So excited for you, Jen!! Congratulations! 🎉🎉🎉

Don’t Automate Yourself Out of a Job, or Book Publishing in the Age of AI Publishing Economics 301: Artificial Intelligence

"Human creativity is not an efficiency problem that can be optimized. Treating writers’—and by extension editors’—work as a problem AI can solve misunderstands the qualitative advantages that book publishers have over tech giants."

dearheadofmine.substack.com/p/dont-autom... #WritingCommunity

Querying Rules and How (Not) To Break Them Join us as we discuss the nitty gritty of getting into trad pub and your first step after finishing the book, querying!

@annahirsch.bsky.social @zillawrites.bsky.social and I started a podcast! Join us for Episode 1 on Substack, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube!
#writing #tradpub #querying #amquerying

Many Shades of Jade Green, lavender, white, black—I contain multitudes, and apparently, a full color palette

First article from my series, The Life That Didn’t Happen, is live!!!
It’s all true, all authentically me, and may include some cringe and humor in it depending on the reader. #writingcommunity #writers #writesky
open.substack.com/pub/jademaso...

A crescent Earth against the black of space.

Some of the imagery coming down from the Artemis II crew is breathtaking...

Taking a break from the keyboard today ☀️

Congratulations Anna! It's been an absolute delight to watch you conquer the querying trenches in the past few weeks, and I cannot wait to see you take this book out on submission! ♥️🪳

A Month-by-Month Peek at 2026's Most Anticipated Horror Horror enthusiasts, gird your loins. This new year looks particularly scary. As part of our rolling overview of upcoming titles in 2026, we’ve coll...

So many amazing horror reads in 2026.

www.goodreads.com/blog/show/30... #booksky #horror

Boston!

Good morning

On a background of a foggy coniferous forest. The background of the four images fit together to show a stream with rocks working its way between two hills in the forest, both covered with trees. In white text: An Editor’s Guide To The Land of Undying Summer by Ivy T. Woods Adult Romantic Fantasy 108,000 words

On a background of a foggy coniferous forest. The background of the four images fit together to show a stream with rocks working its way between two hills in the forest, both covered with trees. On the left side of the picture is an ink drawn map of a continent. In white text: Pitch When a half-dead priestess is forced to work with a wandering mage to figure out why mages are dwindling among her people, they develop a reluctant camaraderie. But when he kills a guard, her people’s distrust escalates into a full-scale uprising, leaving the two loners to save the living, the dead, and each other. Though not necessarily in that order.

On a background of a foggy coniferous forest. The background of the four images fit together to show a stream with rocks working its way between two hills in the forest, both covered with trees. In white text: Comps The atmosphere and vibes of: - The Gilded Crown by Marianne Gordon - Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang The Humour Of: - Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

On a background of a foggy coniferous forest. The background of the four images fit together to show a stream with rocks working its way between two hills in the forest, both covered with trees. In white text Chapter One - The End of Darkness No Guide could resist the Call of Return forever. But this time, when Tilaani’s trembling hands closed on the spiked rocks of the Wolf’s Fangs, the agonizing need for the missing part of herself had dulled to an aching throb. The Call would take her eventually. But not today. Today, she was already running late. “Shit!” Tilaani snatched her cloak from the icy stalagmite she had been using as a hanger and staggered to a slim crack in the cliff face. It had been a century since the passage had opened in one of El’Drek’s rages but the frozen stone was still jagged, tugging at her shirt as she sidled through, thin cloak clutched in one hand. Wind whistled through the crevice, peppering her exposed skin with hard snow. It melted, steaming as it touched her. Time within the cavern had always been malleable, misaligned with the world outside. Shinac had always claimed the shifts were random but Tilaani had her doubts. It always seemed to stretch whenever she was in a hurry. She wouldn’t put it past any of the dead—either Blessed or Barred—to extend time merely to inconvenience her. And now, backing up this theory, the sun was high overhead and the few hours she had spent being lectured by the Ancients had become nearly an entire night and day in the land of the living. Allak would be insufferable if she was late.

An #editorsguide to 🌲THE LAND OF UNDYING SUMMER🌲
This romantic fantasy has:
🐻‍❄️ Canadian subarctic inspired setting
🌋Roots in animistic religion
⚡️A physics based magic system
👵🏽 Crotchety immortals
🏠 Complex family dynamics
🌎 Accessible worldbuilding

#bluepit📖 #A #F #R #FR #OS soon 👀

Dragons, Sex and the Bible: What Drove the Book Business This Year

NYT offers a survey of the state of book publishing that feels hopeful. Also a nice mention for the newly-launched horror store, Twisted Spine. This is a gift article.

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/b...

Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks After years of steady sales declines, the format will largely disappear next year.

Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks

"According to Circana BookScan, mass market unit sales plunged from 131 million in 2004 to 21 million in 2024, a drop of about 84%, and sales this year through October were about 15 million units."
www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

Congrats Zilla!! The blood and sweat was worth it🩸🩸🩸

Thank you! Sending you some dry and sunny regards from the desert 🌵

Taking a break from the keyboard this week...

Screenshot of the contest winner page showing T. Rutherford's picture and bio

Excited to announce that Our Elsewhere has won the general fiction category for the 2025 Book Pipeline Unpublished contest! bookpipeline.com/winners

Honored they recognized Our Elsewhere--a speculative fiction where a widow journeys across worlds via death to find and save her husband.

This is the best vague post I've ever seen. So happy for you Zilla and I can't wait to see what the next couple of weeks will bring! 💛

Congrats Chase!!! 🖤 That's an incredible accomplishment and I can't wait to learn more about this book!

I'm going to do a little thread on how the money from books works for traditionally published authors because people have questions, and this is always useful info to share IMO. First, a big disclaimer that every contract is different, and there are a million factors that can change things. 1/

Sourcebooks is the fifth-largest trade publisher as measured by print books sold, breaking the dominance of the biggest conglomerates for the first time since Bookscan started>
lunch.publishersmarketplace.com/2025/11/sour...

Simon & Schuster Executive Fiction Publisher @phoebeannmorgan.bsky.social joins us to talk about the decisions that go into acquiring and marketing books. Plus, what happens in auctions and why she started The Honest Editor Substack!

Watch now: youtu.be/SJXs6kut_EU
Or listen: linktr.ee/ukpageone

Youtube link: www.youtube.com/live/4fFYD0x...

TWC Live! Literary Agents on Publishing in a Time of Unrest TWC Live! returns November 13, and this time literary agents will be expanding on June’s Big Conversation in the magazine: “Publishing in a Time of Unrest.”

“TWC Live! Literary Agents on Publishing in a Time of Unrest” premieres TONIGHT at 7:00 p.m. ET! See @frecklywench.bsky.social, of Aevitas Creative Management, Danya Kukafka of Trellis Literary Management, and @ericsmithrocks.bsky.social of Neighborhood Literary on AWP’s YouTube channel.

thank you so much, zilla!! 🥹

🖤🖤

Thank you Stephanie!

Thanks kj!! I appreciate your support 🖤

What I’m reading this weekend: Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

It’s a horror novel about a woman who returns from a catastrophic deep-sea mission but is no longer the same.

#BookSky