The sense of wistfulness, slight melancholy, and looking back through the archives of this post comes not just from the time of year. Following the shocking news of Porter Anderson’s death, this week the literary world said goodbye to two more incredibly high-profile stars, Sophie Kinsella and Joanna Trollope. It really does feel like a time of great change.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
I also spotted an interesting anniversary this past week. Blurb celebrated twenty years since it opened its doors to indie authors who wanted to create premium-quality image-based books. Back when Blurb launched, the print options for indie authors were much more limited than they are now. KDP Print obviously wasn’t a thing—it would be several more years before anyone knew what the K in KDP stood for, let alone a print offering. CreateSpace, originally BookSurge, had been around five years but had only just been acquired by Amazon. Many indies were still thinking of Lulu as their first option.
Blurb at Twenty
Blurb slotted neatly into that landscape as a premium offering. It was never competitive on price, but for artists and photographers it has always been a great way of getting high-quality books into the world without the expense of offset runs.
Media Giants and Legal Battles
Coming more into the present, this week has seen the launch of another big AI lawsuit. This time, it’s one giant taking on another, as Disney announced it is suing Google. The House of Mouse claims Google has infringed many of its characters, according to reporting from TechCrunch. Interestingly, this comes at the same time Disney announces a deal with OpenAI for many of its characters to feature in the latter’s Sora video-generation app.
And talking of giant studios, it will not have escaped anyone’s attention that one of the biggest of them all, Warner Bros., is the object of a mammoth fight for ownership. Both Netflix and Skydance/Paramount have declared a $100 billion-plus interest in acquiring the studio and the juiciest rights it holds, in a move that makes consolidation in the publishing industry look like peanuts, as reported by the BBC.
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