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UK Comics Market Grows

News Summary: UK Comics Market Grows 14%; Survey Shows Creators Struggle Despite Industry Boom

I always enjoy reporting on comics and graphic novels. This is a huge part of our ecosystem, and one where indies can flourish, yet one that rarely gets the coverage it deserves. A new report on the industry has some very interesting findings. It suggests this is a market that is at once booming among readers (the market grew 14 percent in 2025) and driving creators to the edge.
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BookTok Bestseller List

News Summary: First BookTok Bestseller List Dominated by Romance; Publishers Sue Meta over AI Training

A few interesting pieces of news with which to end the week. The one I found most interesting is the long-anticipated release of the first (UK for now, following a trial in Germany) BookTok Bestseller list. In a shocking turn of events that no one could have foreseen, seventeen of the top twenty titles are romance and romantasy, with the likes of Rebecca Yarros, Chloe Walsh, and Sarah J. Maas dominating. It is also no surprise to see the ur-text of dark academia, Donna Tartt's The Secret History, standing proud in the chart.
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Oscars Require Human Actors And Authors

News Summary: Oscars Require Human Actors and Authors; Canadian Publishing Survey Reveals AI Concerns

From time to time in the past few years, major, globally recognized red carpet events in the creative sphere have issued policies on AI and its eligibility for entry into their sanctum sanctorum. Most notable among them was the Grammys. Until now. The Motion Picture Academy of America has updated the rules governing eligibility for the Oscars.
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Audible To Discontinue Legacy Royalty Model

News Summary: Audible to Discontinue Legacy Royalty Model; All Creators Must Switch to New System by Year-End

The end of last week saw the latest in a string of announcements that's been ongoing over many years and that can all be basically summarized as "Audible changes its royalty model." You will remember that the last time this happened it was to announce a new model that effectively followed the Kindle Unlimited format (or indeed the class action settlement format!) of paying rights holders from a fixed pool (which might vary month to month but was fixed for each month). The so-called "new model" has had its fans and its detractors but has so far been a choice for rights holders to make.
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Decline In Children's Reading

News Summary: UK Study Shows Decline in Children’s Reading for Pleasure; Green Shoots among Teens

Are children reading less for pleasure than they used to? It feels like one of those "death of the novel" questions, the kind it's almost compulsory to ask at regular intervals if you are even semiserious about books. But in this instance, as I am fairly sure has been the case several times in the past when I've reported on the same annual report, the occasion for the question is a new survey of reading habits.
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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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