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Sarah's Bookshelves Live

Ep. 187: State of the Publishing Industry in 2024 with Kathleen Schmidt of the Publishing Confidential Substack

Sarah's Bookshelves Live

Sarah Dickinson

Bookrecommendations, Bookpodcasts, Sarahsbookshelvespodcast, Sarahsbookshelveslivepodcast, Sarahsbookshelveslive, Bookpodcast, Literarypodcast, Whatshouldiread, Arts, Bookreviewpodcast, Reading, Readingpodcast, Books, Sarahsbookshelves

4.9 • 732 Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In Ep. 187, Kathleen Schmidt, author of the popular Substack newsletter, Publishing Confidential, joins Sarah to dissect and discuss the State of the Publishing Industry in 2024. Between a high-level look back, talk about the top sales and book trends, to what Kathleen sees on the horizon for 2025 in the book world, this episode is packed with info. Also, Kathleen shares her favorite books of 2024!

This post contains affiliate links through which I make a small commission when you make a purchase (at no cost to you!).

CLICK HERE for the full episode Show Notes on the blog.

Highlights

  • 2024 bookish news and publishing trends overview.
  • Kathleen grades last year’s crop of books with an overall B+.
  • How the middle-aged woman / menopause stories might shake out to be the next buzzy books.
  • The ways the full book market is oversaturated.
  • The impact TikTok still has on the book world.
  • Kathleen breaks down the side-eye publishing attracts from other industries with its oddball business model. 
  • Taylor Swift remains a hot topic in publishing with The Eras Tour Book.
  • Did Spotify’s entrance into audiobooks make a noticeable impact?
  • The secret struggle of memoirs.
  • Anticipating 2025’s potential bookish trends.

State of the Publishing Industry in 2024

High-Level Overview [2:02]

2024 Book Sales and Trends [9:35] 

Big Book Stories of 2024 [34:18]

  • The Official Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour Book (Target Exclusive)(2024) [38:21] 

2025 Publishing Predictions [42:48]

Kathleen’s 3 Favorites Books of 2024 [46:41]

Other Links

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to Sarah's Bookshelves Live.

0:11.9

I'm your host, Sarah Dickinson.

0:13.9

Join me every other week as we get real and sometimes a bit snarky about books and reading.

0:19.2

Let's get rolling.

0:20.6

Welcome to our second annual state of the

0:22.8

publishing industry episode. You might be wondering, what is a state of the publishing industry

0:27.6

episode? It's sort of like a state of the union address, except for publishing. We're going to take stock

0:32.7

of how 2024 was for books and the publishing industry with an expert guest. And we have a new expert guest

0:39.0

this year. Kathleen Schmidt is a well-respected voice in book publishing with in-depth experience

0:44.1

in all aspects of the industry, including as a publicist literary agent, acquisitions editor, and

0:49.5

ghostwriter. I became familiar with Kathleen because I subscribed to her very successful substack publishing

0:56.0

confidential, where she shares her wealth of inside knowledge that she hopes will help demystify

1:01.0

the book industry. And I'll link to her substack in the show notes if you all want to go

1:05.3

follow her after this episode. Kathleen is also the founder and CEO of Kathleen Schmidt

1:10.3

Public Relations. Her career

1:12.3

encompasses 30 years of creating and directing impactful and strategic global media marketing

1:17.6

and branding campaigns for politicians, A-list celebrities, athletes, and high-profile

1:23.0

personalities. Kathleen is married with two children and she resides in New Jersey. Welcome, Kathleen.

1:28.9

Thank you. So here's how our state of the industry episode will go today. We're going to talk about

1:35.0

five sort of big buckets. Number one, how 2024 was for publishing at a high level. Number two,

1:43.1

2024 bookish sales and trends, including how the election

1:47.1

may have impacted publishing. Number three, the biggest publishing stories of 2024. Four, publishing

...

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