Created By Humans has launched. I will confess, I thought it had done so already—the hype around the AI rights site has been so great. For those who are unaware (though all readers here will be familiar), this is a site where authors can register their copyrighted works if they are interested in controlling and potentially monetizing the use of their copyrighted work. The site, founded by Scribd’s Trip Adler and Jen Singleman, is the rights partner organization for the Society of Authors.
The Return of Print?
ALLi News Editor, Dan Holloway
Paper was one of the big stories of last year—specifically, the apparent success, even resurgence, of the printed word. We saw this reflected in stories of deluxe editions and Kickstarters, the bookstore as an increasingly popular venue, and, of course, the social media-fueled rise both of buying and of being seen with physical books.
But did people really buy print books in meaningful numbers last year? One set of significant figures suggests that yes, they did. Figures from Circana BookScan, which aggregates sales data from many retailers in the U.S., indicate a 1 percent rise in print sales in 2024 over 2023—the first such rise in three years.
Surprising Trends in Book Sales
Of course, such figures always come with caveats about incompleteness. But as a trend, it’s definitely encouraging. And the breakdown of those figures is really interesting and somewhat surprising. Rebecca Yarros and Sarah Maas both appear twice on the bestseller list—that’s not surprising. But both children’s and young adult fiction saw a decline in sales, which is surprising, especially if we are to believe that the health of the print market is entirely reliant on social media with its avid young adult fanbase. The big growth (4.8 percent) is actually in adult fiction. (Colleen Hoover appears twice on the top ten list—also no surprise.)
Possibly the most interesting figure of all, though, is the 4.6 percent growth in young adult nonfiction.
Obviously, what got us here might not get us there, as the saying goes, but for anyone wondering what direction to go in, especially with a potentially changed social media landscape, this is fascinating stuff.
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