Innovation
Tokens are a new digital primitive, analogous to the web
Tokens are a foundational technology in Web 3.0. They have digital property rights for ownership and portability. Wisdom from @cdixon.
TIME Launches TIMEPieces, a Collection of More than 4,500 Original NFTs from Over 40 Artists Around the World
Snapchat Launches New Lenses to Teach Users Sign Language as Part of International Week of the Deaf — www.socialmediatoday.com
Technology
Founder Library
HT @swissmiss A nice resource for start-ups
Inside Amazon’s Department Store Plans: High-Tech Dressing Rooms, Its Own Apparel Brands
The online retailer’s bricks-and-mortar outlets could feature QR codes, touch screens and a nontraditional shopping experience. #Amazon
Facebook Rolls Out News Feed Change That Blocks Watchdogs from Gathering Data
MT @corintxt An update to the Facebook website misuses HTML accessibility features on a huge scale, seemingly to foil ad blockers & research tools like @themarkup’s Citizen Browser. As yet, impacts on visually impaired users are unclear.
Facebook says WSJ allegations are ‘mischaracterizations,’ confer ‘false motives’
Facebook Inc on Saturday slammed a Wall Street Journal series of articles about the social media company’s platform as containing “deliberate mischaracterizations” and said the articles “conferred egregiously false motives to Facebook’s leadership and employees.” #Facebook
The Washington Post launches digital ad network to take on Google and Facebook
Roku partners with Shopify for an app that lets Shopify merchants build and measure TV streaming ad campaigns
HT @mediagazer. By @molliecahillane.
Roblox Introduces Listening Parties
HT @mediagazer
Google’s Area 120 incubator is testing using Drive as a newsletter platform called Museletter — www.inputmag.com
HT @mediagazer Users could create documents, spreadsheets, and slideshows and then promote them as newsletters through a Drive public profile. By @tomaxwell.
Publishing & Media
Amazon Updates Paperwhite Kindle, Launches Kids Reader with Bundled Kids+ Subscription
Hachette Closes Their Acquisition of Workman Publishing for $240 Million
Follett Shutters Book Fair Business
A useful thread on foreign rights Form 6166
RT @DaraKaye OK it’s time for a little how-the-sausage gets made venting session on foreign rights in book publishing. Today I got an email about a topic that strikes UGH into the hearts of everyone who deals with foreign rights: Form 6166.
Zando Announces Imprints w Lena Waithe, Gillian Flynn
lunch.publishersmarketplace.com
Gillian Flynn and Lena Waithe will become publishers of their own imprints at Zando, the independent publisher led by ceo Molly Stern. Flynn and Waithe are the first “catalyst partners” announced in Zando’s plan to partner with influential figures and institutions to publish and promote books. Catalyst partners have a revenue share.
Latina moms expand ‘Lil Libros’ to improve diversity in children’s books — spectrumnews1.com
HT @PublishersWkly The LA-based publishing company has sold more than 1.5 million books since launching in 2014. Via @SpecNews1SoCal.
IBPA partnership w We Need Diverse Books for Internship Grant Program
RT @ibpa IBPA has partnered with @diversebooks to raise money for the WNDB Internship Grant Program! WNDB’s goals align with our vision where everyone can tell their story and find themselves in the content they read.
A free short story dispenser is coming to NYC — www.timeout.com
The @Center4Fiction in Brooklyn at 15 Lafayette Avenue is bringing in the dispenser for use beginning Saturday, October 2.
Is AI narration the next frontier for audiobooks?
Behold, the Book Blob — www.printmag.com
Why are blobby, colorful book covers everywhere? Blame the logic of algorithms. Via @printmag.
Why Mets Pitcher Noah Syndergaard Started a Book Club — www.nytimes.com
‘I just think that’s what being a New Yorker is all about, being hungry for more,’ said Noah Syndergaard, an avid reader. #BookClub
Charlie and Lola author Lauren Child says children’s books should be taken seriously
New books will be hard to come by for the rest of the year
New books will be hard to come by for the rest of the year via @qz#BookBusiness
The publishing industry is bracing for a volatile end of the year
As supply chain issues continue to plague the retail sector, booksellers have become some of the most vocal voices online to warn of coming shortages. #supplychain
‘Reimagining Bookstores’ Meeting Set for October
The Booksellers Association and Bookshop.org launched New Futures, a program to help entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities across the U.K. open their own bookstores
Via @thebookseller
First edition of Frankenstein sells for record breaking $1.17m
HT @PublishersWkly An ‘exceptionally rare’ first edition of Mary Shelley’s gothic classic has broken the world auction record for a printed work by a woman. Via @guardian
Chuck Palahniuk wants more places for edgy fiction. So he’s starting a Substack — lithub.com
“The glossies really aren’t buying very edgy, challenging short fiction these days,” Chuck Palahniuk says. “That type of fiction doesn’t really have a market anymore.”
As Banned Books Week Approaches, the Fight Against Censorship Intensifies — www.slj.com
ICYMI Books are being challenged across the country; districts in Pennsylvania and Texas dominate the news with their decisions to remove materials. #SchoolLibraryJournal #BannedBooksWeek
More on Banned Books and the Cancellation of the Plum Creek Literacy Festival
From @RonCharles of the @washingtonpost
Inside the rise of influencer publishing
HT @LWShanley #InfluencerMarketing #BookBusinessUK
How Book Marketing Can Actually Improve Your Content Marketing Results
RT @heidicohen Have you added books to your #contentmarketing?#Bookmarketing can improve your results. Case studies: @dmscott@MarkWSchaefer @JoePulizzi @ginidietrich @dgingiss @paulroetzer@johnleedumas @JasonMillerCA #digitalmarketing @DigiBookWorld#DBW
MP and novelist Nadine Dorries has been appointed as the new British secretary of state for culture, media and sport — www.thebookseller.com
via @thebookseller
‘Beasts of Prey’: Netflix Developing Fantasy Book for Film
www.hollywoodreporter.com
‘Beasts of Prey’ — the first novel in a planned fantasy series — is being developed by Netflix as a feature film.
Netflix Buys Roald Dahl Story Company
lunch.publishersmarketplace.com
Netflix has a deal to acquire outright the literary works of Roald Dahl and the company that manages them, the Roald Dahl Story Company.
Bloomsbury Publishing acquired the digital video and business assets of Artfilms
lunch.publishersmarketplace.com
Peek inside Waseda University’s brand new Haruki Murakami library— lithub.com
Via @lithub
Who doesn’t read books in America?
HT @LWShanley Roughly a quarter of American adults (23%) say they haven’t read a book in whole or in part in the past year. #ReadToUnderstand
How to Remember What You Read
HT @swissmiss. Via @farnamstreet #amreading
Ten Things Nobody Tells You About the Publishing Industry
HT @BoSacks. Via @publisherswkly
An Ancient Tablet, Stolen Then Acquired By Hobby Lobby, Will Be Returned To Iraq — www.npr.org
RT @NPR The Gilgamesh Dream Tablet is headed back to Iraq. The 3,500-year-old clay artifact, which was looted from Iraq and bought by Hobby Lobby, was seized by authorities who demanded it must be returned.
Emerald’s First Voices First Project for Canada’s Indigenous Communities
HT @elizabethscraig By @Porter_Anderson @pubperspectives #wkb64
Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp is in advanced talks to acquire Meredith, owner of magazine brands including People
The deal under discussion is expected to be valued at more than $2.5 billion and would vastly expand IAC’s stable of online publications. #magazines
Maven, which oversees Sports Illustrated and TheStreet, has rebranded to The Arena Group
The Arena Group owns and hosts the domains of over 200 sites and generated $143 million in revenue for the year ending June 30, 2021. Via @digiday
Sports Illustrated hopes to parlay the legacy magazine brand into a sportsbook for a new generation of US gamblers
Scripps to Invest $10 Million in Global E-Sports
#esports via @VentureBeat
Barstool Sports to Enter Food Delivery
Barstool Bites, a virtual restaurant concept, called, to be built around the Barstool brand #BrandExtension
Crain Acquires Green Market Report, Financial News Product Covering Cannabis Industry
New York Magazine is launching a cover store, where readers can buy some of the iconic covers that the magazine has created — nymag.com
New York Magazine Cover Store launches today, with 50 of the magazine’s most iconic covers — including the very first 1968 issue of New York Magazine — now available to buy as prints or posters. They start at $19 and are available framed or unframed.
Fortune donates profits from NFT sale to journalism organizations
MT @mediagazer Fortune says it will donate 214 ETH from its NFT sale to four journalism non-profits, with each organization getting $165,000 at current prices
Marvel Suing to Keep Rights to ‘Avengers’ Characters From Copyright Termination
MT @mediagazer Disney’s Marvel is suing the heirs of Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and Gene Colan as it tries to keep full control of Avengers characters under US copyright law. By @eriqgardner.
Facebook wraps up deals with Australian media firms, TV broadcaster SBS excluded
MT @mediagazer In an email, Facebook tells Australian publishers it has stopped negotiating licensing deals in the country, leaving out broadcaster SBS and smaller publishers. By @byronkaye
Hearst Television’s new streaming app, Very Local, features local news from across the company’s broadcast footprint
Streaming service DAZN in advanced talks to buy BT Sport
MT @DCNorg The sale would reshape the UK sports broadcasting market.
With legacy newspapers contracting, local newsletter startup 6AM City is planning rapid expansion
MT @michellemanafy 6AM City, a group of local newsletters based in Greenville, South Carolina, has been operating largely under the radar since 2016. It ramped up last week, announcing plans to triple in size from eight to 24 markets by late this year.
Resources & Opportunities
WMG Media Trends Virtual Panel 9/28 12–1pm ET
DO. NOT. MISS. the virtual @WMG_NYC Media Trends panel 9/28 12–1pm ET. $15 non-members, FREE for members. W Kristen McLean @npdgroup, Leila Milgrim @CondeNast @SELFmagazine, Linda Saint Marc @TheNewSchool @mediaxwomen, Rachel Deahl @PublishersWkly. Register ASAP!
Brooklyn Book Festival — brooklynbookfestival.org
MT @BKBF Check out all the amazing discussions and panels happening at the @BKBF this year! Check out all of the in-person and virtual and activities for Bookends events, Children’s Day, and Festival Day. #BKBF
Black Women Writers at Work: A Literary Salon
MT @Center4BlackLit Our next virtual event is “Black Women Writers at Work: A Literary Salon” on 9/30/21. Nearly 200 lit lovers have registered already. Our esteemed moderator and panelists are @jbakernyc, @LadeeHubbard, @MorowaYejide, and @ProfHolloway. Please join us!
2021 Teen Press Conference
RT @nationalbook Calling all middle and high school teachers! Registration is open for the 2021 Teen Press Conference, a free virtual event featuring this year’s #NBAwards Finalists for Young People’s Literature and hosted by @kwamealexander.
LibraryCon Live! 2021 free — www.libraryjournal.com
MT @sljournal Join LJ and SLJ on November 10 for our fifth annual LibraryCon Live! We’re excited to present a day-long celebration of fandom lit, with panels devoted to horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and graphic novels.
2021 PitchWars Submission window is open — pitchwars.org
You have until it closes on September 30 at 10PM Eastern Time to submit your entry form. #PitchWars #WritingCommunity #amwriting#amquerying
2021–2022 Writing Contests for Indie Authors
HT @miralsattar
We Need Diverse Books hiring a Development Manager
MT @diversebooks FULL-TIME REMOTE JOB OPP: We Need Diverse Books is hiring a Development Manager! $55k — $75k/yr with benefits, 8-hour shift, M-F. Diverse applicants encouraged to apply!
Latinx in Publishing Remote Fall Communications Intern
RT @wordisdiversity Latinx in Publishing is hiring a remote fall communications intern. Applicants from underrepresented Latinx communities encouraged to apply. Send your resume to latinosinpub@gmail.com
Free NYC Media Lab Summit 2021: Future Imperfect 10/6–10/7
Do Less Achieve More
MT @jkhoey 24 interviewees, 14 days. Priceless insights for #femalefounders + #womenentrepreneurs. For free. Starts Sept 27. All you have to do is sign-up (and yes, delighted to have my #BYDN#Networking insights included in this stellar lineup of speakers)