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Beehiiv Adds Webinars

News Summary: Beehiiv Adds Webinars and Metered Paywalls; Anthropic Settlement Reaches 91% Claim Rate

Beehiiv has been in the news again this past week. I want to report on the latest from the newsletter platform if for no other reason than an irresistible desire to say they have been busy little bees. A facility offering webinar capability will be of interest to some. But more interesting might be the so-called "metered paywall" capability. That's something many will be familiar with as readers, where you get a certain amount of content for free (say, three articles) before you have to pay to unlock more.
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Authors Guild Issues AI Contract Clause

News Summary: Authors Guild Issues AI Contract Clause; Character.AI Launches Interactive Book Platform

We end the week with two AI stories at very different ends of the news spectrum. First up is a statement from Authors Guild on AI in publishing and, as they put it, a "new model contract clause." The statement is an explicit response to the reports I noted previously that publishing professionals are uploading manuscripts to AI models to assist with editing tasks.
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Frankfurt Book Fair To Feature Comics Business Center

News Summary: Frankfurt Book Fair to Feature Comics Business Center; Print Still Leads Digital Reading

I am not a huge comics and graphic novel reader (too many books already on the TBR pile, but the fact we have a huge graphic novel bookshop in Oxford that I walk past every day means I am sure it will happen), but it's part of the market I am always interested to follow because it's one where there's so much potential for indies to do something new and exciting (and successful), especially online with the growth of platforms like Naver Webtoon.
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Bookshop.org Sales Surge

News Summary: Bookshop.org Sales Surge 55% to $70 Million; E-books Now 5% of Total Sales

We start the week with some good news that segues interestingly out of the news that many indie authors have found alarming at the end of last week. The indie corner of the internet has been filled with little other than discussion (much heated) of Draft2Digital's decision to introduce fees for new and low-activity accounts in the face (it claims) of a vast increase in artificially generated content.
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Anthropic Settlement Registration Requirement

News Summary: Copyright Professor Objects to Anthropic Settlement Registration Requirement; Editors Upload Manuscripts to ChatGPT

I wonder when I will run out of news about the Anthropic lawsuit. Not quite yet is the answer, though I was reminded in Jane Friedman's fascinating account in her newsletter this week that there will be a final hearing for approving the $1.5 billion settlement on April 23, so maybe the end is in sight. The latest update though is a fascinating intervention from copyright law professor Lea Bishop. Professor Bishop's official objection to the settlement motion has two points of particular interest.
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Harlequin's AI Microdrama Deal

News Summary: Harlequin’s AI Microdrama Deal Sparks Backlash; Publishers Support Music Industry against Anthropic

The publishing industry has had a week of not seeming to be able to get its story straight on AI. I say story, but what I mean in the first instance is AI-generated animated microdramas. Video microdramas have been in the news several times of late. They are very much in demand with audiences and provide an opportunity for those writers who love producing serialized works with short episodes and cliffhangers aplenty.
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