Print Run Podcast

This week’s convo starts out as a discussion of our relationships with books as physical objects and ends up… everywhere? We talk about how we associate meaning and memory with books, our reading habits, when a book actually becomes a book and not a manuscript or a draft, and plenty else. We pick at all the seams of how people interact and place value on the concept of a book, and it ends up being one of our more personal episodes. Join us!

This week we talk about Barnes & Noble’s decision to stock fewer hardcover titles, especially in YA and MG categories. How will this affect debut writers and marginalized creators, why might they make this choice in the first place, and how will publishers respond?

This week we talk about–what else–the court case involving the DOJ vs. PRH, regarding their attempted merger with Simon & Schuster. Specifically, we analyze how the executives testifying have been talking about the industry at large, and what it reveals about corporate publishing strategy, and how it affects authors who aren’t celebrities or politicians. If you’ve been seeing chatter about this case, this is the episode that gets you caught up. Join us!

Pettiness! Jealousy! Stop lying, you’ve felt it as much as the next person, especially in an industry like publishing. So have we, and here we present a full, honest episode on how we process those feelings in a (hopefully) productive way. Folks, it’s time to let the darkness in–join us!

This… is one of our more loose episodes ever. We sit down and catch up on everything from what we’re reading to how Laura avoids death while foraging in the woods, from an analysis of what makes a good children’s board book to how we’re carrying on during a moment of intense national trauma. Also we talk about book advances for a minute. Also we talk about toucans for a minute. At one point we get distracted by Oreos on a shelf. Come join the vibe–you’ll like it here, we promise.

This week, in light of recent heated discourse around what awards like the Lambda are “for,” we thought we’d break down why awards and indeed all literary criticism are not meant to be objective signifiers of quality, but are rather reflections of individual critical perspectives and the context that surrounds them. To be clear: we prefer it that way! Come listen and find out why.

This week we talk about Brandon Sanderson’s wildly successful Kickstarter campaign for his next novels, a move so bold and unique that we simply have to ask: what wrong and/or inapplicable lessons will traditional publishing learn from this isolated incident? We break down why the Sanderson plan worked for him, why it won’t on a mass scale for others, and which observations we hope publishing DOESN’T make in response to it. Join us!

WOW it is nice to be back in the recording studio! In our first episode this side of Erik having a child, we talk about the recent trend of editors leaving their jobs and even outright leaving the industry. What does it mean for publishing when its talent is burning out or choosing other paths at this rate? How does it affect publishing houses, our work as agents, and writers? Join us for the beginning of a new era of Print Run–we’re here, we’re energized, and we can’t wait to get back in touch with all of you.

On the “season finale” episode before Erik goes on paternity leave for a few months, we talk about the many swirling feelings around going on leave in the publishing industry, artistic anxiety in the face of looming parenthood, how we’ve thought about our professional goals in relation to the actual fabric of our lives, and the ways we’ve tried to create sustainable ways of making sure our work and art flow from our actual life, and not the other way around. It’s a personal episode on the (potential) eve of Erik’s first child being born, so join us and let’s work through some feelings about art and life!

After another RWA mess surrounding their recent issuing of the Vivian Award, we use the occasion to ask a fundamental question: what’s the point of these organizations, and how can we make them do what we actually want them to do? We talk about how institutions like RWA--or really any big literary collective--could be used to do what we actually need: supporting writers who wouldn’t otherwise have the networks they need, get its members useful information and opportunities, and push publishing in a more inclusive and egalitarian direction.

This week, we made the whole plane out of To Loon It May Concerns. We spent the episode answering your most burning and specific publishing questions, from all corners of the writing and publishing world. Come hang out for a free-flowing advice session!

It’s summer, and in publishing that means one thing: we’re all getting each other’s out-of-offices. In this episode we talk about how, actually, that’s a good thing--it underscores that people in the industry are irreplaceable, that so much of what we do is built on real and lasting connections we have with other specific colleagues, and how as much as the powers that be would like us to believe that they could find someone else to do any of our jobs, it simply isn’t true. What would publishing look like if it acknowledged the irreplaceability of its workforce, and acted accordingly? Much different and better, we argue here.

This week we take a look at the far too slanted battlefield on which people who want change in publishing are forced to fight--and how, rather than responding to each new publishing injustice on a case by case basis, we might try instead to change the terms of engagement in our favor. On the heels of the deceptive phrase “we came to publish, not to cancel,” we argue that even in accepting the implied definitions of either word we’re ceding crucial ground. Join us for a wide-ranging episode that covers everything from appropriation to publishing’s role as a producer of culture.

This week we talk about the state of nonfiction publishing amidst the changing conditions of both the industry and the wider world--how has a pandemic and political turbulence affected our relationship to “truth” and “expertise” in books? We talk through the new moment of popular science publishing, as well as how it might follow the arc we saw over prior years in more explicitly political publishing. Then, to finish, a To Loon It May Concern about how to manage trope fatigue in genre fiction, especially as an author of a marginalized identity.

This week we take on a term we all love but can never quite pin down: speculative fiction. What do industry people--and readers--mean when they say “speculative,” and what does the distinction between aesthetics, genre, and prestige with regard to the term say about the market at large? What are we talking about when we, as book people, talk about speculative fiction? Come help us work through it.