Johnson-Woods, "Manga: An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives": https://worldcat.org/formats-editions/676700636

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Why are you seeing Dracula in your feed all of a sudden?

Enter Matt Kirkland and Dracula Daily -- a free newsletter that sends you dispatches from the classic novel.

We tackle how all this started, how wonderful the memes are, and what we want to see next.

Our sources:

Link to the substack: https://draculadaily.substack.com/about

Slate interview: https://slate.com/culture/2022/05/dracula-daily-bram-stoker-book-newsletter-jonathan-harker.html

Dumb Cuneiform: https://dumbcuneiform.com/#faq

Know Your Meme doing the lords work and tracking down dates: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/dracula-daily

Socks thread: https://cheezburger.com/10036229/beautiful-story-of-socks-finding-her-forever-home-twitter-thread

Recommendations from our survey respondents:

Infinity Train: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8146754/

The Owl House: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8050756/

Les Mis Daily: https://lesmisdaily.substack.com/

Frankenstein Weekly: https://frankweekly.substack.com/

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The kids refuse to back down, and we couldn't be prouder.

Check out our Bookshop page: https://bookshop.org/shop/theinksink

We usually see the other end of this, but here’s one where men answer the question women get often: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMen/comments/wvecz1/what_is_something_women_who_write_male_characters/

Amid the deprioritization of news on FB, small U.S. news sources band together to start negotiating for bargaining power on Google and FB: https://pressgazette.co.uk/journalism-competition-and-preservation-act-2/

In the saga of FB moving away from news: the news tab is losing its humans: https://pressgazette.co.uk/facebook-news-tab-uk-automated/

Journalists/news orgs weigh in on the twitter drama: https://pressgazette.co.uk/twitter-blue-tick-journalists-publishers/

Local high school paper grapples with community censorship: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/a-school-paused-its-student-newspaper-after-an-lgbtq-pride-issue

Since ads are so important to the publishing industry, we always have to keep one eye on the marketing trends.

These news CEOs talked in the UK about how the advertisers seem to be averse to real news: https://pressgazette.co.uk/ad-blocklists-reach-buzzfeed/

This article made a splash and shows exactly how marketing is broken right now: https://www.wired.com/story/bots-online-advertising/

New imprint from Disney focusing on Black joy : https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/90838-kwame-mbalia-to-head-new-imprint-for-disney.html

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Research is in crisis. What can we do?

We do a deep dive into the problems with the journal publishing industry.

Our sources this week:

The Sokal Hoax: https://www.chronicle.com/article/bait-and-switch/

One solution to the preprint crisis: encouraging public comment to add context: https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2022/02/28/guest-post-preprint-feedback-is-here-lets-make-it-constructive-and-fast/

Journal publisher thinking about free access: "is this anything?" https://publishingperspectives.com/2022/04/academic-edition-annual-reviews-opens-journals-on-subscribe-to-open/

What happens when open access scholarship turns into stolen work? https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2021/07/08/what-happens-when-you-find-your-open-access-phd-thesis-for-sale-on-amazon/

• Support trans authors on Bookshop! https://bookshop.org/lists/books-by-trans-authors-the-mary-sue

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One of our favorite months, plus, Annie took a field trip. Listen now!

This week's sources:

List of books by trans authors (from the Mary Sue): https://bookshop.org/lists/books-by-trans-authors-the-mary-sue

NaNoWriMo coming up! https://store.nanowrimo.org/pages/your-impact

This list is from 2020, but still good: Nonprofits supporting literacy: https://bookriot.com/literacy-charities/

Judge blocks PRH/S&S Merger: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/books/penguin-random-house-simon-schuster.html

Our previous coverage on the PRH/S&S merger:

Industry observers talking about the trial hearings: News: We Want S* Batman

The trial hearings themselves: Midnight Releases and Publishing Drama | Episode 16 | The Ink Sink

We talked about the hearing being set in a rapid-fire news section: Episode 3: The Spine Collector

Federal open access mandate gets its teeth filed: https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2022/10/13/thoughts-and-observations-on-the-ostp-responses-to-our-interview-questions/

We had celebrated the announcement when it was made public: News: We Want S* Batman

The 12th GW Ethics in Publishing Conference: https://gwpress.manifoldapp.org/projects/12th-gw-ethics-in-publishing-conference

Nobel prize goes to Annie Ernaux: https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=4333&share=true#m57844

See Harrow the Ninth and the art of the game Okami on our Bookshop list: https://bookshop.org/lists/what-we-re-reading-20648183-3934-47b4-aebd-e8457216d11f

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One of our frequently asked questions: If you're passionate about books and reading, how can you translate that into a career?

Or, as they asked in Avenue Q, what do you do with a BA in English?

If you're interested in business analysis certifications, you can read more about those here. 

We can't link to the editorial presentation on reading and writing skills in other industries, but you can look at other webinars from the Society for Editors Academy here. 

And if you have any topics you'd like us to cover, please email us at InkSinkPodcast@gmail.com. 

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Batman will be coming out of copyright in the 2030s, we speculate on what a public domain dark knight would look like. Also, that segment turns into a plea to support AO3. We're not mad about it?

Today's sources:

A good look at some of the copyrighted works expiring soon and what culture could look like in the future: https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/what-expiring-copyright-protections-mean-for-our-media-landscape/

Heartbreaking and hard to read, but necessary: https://californiahealthline.org/news/article/librarians-workplace-changing-social-work/

We won't have a verdict in the DOJ vs PRH/S&S trail for a bit, but NYT summed up some of the takeaways: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/books/prh-penguin-random-house-trial.html

Takeaways from some other industry observers: https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/xewyw7/discussion_how_is_everyone_handling_the_proposed/

Research is about to get a lot cheaper, will it solve the journal crisis? https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-historic-moment-new-guidance-requires-federally-funded-research-to-be-open-access

Inflation and paper costs hit publishers hard: https://trends.spiny.ai/print-price-hikes/

Our Bookshop page: https://bookshop.org/shop/theinksink

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You asked, we listened!

We're doing our very first book-to-screen episode on Stardust: booksby Neil Gaiman, movie directed and written by Matthew Vaughn.

We go through the illustrated novella, the full-length novel, the behind-the-scenes drama, and the movie reception. 

You can see both versions of Stardust on our Bookshop.org page here. 

We hope you enjoy!

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The problem with you girly, is you read too much! Listen to the episode this week where we dive into the drama in the publishing world and figure out what's up with Barnes & Noble right now.

Our sources this week:

Our episode on the slow death of local news: https://anchor.fm/the-ink-sink/episodes/17-Your-Neighborhood-Geeks-The-Sad-State-of-Your-Local-News-e1o765i

Our "Dracula Daily" episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/pUlJHstbxjQ

Homestuck: https://www.homestuck.com/

Our "Kali Lives to Spite Ezra Pound" short: https://youtube.com/shorts/mPzoFV-kGgk?feature=share

From the guy who brought you the viral "no one wants to work anymore" thread, comes the next one: Kids read too much: https://twitter.com/paulisci/status/1555906361065541633

Recent discourse asked whether we still publish controversial novels like Lolita. Here's a measured response: https://countercraft.substack.com/p/why-do-people-think-scandalous-novels

Our episode on banned books, where we talked about Skyhorse: https://anchor.fm/the-ink-sink/episodes/Episode-5-Banned-Books-Bash-e1fpp5a

Another angle, should publishing companies rethink what they publish in light of rising costs? https://www.economist.com/britain/2022/09/08/books-are-physically-changing-because-of-inflation

Interesting numbers e-readers vs books from a climate perspective: https://www.popsci.com/environment/books-ereader-sustainability/

B&N deprioritizing hardcovers? https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/90151-daunt-addresses-furor-over-middle-grade-fiction-buying-policy.html

Related, Amazon orders fewer books from publishers for its fulfillment warehouses: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/90164-amazon-stands-by-books.html

New Lambda Literary head: https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=4316&share=true#m57584

Bookshop list of Lambda's 2022 winners: https://bookshop.org/lists/lambda-literary-2022-honorees

What We're Reading: https://bookshop.org/lists/what-we-re-reading-20648183-3934-47b4-aebd-e8457216d11f

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Your local news is dying a slow death. Who's to blame? What can we do? And what do we lose when we lose local news? Listen now.

Our sources for this episode:

Our episode on fact-checking: https://anchor.fm/the-ink-sink/episodes/11-The-First-Fact-Checker-Quit-After-Just-a-Few-Months-e1kqg8s

Why it matters: local news is instrumental in things like missing person cases: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/11/12/jashyah-moore-missing-person-found/

What is lost when we lose local journalists: appreciation for local figures: https://mailchi.mp/poynter/k6pg1xp7fq?e=e5489eccb5

More on the importance of local news, this time from Ukraine: https://pressgazette.co.uk/ukraine-war-local-media/

State of local news in 2022: https://pressgazette.co.uk/news-deserts-research-newspapers-closed/

Trust in the news: https://news.gallup.com/poll/394817/media-confidence-ratings-record-lows.aspx

Impact of government investment on local newsrooms across the world: https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/how-to-pay-for-reliable-information-new-strategies-and-initiatives/

Google investing in local newsletters: https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/reach-creates-email-innovation-lab-partners-with-google-news-initiative-to-turbocharge-newsletters/

Cost consideration: reporters are expensive. Some newsrooms turn to robots; https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/robots-produce-the-information-journalists-do-the-journalism-mcclatchy-goes-real-estate-robotic/

Axios investing in local newsletters: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/07/business/media/axios-local.html

Independent news media has options, but not many: https://pressgazette.co.uk/future-of-local-news-independent-publishers/

60 Minutes takes on Alden Capital, the corporation buying up and gutting local news: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/local-news-financial-firms-60-minutes-video-2022-02-27/

More from the private capital front lines: https://mailchi.mp/poynter/k2w5awaw67?e=e5489eccb5

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Turns out publishing company CEOs have no idea what they're doing. Also, we have a hefty helping of news after the break.

We want to hear from you! Reach out to us at InkSinkPodcast@gmail.com!

Our sources this week:

A History of the midnight release party: https://bookriot.com/history-of-the-midnight-release-party/

Please please please please: https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2022/a-26-year-old-entrepreneur-takes-a-fresh-shot-at-selling-news-one-story-at-a-time/

Penguin random house and Simon & Schuster begin their fight with the DOJ: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/90032-doj-v-prh-all-our-coverage.html

Another angle from NYT: This is really about competing with Amazon: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/02/technology/penguin-random-house-amazon.html

The discourse from Courtney Milan (author and industry commentator) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/courtneymilan/status/1556673050895994880

Pearson hasn’t been able to take advantage of the secondary textbook market up til now, but plans to leverage NFTs to make a profit down the road: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/02/pearson-plans-to-sell-its-textbooks-as-nfts

Online book clubs working to decolonize publishing: https://lithub.com/how-one-group-of-global-south-writers-is-decolonizing-literature/

Stardust by Neil Gaiman: https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9780063070714

Witch's Brew by Shawn Engel and Steven Nichols: https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781454942863

Last Book on the Left by Zebrowski, Kissel, Parks: https://bookshop.org/a/55633/9781328566317

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Happy Labor Day! As a treat, you get to hear these two goofs being goofs. 

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We've all opened our phones to the news that our favorite author/artist/hero is actually a massive problem of a person. 

What's a nerd to do?

Kali and Annie dive into separating the art from the artist. 

Some of our sources may be paywalled, heads up!

Journal of Popular Music Studies: https://online.ucpress.edu/jpms/article/32/4/75/114312/Must-Be-Love-On-The-Brain-Feminist-responses-to

Studies in American Humor: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/studamerhumor.5.2.0288

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We're covering crimes that run the gamut this week. Should publishers own all digital books? Should libraries need to close to deal with the haters? Should the Spine Collector reach out to us personally to satisfy our curiosity?

Listen to the deep dive!

EVERY TIME, THIS STORY JUST GETS MORE TANTILIZING. What is the plea agreement? What is the compensation? What was his fucking motive?????? https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jul/14/alleged-book-thief-filippo-bernardini-may-avoid-trial-in-the-us

From AdWeek: Facebook's traffic to news sources has fallen: https://www.adweek.com/media/facebook-traffic-publishers-changed/#

Some Surprising Good News: Bookstores Are Booming and Becoming More Diverse: More than 300 bookstores have opened in the past couple of years — a revival that is meeting a demand for “real recommendations from real people.”

From NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/10/books/bookstores-diversity-pandemic.html

Another take from the Christian Science Monitor: https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2022/0617/Indie-bookstore-boom-turns-page-to-a-more-diverse-America

Lots to unpack here: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/89818-is-the-book-sales-boom-finally-over.html

Related: Publishing Perspectives reports that the LGBTQ book market has grown: https://publishingperspectives.com/2022/06/npd-group-united-states-lgbtq-book-sales-are-surging/

And onto libraries: The Internet Archive is a bit of a renegade entity, but the principles it stands on are worth defending, writes The Nation: https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/internet-archive-lawsuit-libraries

In other library news: We can't overstate how much book bans are STILL having effects on libraries: https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/diversity-inclusion/3567597-library-temporarily-closes-after-resignations-over-lgbtq-book-challenges/

Ada Limón Named U.S. Poet Laureate: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/awards-and-prizes/article/89829-ada-limon-named-u-s-poet-laureate.html

Maris Kreizman will be the new books editor at vulture: https://twitter.com/mariskreizman/status/1549392358353117187

What we're reading: https://bookshop.org/lists/what-we-re-reading-20648183-3934-47b4-aebd-e8457216d11f

(Note, Bookshop doesn't seem to have Goldmayne in its system. Here's a link to it on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18134972-goldmayne)

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Why are you seeing Dracula in your feed all of a sudden? Enter Matt Kirkland and Dracula Daily -- a free newsletter that sends you dispatches from the classic novel.

We tackle how all this started, how wonderful the memes are, and what we want to see next.

Our sources:

Link to the substack: https://draculadaily.substack.com/about

Slate interview: https://slate.com/culture/2022/05/dracula-daily-bram-stoker-book-newsletter-jonathan-harker.html

Dumb Cuneiform: https://dumbcuneiform.com/#faq

Know Your Meme tracked down some viral thread dates: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/dracula-daily

Socks thread: https://cheezburger.com/10036229/beautiful-story-of-socks-finding-her-forever-home-twitter-thread

Recommendations from our survey respondents:

Infinity Train: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8146754/

The Owl House: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8050756/

Les Mis Daily: https://lesmisdaily.substack.com/

Frankenstein Weekly: https://frankweekly.substack.com/

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This week's news roundup is dominated by the big Digital News Report for 2022. We dive in and talk about social media, representation, and old people getting worried about the "youths" these days.

Our sources this week:

Booksellers leader rallies for abortion rights: https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=4263&share=true#m56778

Comprehensive roundup on the publishers' side from PW: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/89727-post-roe-publishers-scramble-to-meet-the-political-moment.html

"The Digital News Report for 2022," the much-anticipated annual digital journalism review from Reuters, has been released. Key takeaways from What's New in Publishing: https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/digital-news-report-2022-publisher-challenges-and-solutions/

Another article and view from WNiP: https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/burning-questions-the-2022-digital-news-report-answered-and-a-few-it-created/

And some hand-wringing about young people not doing news the old way from stalwart Nieman Lab: https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/06/the-differences-seem-to-be-growing-a-look-at-the-rising-generation-of-news-consumers

Jamilah King will be managing editor at Buzzfeed: https://twitter.com/jamilahking/status/1545061499097563136

Jennifer Kho the new executive editor at the Chicago Sun-Times: https://chicago.suntimes.com/business/2022/6/2/23152077/sun-times-jennifer-kho-executive-editor

Take a look at what we're reading on our Bookshop page: https://bookshop.org/shop/theinksink

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-ink-sink/support

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In which we learn about our new favorite person: Nancy Ford, Time's first fact-checker from 1923, who walked away after "several grueling months."

Spoilers: fact-checking is still grueling. Annie knows because she was there in the trenches at a newspaper and then at a digital news company.

This week, Kali and Annie dig into the history of fact-checking, the problem with opinion pieces, and what we learn from AO3's tag wranglers.

Some sources from Kali's historical research:

The Rise and Fall of Facts (Columbia Journalism Review): https://www.cjr.org/special_report/rise-and-fall-of-fact-checking.php

Here’s How the First Fact-Checkers Were Able to Do Their Jobs Before the Internet (Time): https://time.com/4858683/fact-checking-history/

To Fix Fake News, Look To Yellow Journalism (JSTOR): https://daily.jstor.org/to-fix-fake-news-look-to-yellow-journalism/

Plus, take a look at what we're reading on our Bookshop page: https://bookshop.org/shop/theinksink

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-ink-sink/support

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Kali and I are out this week, so we're bringing you an episode from the archives!

This episode goes into how women are represented in books, news, and fire-retardant writing. Plus, we update you on the state of Meta and Alphabet's battle with the news companies that want them to pay for news.

Today's sources:

AI finds that male-coded characters are four times more common in literature than female-coded characters: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/27/four-times-more-male-characters-in-literature-than-female-research-suggests

Deep dive on the current state of Meta and Alphabet's news partnerships: https://pressgazette.co.uk/facebook-news-payments-meta-unfriend-news/

PRH reorganizes licensed content into single imprint: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/89341-random-house-brings-licensed-titles-under-one-roof.html

The book banning convo has gone meta: https://www.shelf-awareness.com/theshelf/2022-05-24/_unburnable_edition_of_the_handmaid_s_tale_to_be_auctioned_for_anti-censorship_fundraiser.html

New EIC at Slate: https://www.axios.com/2022/05/11/slate-hillary-frey-new-editor-in-chief

Percy Jackson and Mass Effect in our Bookshop storefront: https://bookshop.org/shop/theinksink

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We're coming to you weekly! In this episode, we cover our main topic for this week: our favorite fantasy tropes! Annie covers the "three witches" trope and Kali dives into the "chosen one." She decides to tell us who the most choesn-est chosen one of all time is. And she spoils every major movie and story on the way. 

Link up with us on our brand new YouTube channel! 

Plus, check out what we're reading on our Bookshop page: https://bookshop.org/shop/theinksink

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Alright, we hear you. We're bringing you weekly episodes from here on! We'll be in your ears, alternating between news and main topics every week. Starting this week! Today you get to hear Kali defend Buzzfeed, libraries, the south, and Gone Girl.

Listen now!

Sources:

Ten years since the iconic Cool Girl monologue: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a40079306/gone-girl-legacy/

VA lawsuit says that books with mature themes should require a parent's consent before purchase: https://www.salon.com/2022/05/20/book-ban-jumps-from-public-schools-to-private-stores-like-barnes-and-noble/

Voices from prisons, where books are tightly controlled, often for arbitrary reasons: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/book-bans-prison-cut-inmates-lifeline-world-rcna29097

A history of gender-exclusionary speculative fiction here, and a good breakdown of the current market. She also defends herself: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/25/sandra-newman-female-utopian-fiction

The swan song of BuzzFeed Investigations: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/a-battered-buzzfeed-news-forges-on

Ukraine fatigue reminding us that news is a business: https://pressgazette.co.uk/ukrainecast-bbc-podcast/

List of scifi and fantasy from trans authors (not all feature trans characters, but this is a good time to support our trans author friends): https://www.themarysue.com/science-fiction-and-fantasy-books-by-trans-authors-sff-poc/

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We've been having technical difficulties, fam. That's bad news for us, but good news for you! It means that you get to hear some of our favorite segments from the cutting room floor!

This episode we cover new words in the dictionary, free speech, and Brandon Sanderson's kickstarter smash. 

Also we're on Bookshop now!

Sources: 

Drowned cookbooks: https://www.eater.com/2022/1/27/22904560/cookbook-delays-shipping-container-collapse-melissa-clark-mason-hereford

New words in Merriam-Webster: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/new-words-in-the-dictionary

American Booksellers Association releases a statement on how, as a private entity, it would rather protect minorities than enforce free speech: https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=4178#m55462

Brandon Sanderson launches Kickstarter to fund shipment of latest books: https://www.shelf-awareness.com/theshelf/2022-03-02/author_brandon_sanderson_launches_mega-kickstarter_campaign for_secret_new_books_.html

Our brand new Bookshop storefront: https://bookshop.org/shop/theinksink

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Canada considering legislation to require Google and Meta to pay for news featured on their platforms: https://pressgazette.co.uk/canada-online-news-act-google-meta-facebook/

Connecticut joins the state legislatures trying to regulate library costs with publishers: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/88625-connecticut-introduces-library-e-book-bill.html

Great quote:

"Libraries regularly pay four to five times what consumers pay for the same e-books and then are forced to re-buy the same titles every year, costing taxpayers thousands of dollars over the life of a single e-book and making a robust e-book collection out of reach for many libraries."

Axios adding local journalism desks: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/07/business/media/axios-local.html

Business update: VC money in news is getting more and more cautious: https://pressgazette.co.uk/venture-capital-vc-funding-media/

The Tolkien site update:

New artttttt:

thebookseller.com/news/news/tolkien-estate-updates-website-with-previously-unseen-content

Related to our fanfic episode:

Strong language surrounding fanfic (they're not pro fanfic)

https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/t30i0y/the_tolkien_estate_doesnt_seem_to_love_the_fans/

Heck yeah Sabrina! https://www.nytco.com/press/sabrina-tavernise-joins-the-daily-as-a-host/

Jamie Stockwell killin it at axios:

https://www.axios.com/axios-jamie-stockwell-executive-editor-local-news-f229013f-2f57-42b9-b7e8-9687ae58b875.html

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In this episode, we tell you the secret to combatting misinformation: don't speak to anyone, ever -- even your token extrovert. Trust us.

We also fangirl over the unbridled chaotic good that is Chuck Tingle.

Plus, we'll show you the other side of banned books: a publisher that's giving a home to controversial books.

Here are our sources!

Several legacy magazines will be ending their print runs. Most of the coverage is either apocalyptic or rosy, here's something more measured: https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/thoughts-on-dotdash-meredith-and-the-data-industrial-complex/

The conglomerates are doing just fine online, though: Conde Nast with banger subscription numbers: https://www.wsj.com/articles/magazine-giant-conde-nast-posts-first-profit-in-years-11645117633

Your news interest can be predicted by your political party: Ihttps://pressgazette.co.uk/democrats-paying-less-attention-to-us-national-news-than-republicans-for-first-time-in-four-years/

Despite that, some newsrooms are expanding: WaPo adds positions in health/wellness: https://pressgazette.co.uk/washington-post-creates-70-newsroom-jobs/

AP Expands climate change reporting: https://www.ap.org/press-releases/2022/ap-announces-sweeping-climate-journalism-initiative

AAP successfully blocks MD Libraries' attempt to enforce reasonable digital book prices: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/88550-court-blocks-maryland-s-library-e-book-law.html

Dont know if they can stop this train, though:

With Missouri and Tennessee, the number of states attempting to regulate terms that publishers offer books to libraries has gone up to five: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/88515-tennessee-missouri-introduce-library-e-book-bills-illinois-bill-advances.html

Update: Palin vs. NYT: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-23/sarah-palin-to-request-new-trial-in-n-y-times-defamation-case

FB not meeting its commitment to curb climate misinformation: https://pressgazette.co.uk/facebook-climate-misinformation/

Mindy Kaling expands Amazon partnership into new "story studio" (read: imprint): https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/88546-mindy-kaling-and-amazon-launch-mindy-s-book-studio.html

Lampblack publishing, bringing tools and funding to black writers: https://www.scribd.com/article/559937160/The-Lampblack-Model

Lampblack's Twitter: https://twitter.com/lampblack_lit

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Kali's life is a sitcom. Rasputin is a bigger alpha male than anyone.

Things get weird.

You can find our news sources here:

Anne Frank book controversy: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/31/apology-over-dutch-book-that-claimed-to-identify-anne-franks-betrayer

A Tennessee school board has ruled that the graphic novel MAUS should be taken out of the eighth-grade curriculum: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/sales-maus-soar-tennessee-school-board-ban.html

We've talked about pre-printed scientific articles before. We've said that they're vaguely untrustworthy, but now we have some hard numbers on exactly how their conclusions change from preprint to publication: https://journalistsresource.org/health/two-studies-examine-preprints/

Team up to publish black Christian voices: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/religion/article/88432-hccp-urban-ministries-launch-a-platform-for-black-voices.html

Related, Christian trade books reportedly doing gangbusters: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/religion/article/88492-sales-rise-for-christian-retailers.html

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We don't have a main segment today, there is TOO MUCH NEWS.

The FBI says that they've captured the Spine Collector, and we are not able to contain ourselves. We cover all the news that's happened since we last sat down, and we celebrate some amazing women in publishing.

Links for today's news:

Denzel in Macbeth trailer: https://www.indiewire.com/2021/11/tragedy-of-macbeth-new-trailer-denzel-washington-1234681529/

Prison libraries have a long history of significance, and one campaigner plans to say the quiet part out loud with new expanded ones: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/dec/07/malcolm-x-former-prison-cell-becomes-first-of-1000-planned-freedom-libraries-

Overdrive puns here: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/88220-overdrive-reports-more-than-half-a-billion-digital-library-loans-in-2021.html

MD and NY libraries taking a stand against draconian ebook publishers: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/88092-aap-sues-to-block-maryland-new-york-library-e-book-laws.html

Hearing set for February: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/88186-hearing-set-in-aap-suit-over-maryland-e-book-law-as-clock-ticks-on-new-york-bill.html

The other side of the free speech coin: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/25/us-libraries-report-spike-in-organised-attempts-to-ban-books-in-schools

More on book banning: the coalition against censorship has released a statement: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/88082-coalition-condemns-political-attacks-against-books-in-schools.html

News engagement fell off a cliff last year: https://www.axios.com/media-ratings-traffic-2021-a6be4d72-ba5f-4f8a-ae3e-0872ecd87677.html

More news from the Wattpad verse: the company is partnering with ViacomCBS/Paramount+ to smooth the pipeline for adapting WP stories to the screen: https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/8/22825153/wattpad-webtoon-originals-paramount-plus-viacomcbs

More options news: HBO scooping up Texas Monthly rights: https://www-texasmonthly-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.texasmonthly.com/the-stand-up-desk/hbo-first-dibs-texas-monthly-stories/amp/

Not QUITE the same, but still related: Dark Horse acquired by Swedish video game company: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/comics/article/88188-dark-horse-media-acquired-by-the-embracer-group.html

More and more and more consolidation: https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/12/13/22833341/vox-media-group-nine-deal-explained

And another one! Image workers unionizing: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/comics/article/88255-image-staff-votes-to-certify-union.html

Wirecutter union members have reached a deal with NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/14/business/media/wirecutter-union-contract.html

Speaking of NYT: more deals: NYT agrees to buy the Athletic: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-06/n-y-times-is-said-to-buy-the-athletic-in-a-550-million-deal

Sandra Newman picked to pen a feminist retelling of 1984: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/newsbrief/index.html?record=3529

Hell yeah Maya! https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/01/11/maya-angelou-us-quarter-coin-mint/

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Welcome back to the Ink Sink! The reading, writing, and publishing podcast for the rest of us.

Kali and Annie go into the news in the industry this week (with a special appearance by our King of Kings, Nic Cage).

Then we talk about what we're reading.

And our main topic for today is SCPs. If you haven't heard of them, don't worry, we'll do the deep dive for you. We'll also tell you how important they are in the world of collaborative fiction, shared universes, and the future of micro fiction. Didn't know they could do all that, did you?!

Our news sources for this episode:

What's that fanfic: https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthatbook/comments/r6mxch/help_solve_a_fight_with_my_girlfriend_book_with/

New Dracula coming: https://variety.com/2021/film/news/nicolas-cage-dracula-renfield-movie-1235122323/

We love a good mystery: why would someone publish an academic paper that was totally BS? https://www.chronicle.com/article/another-sokal-hoax-the-latest-imitation-calls-an-academic-journals-integrity-into-question

More on booksellers grappling with free speech and hate speech: https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=4120#m54564

Women being awesome: https://www.cbc.ca/books/margaret-atwood-to-be-celebrated-on-stamp-by-canada-post-1.6258417

Some SCP Resources:

https://www.newsweek.com/scp-tiktok-do-not-recognise-bodies-water-meaning-1618385

https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/about-the-scp-foundation

https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/history-of-the-universe-part-one

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Welcome to the Ink Sink! It's a writing, reading, and publishing industry podcast for the rest of us. You won't find boring literary novel reviews here. We're digging into the good stuff: Publishing industry drama, real book-lover conversations, and what the heck is happening with Amazon's book algorithms??

Tune in to hear Annie and Kali every two weeks on Spotify!

Explicit rating for some language.

Sources for today's news stories:

Sen Elizabeth Warren wrote to Amazon asking that it reassess its algorithm in light of a book containing COVID-19 misinformation being prominently displayed when one searches for "COVID-19" and "vaccine." The authors of the book and its publisher have responded: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/87845-covid-19-skeptics-publisher-sue-senator-elizabeth-warren.html

Falling under women being badasses AND new imprints: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/87850-anna-todd-wattpad-webtoon-partner-to-launch-new-book-imprint.html

Women being badass AND fandom! https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/newsbrief/index.html?record=3496

Diamond hit with ransomware attack: https://www.pcmag.com/news/ransomware-hits-major-us-comic-book-distributor

Spotify acquires audiobook producer: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/industry-deals/article/87876-spotify-to-acquire-findaway.html

Philippine bookshop sells book chapters as NFTs: https://www.bworldonline.com/philippine-bookshop-sells-book-chapters-as-nfts/

Drama in the ABA: Whose speech should be protected? Who should be protected from harm: https://www.shelf-awareness.com/theshelf/2021-11-11/kenny_brechner:_we_need_to_talk_about_the_aba_and_free_expression.html

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-ink-sink/support