Fanfiction’s Total Cultural Victory
defector.com – Tuesday February 3, 2026
In 2012, a self-published author of erotic Twilight fanfiction, whose books had gained a large fan base online, was offered a seven-figure contract by a major American publisher. E. L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy would become the three bestselling titles of the 2010s in the U.S. (even Fifty Shades Freed, the now mostly forgotten end to the trilogy, outsold The Hunger Games). They would also sell over 150 million copies worldwide across 52 languages.
The impact was immediate: Op-eds were written. Bad prose was excerpted. Stock photos of fluffy handcuffs appeared everywhere. And, amidst all the endless discussions about ethical BDSM and "mommy porn" and what, exactly, women might want, fanfiction had suddenly become highly lucrative. Instead of asking what Fifty Shades meant for women, people should have been asking what it meant for publishing.
Book publishers were afraid of building shared universes until they saw how successful the Marvel Cinematic Universe was, according to Brandon Sanderson
thepopverse.com – Tuesday February 3, 2026
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is so influential that it has even changed the way books are published. Publishers and readers are embracing shared universes, such as Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse and Jeremy Robinson’s Nemesis Saga. While book series are nothing new, a shared literary universe is different because it can focus on different characters and different time periods in a shared continuity, whereas a series will tell a linear story with the same characters.
Brandson Sanderson, who created the Cosmere literary universe, recalls how the shift began after the MCU took off. “I thought I want to do all these magic systems, all these different planets, and I want to connect them all,” Brandon Sanderson says during New York Comic Con 2022’s Titans of Fantasy panel. “People were really scared of continuity back then. When I was doing this, this was a few years before the MCU came out. Publishers were scared. They wanted one series but they didn’t want this big interconnected thing because the conventional wisdom was this would scare off readers.”
Brought to book: Alison Healy on some unwise rejections of authors’ manuscripts by publishers
irishtimes.com – Monday February 2, 2026
If you’ve recently heard a collective intake of breath, it’s probably coming from a posse of publishers near you, bracing themselves for the deluge that’s coming. They know that those new year resolutions to get that novel published have been set in motion. Manuscripts have been retrieved from the dusty bowels of laptops and are being dispatched.
And in tandem with the arrival of the swallows, the rejection emails will start to wing their way into the inboxes of many of those hopeful writers. But if your life’s work is rejected, fear not. You are in the best of company, judging by a book I recently read. Rotten Rejections, by editor André Bernard, documents the in-house memos, letters and anecdotes involving the rejection of work by some very familiar names, including many Irish authors.
Back in 1895, poor WB Yeats was castigated for his offering, Poems. “I am relieved to find the critics shrink from saying that Mr Yeats will ever be a popular author,” huffed the person who received the submission – the book doesn’t cite the names of those who were so bold as to reject these titans of literature. “The work does not please the ear, nor kindle the imagination,” the publisher continued. “That he has any real paying audience I find hard to believe.”
Why most books sell less than 200 copies
authorlink.com – Sunday February 1, 2026
Ah…the reason so few books sell more than 200 copies “might” be partly due to the quality of the writing, but the greatest challenge looms in the marketplace. The problem boils down to sheer numbers. Excuse me if my math contains rough estimates.
The top five traditional publishers (Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Simon & Shuster, Hachette and McMillan) collectively turn out about 100,000 titles a year. Amazon posts about 1.4 million self published books annually. There are roughly 50 million Amazon titles floating around for sale at any given time.
The typical American reads about four or five books a year. If you include avid readers, the number increases to 12 to 14 books per year according to Gallup News.
About 21% of U.S. adults, or roughly 43-45 million people are functionally illiterate, according to National University, nu.edu. An estimated 130 million adults are unable to read a simple story to their children. Consider this: 59 million U.S. adults read below Level 1 on the PIAAC (Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) scale. This level indicates very poor literacy skills, where individuals can, at best, read short texts to locate a single piece of information, or in many cases, are functionally illiterate. (Perhaps that’s why emojis have become so popular).
How are publishers pushing Gen Z to read?
thred.com – Sunday January 18, 2026
Recent data suggests that traditional marketing for new books is steadily facing irrelevance with Gen Z. Is it the end times, or simply a shift away into less conventional formats of storytelling?
The book industry is facing a dilemma.
Recent studies suggest that teenagers and younger Gen Zers aren’t reading many books in full. College students are increasingly turning to AI tools like ChatGPT to research, curate and interpret information for them, rather than actually learning and applying knowledge independently.
That isn’t just a grouchy, older person take either; this ‘Voices of Gen Z’ study by the Walton Family Foundation reported that 35% of Gen Z students dislike reading, and 42% rarely or never read for fun. A survey by BestColleges in 2023 also found that 56% of students reported using AI tools to complete assignments and exams, with that number only likely to have risen since.
Schools are also less likely to assign full books for coursework reading today compared to decades prior, and some sources indicate that very few teenagers are reading in their down time. In fact, according to The National Centre for Education Statistics, only 14% of 13-year-olds are reading for fun, with 31% saying they never or hardly ever read.
In 2022, the National Council of Teachers of English argued that reading books in full should be less of a focus for children, with more emphasis given on ‘critically examining digital media and popular culture’ online and on screens. A UK study the same year by Renaissance Learning concluded that the total books read annually in schools declined by 4.2% for the first time over the previous twelve months, with reading difficulty flatlining or falling in secondary education.
The case for changing genres
thebookseller.com – Saturday January 10, 2026
I often say The Odds of You, my debut contemporary romance, is a book that snuck up on me. But for you to really get it, I need to set the scene.
It’s 2023. My debut book, The Curse of Saints, has just released in the UK and become an instant Sunday Times Bestseller. I’ve just turned in book two of the trilogy, The Curse of Sins. My career has got off to a stellar start in the romantasy genre.
Enter The Odds of You. A book that’s not only in a different genre, but has an incredibly different voice and style from my romantasy trilogy.
If you’re in the industry, you’re likely scratching your head and wondering why, with a romantasy trilogy that’s "doing well", would I ever decide to change genres so early on in my career.
Here’s the truth, in all its unflashy glory: it just happened.
A Long Game by Elizabeth McCracken review – here’s how to really write your novel
theguardian.com – Thursday January 8, 2026
The novelist and writing tutor delivers bracing advice that demolishes familiar ‘stick to what you know’ nostrums
Trope, POV, backstory, character arc. In the 30 years since I was a student of that benign, pipe-smoking, elbow-patched man of letters Malcolm Bradbury, the private language of creative writing workshops has taken over the world.
What writers used to say to small circles of students in an attempt to help them improve their storytelling technique has become a familiar way, often parodic and self-knowing, of interpreting the grand and not-so‑grand narratives of our time. “Don’t worry about Liz Truss’s YouTube series – she’s just having a main character moment.”
The most intense distillation of this system of thought (if you can even call it that) has always been the craft book, the writing manual. These are sometimes written by the most successful in the profession (like Ursula K Le Guin’s Steering the Craft) or the most successful at advising the profession (Robert McKee’s Story) but most often they are put together by novelists and screenwriters towards the close of their academic careers as creative writing tutors. John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction is the grandaddy of this subgenre.
Half of UK Novelists Believe AI Is Likely to Replace Their Work Entirely
goodmenproject.com – Thursday January 8, 2026
Just over half (51%) of published novelists in the UK say that artificial intelligence is likely to end up entirely replacing their work as fiction writers, a new report from the University of Cambridge has found.
A new report involving hundreds of literary creatives from across the UK fiction publishing industry reveals widespread fears over copyright violation, lost income, and the future of the art form, as generative AI tools and LLM-authored books flood the market.
Just over half (51%) of published novelists in the UK say that artificial intelligence is likely to end up entirely replacing their work as fiction writers, a new report from the University of Cambridge has found.
Close to two-thirds (59%) of novelists say they know their work has been used to train AI Large Language Models (LLMs) without permission or payment.
Over a third (39%) of novelists say their income has already taken a hit from generative AI, for example due to loss of other work that facilitates novel writing. Most (85%) novelists expect their future income to be driven down by AI.
Dreaming of writing your novel this year? Rip up all the rules!
theguardian.com – Saturday January 3, 2026
After 35 years of teaching fiction writing, the prize-winning author shares her wisdom. First tip? Don’t write what you know…
Beginning
I don’t think it’s a bad thing to want to write a first sentence so idiosyncratic, so indelible, so entirely your own that it makes people sit up or reach for a pen or say to a beloved: “Listen to this.” A first line needn’t be ornate or long. It needn’t grab you by the lapels and give you what for. A first line is only a demand for further attention, an invitation to the rest of the book. Whisper or bellow, a polite request or a monologue meant to repel interruption. I believe a first line should deliver some sort of pleasure by being beautiful or mysterious or funny or blunt or cryptic. Why would anyone start a novel, “It was June, and the sun was out,” which could be the first line of any novel or story? It tells you nothing. It asks nothing of you.
Not everyone agrees with me, nor do all great novels have memorable first lines. Pull books from your shelf and you’ll find plenty that start with a month or day of the week plus the weather. Maybe there’s a good argument: if you orient your reader on some level immediately, they will be ready for disorientation on others. Flatness can be a screen upon which brightness may be projected. Disorientation is one of the duties of fiction.
No, I insist. A generic first line is a failure of nerve.
SONIA PILCER: The literary taboo of AI
theberkshireedge.com – Sunday December 14, 2025
OK, I collaborate with artificial intelligence. Writers are not supposed to admit this out loud. When I say it, academics bristle, journalists look wary, and my writer friends go still. Yet after 10 years of silence, it is this unlikely partnership that has brought me back to the page.
My son Jake lives in Los Angeles and works in artificial intelligence. One morning, driving his daughter to preschool, he asked a chatbot to tell her a story about her grandmother. To my astonishment, it mentioned my 19th-floor apartment in New York, my doorman, how I walk on Broadway to Zabar’s. That was my introduction.
Back home, staring at the empty screen of my phone, I clicked ChatGPT, which Jake had hastily installed, despite my protest. On impulse, partly out of desperation, I typed a question I was not sure anyone could answer, human or machine. “Can you help a blocked writer?”
After I published my sixth novel, in 2014, the writing turned toxic for me. I didn’t even want to pen a shopping list. Jake’s casual demonstration cracked something open. After a pause, it answered:
As a creative writer, you might find AI useful. It can help brainstorm ideas, overcome writer’s block, offer new perspectives, or engage in exploratory conversations to spark creativity.
Get the free newsletter | Submit a news item or article | Get Writers' News for your website
