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Welcome to Today in Books, where we report on literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
A Leaked Document Gives Glimpse of Amazon’s Bookselling Might
Everyone knows that Amazon sells a ton of books. Most people, especially ones reading this newsletter, might even have the sense that Amazon sells the most books. But did you know that Amazon sells the majority of books, to the tune of more than 70% of all books (print, digital, and audio) sold in the U.S. At least according to a leaked, 25-page document that Business Insider got its hands on. Now, the data is incomplete, comes from 2022, and did I say again it was leaked? But it feels about right. For more detailed analysis, Publishers Lunch did a bang-up job breaking out all the pieces of what makes up Amazon’s “book category” sales. Sometimes it is hard to remember the many tentacles, from Goodreads to CreateSpace to Audible and beyond, that Amazon has.
Percival Everett’s James In Development for a Feature Adaptation
I was just thinking about James’s movie prospects the other day. The tone will be the most difficult (dial the needle-threading serio-comedy of American Fiction and dial it to 11). Whoever gets the starring role will be nominated for an Oscar. Waititi, who is the director name mentioned here, is also attached to another big-selling literary title in the form of Klara & the Sun. I actually think he is better suited for James, which is at times extremely funny and satirical, than trying to match Ishiguro’s calm, eerie, and erudite tone. But big-time capital “L” literary adaptations are back, baby.
Spotify Continues to Confuse Us All With Their Pricing
After announcing price increases recently (after raising them already last year), Spotify has announced a new “basic” plan for $10.99 per month. What is this you ask, it is the old Premium plan we knew before there were audiobooks on the platform: ad-free music. And that’s it, no audiobooks included. So there are three paid plans an individual has to choose from: for $9.99 an audiobook-only plan, for $10.99 a music-only plan, and for $11.99 a plan with both ad-free music and audiobooks. Three plans all within a couple of bucks of each other isn’t so much confusing as it is unnecessarily complicated. Are future price increases going to be across the board? Or will they be staggered in some way? I have said that the money I spend on our family Spotify account would be the last subscription standing if I could only have one, so this doesn’t matter all that much to me. But sometimes pricing tells you something about what a company is thinking, and at the very least Spotify seems to think there are distinct markets for these plans.
These Were The Bestselling Books in May 2024
Book sales have been on fire this quarter, but it doesn’t seem to be any particular group, trend, or title leading the way. Somehow, someway almost all categories have seen double-digit gains since the end of March. And in this list of the best-selling books of May, you get a glimpse of what folks are out there buying.