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The Bookseller’s top 10 most read stories 2024
The publishing industry has had a rollercoaster of a year. From the astronomical rise of AI to the impact of BookTok, and massive growth across audiobooks, the business has had to change and adapt very quickly to keep pace.
At The Bookseller, we’ve kept on top of all the latest over the past 12 months, across the biggest topics of the year – as well as covering all the latest across the trade, including job moves, awards and events.
Looking back across the year’s top stories, AI comes out on top as the topic readers have spent the most time reading, with Spines’ new venture coming out on top as the most read story of the year. Also in the top 10 is Taylor & Francis’ AI controversy from back in July, a story which was broken by senior news reporter Matilda Battersby, and made waves across the industry. PRH’s changing of its wording on its copyright pages to help protect authors’ intellectual property from training LLMs also made it into the top 10 stories.
It wasn’t all AI this year though, as the news that the author of Argylle (Penguin), Elly Conway, was revealed to be actually two people shocked readers and made it into the most read list. The story joined Colm Tóibín’s "masterpiece" Long Island (Picador) being named Waterstones Irish Book of the Year 2024 and the line-up for the latest season of BBC’s Between the Covers.
The full list of The Bookseller’s most read stories 2024:
New publisher Spines aims to "disrupt" industry by using AI to publish 8,000 books in 2025 alone
A new publisher claimed it aims to “disrupt” the books industry by publishing 8,000 books in 2025 alone using artificial intelligence (AI). Spines, founded in 2021 but which published its first titles this year, is a startup technology business which – for a fee – is offering the use of AI to proofread, produce, publish and distribute books. The company charges up to $5,000 a book, but it can take just three weeks to go from a manuscript to a published title.
Academic authors "shocked" after Taylor & Francis sells access to their research to Microsoft AI
Authors expressed their shock after the news that academic publisher Taylor & Francis, which owns Routledge, had sold access to its authors’ research as part of an AI partnership with Microsoft – a deal worth almost £8m ($10m) in its first year.
The agreement with Microsoft was included in a trading update by the publisher’s parent company in May this year. However, academics published by the group claim they have not been told about the AI deal, were not given the opportunity to opt out and are receiving no extra payment for the use of their research by the tech company.
Terry Pratchett’s "finest novel" to become a Penguin Modern Classic
Penguin Modern Classics are publishing an annotated edition of Night Watch to coincide with Terry Pratchett Day in April next year.
The republished edition of the 29th novel in Pratchett’s Discworld series includes a new foreword by Rob Wilkins and an introduction and annotations by Dr David Lloyd and Dr Darryl Jones.
Controversy over "inexplicable" exclusion of RF Kuang and Xiran Jay Zhao from Hugo Awards 2023
Authors RF Kuang, Xiran Jay Zhao and Neil Gaiman raised questions after it was revealed that they were ruled ineligible for the 2023 Hugo Awards despite receiving enough nominations.
On the weekend of 20th January, the Hugo, Lodestar and Astounding Awards released its document of voting statistics for the 2023 awards held at the World Science Fiction Convention (WSFC) in Chengdu, China.
Penguin Random House underscores copyright protection in AI rebuff
The world’s biggest trade publisher changed the wording on its copyright pages to help protect authors’ intellectual property from being used to train large language models (LLMs) and other AI tools, The Bookseller exclusively revealed.
Penguin Random House (PRH) amended its copyright wording across all imprints globally, confirming it would appear “in imprint pages across our markets”.
BBC’s Between the Covers reveals books and guests for new series
BBC’s Between the Covers revealed the books and guests for the new six-part series. Each week, the series, hosted by Sara Cox, welcomes four guests, who each bring along a book they love, to share what it means to them and persuade the nation to try. In each programme they also review a new book pick.
Colm Tóibín’s "masterpiece" named Waterstones Irish Book of the Year 2024
Colm Tóibín’s Long Island (Picador), the follow-up to Brooklyn (Penguin), was named Waterstones Irish Book of the Year.
Tóibín is the current Laureate for Irish Fiction and the author of 10 previous novels – three of which were nominated for the Booker Prize – as well as two collections of stories and various works of non-fiction.
Identity of Argylle author Elly Conway revealed to be two people
The identity of the mysterious spy novelist Elly Conway was unmasked by the Telegraph as two people: Terry Hayes, the Australian novelist and screenwriter best known for I Am Pilgrim (Bantam), and Tammy Cohen, the British author of psychological thrillers including When She Was Bad and They All Fall Down (both Black Swan).
In 2021 filmmaker Matthew Vaughn said his spy movie, Argylle, was inspired by an unpublished thriller by Conway.
Children’s author Nick Sheridan dies aged 32
The Darley Anderson Children’s Book Agency confirmed that children’s author and BBC Scotland presenter Nick Sheridan died aged 32 after a short illness.
Sheridan, originally from Wexford in Ireland, won various awards for his journalism and was most recently the consumer affairs correspondent for BBC News in Scotland and a presenter on the news review show Seven Days. He published three books for children with Simon & Schuster Children’s Books (S&S), including Breaking News, a non-fiction guide to news and journalism, and the Snoops Bay mystery series.
Has publishing abandoned teen boys? – comment
Recently, I asked social media a question – are we ready to have the ‘there is nothing out there for teen boy readers’ discussion yet? What transpired on that thread was authors, booksellers, librarians, readers and parents all chiming in with fascinating responses. By far the most common was that there is a dearth of books for boys in the post-Middle Grade space.
