Culture Study Podcast - All the Latest Book & Publishing Trends, Explained

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, it's Anne and I'm here to tell you about a whole bunch of new recordings we have

00:00:04.220 scheduled. We need your questions for them. One is with the author of a book about the connection

00:00:09.240 between male grievance culture and climate change and specifically like denying climate change and

00:00:15.400 basically why are men less likely than women to believe in climate change. Super interesting but

00:00:21.600 we need your questions to dig deeper into that. We're also working on one about hoarding with

00:00:26.360 someone who grew up in a family where hoarding was a major problem. So what do you want to ask

00:00:30.880 someone who lived through that? What do you notice about the hoarding content we consume on TV and

00:00:35.260 social media? Do you want advice on negotiating a hoarding situation in your own life? There's so

00:00:41.340 many directions you can take that one. And then for some slightly lighter fare, we're going to do

00:00:46.320 a deep dive on Gwyneth Paltrow with the author of the new juicy biography. And we've got an episode

00:00:52.000 on birding culture. We're going to talk about food trends. So like, what are you seeing in

00:00:57.420 restaurants all over the place? What are you seeing in recipes that are coming out? Again,

00:01:02.100 take that in any direction you want. And we're also going to explore hanging out and what makes

00:01:07.480 a good or a bad hang. And we're still taking your requests for book recs for our fiction

00:01:12.140 concierge episode. As always, you can submit your questions, ideas for future episodes,

00:01:17.640 and prompts for the Ask Anna Anything segment at tinyurl.com slash culturestudypod or check

00:01:24.400 the show notes for a link. Okay, thanks. Enjoy today's show. This is the Culture Study Podcast

00:01:36.480 and I'm Anne Helen Peterson. I'm Alyssa Morris. I'm a literary agent at Trellis Literary Management

00:01:42.760 and I'm the author of the Romancing the Phone Substack. So you joined us last year for one of

00:01:47.940 our most popular episodes ever, which is entitled Is Book Talk Actually About Reading? And first of

00:01:55.220 all, if people haven't listened to that, it's, you know, you don't need to have listened to that

00:01:59.200 before listening to this episode. But if you like this episode, definitely go back and find that

00:02:04.360 one. But Alyssa, you've had some professional news since then. Can you tell me about your new job?

00:02:10.480 I have. Yeah. So I have been working as a literary agent. I was previously consulting,

00:02:16.960 helping agents find romance and romanticy novels from the Kindle Unlimited space. And now I am

00:02:22.420 doing it all for myself. And it's been very exciting and exhilarating.

00:02:27.400 Tell me if I get this wrong, but my memory is that you met my agent, who is at Trellis,

00:02:34.540 I founded Trellis with some other agents at an event that I did in Austin.

00:02:39.940 Is that right?

00:02:40.900 Yeah, that's correct.

00:02:41.720 It was an event for the 19th News.

00:02:44.160 And Allison and I ended up sitting next to each other at a table.

00:02:46.820 And it changed my life.

00:02:48.600 So thank you.

00:02:50.480 I love it.

00:02:51.340 I love it so much.

00:02:53.480 So do you have, this is a big question that comes from Melody.

00:02:58.960 Do you have a thesis on the current state of reading culture?

00:03:02.600 Oh, my God.

00:03:04.540 can you have a singular thesis about the current state of reading maybe like what's changed this

00:03:11.400 year like what are you feeling in the air about changes in like the conversation I feel like the

00:03:16.640 temperature on the conversation has gotten turned up a lot recently it feels like everything is at

00:03:23.000 operating at a low simmer and just like ready to tip over into an active boil at any moment from

00:03:29.000 things that can feel trivial and then it just spirals into this huge conversation and I think

00:03:35.440 a lot of that is happening on threads where the temperature of book conversation is very hot

00:03:40.320 it's also happening on TikTok a lot it's happening because of AI I think that AI has changed the

00:03:47.440 tenor of a lot of these conversations and I think book talk has been around for long enough that

00:03:52.220 it's like to a point where people are having bigger conversations about what is happening

00:03:57.220 over there now that it is such an established force in the marketing channels and sales for

00:04:02.900 traditionally published novels across the board. Right. Like before, even like, I don't know,

00:04:08.560 three years ago, two years ago, it felt like a niche, like almost guerrilla marketing. And now

00:04:15.200 I think it feels so central to the conversation. Like if you don't have people on your team who

00:04:20.480 are very, very clued into what's happening on BookTok, like forget about it. And the threads

00:04:26.580 point is so interesting to me because i think other people will recognize this experience i'm

00:04:32.080 scrolling through instagram and instagram will highlight a thread here's a thread you might

00:04:38.480 want to check out yeah right and it's almost always and i don't know how like you know all

00:04:43.880 the information that meta has about me for me it's almost always about books and it's always like

00:04:48.700 hot take and then it's like not really a hot take right um but i do think that the platforms

00:04:55.300 themselves are also heightening these conversations does that make sense definitely yes and i try my

00:05:02.100 best not to click on those darn threads things in my instagram but they get me every time

00:05:06.440 and i click over i know every time the hot take the other thing i get a lot of is like 0.89

00:05:12.920 people's airplane stories and i'm like this is just outrage bait like this is just people

00:05:17.240 it feels worse than twitter was somehow like because it just it is very algorithmically

00:05:24.160 driven in a rage bait kind of way yeah so today's episode is basically a grab bag about all things

00:05:32.080 book culture and we're going to talk about books as status symbols like shelves and that sort of

00:05:38.180 thing celebrity book clubs seemingly random books that go viral on tiktok and so much more and then

00:05:45.400 for our ask an anything segment we have a question about book clubs and about specifically about like

00:05:51.460 the future of someone's book club that I think is going to be really fun to try to answer.

00:05:56.020 So we're going to start with a question from Helena.

00:05:59.420 What is happening with reading as a class and status symbol? I have been recently boggled to

00:06:05.020 learn about bookshelf wealth and that all the influencers slash models slash actresses are

00:06:10.060 carrying around books as accessories and starting book clubs. How is this tied into book talk and

00:06:14.940 social media? How is this tied into regressive, progressive beauty standards and race? Why is 0.98

00:06:21.160 everyone critiquing all the iron flame and romanticy girlies for quote overconsumption 0.91

00:06:25.440 of books. Is this not just book collecting? And are people just mad because young women are doing

00:06:30.200 it? Oh, my gosh. So Helena gave us some great descriptions to start with. But can you flesh

00:06:37.520 out this description of bookshelf wealth? Because I think if people haven't been exposed to the

00:06:42.520 how it's manifested on social media, they might not understand exactly what we're talking about.

00:06:47.980 Yeah. And I would just want to say this is an incredible question. We could probably spend

00:06:51.060 the whole podcast just on this question if I wanted to. There's so much to unpack here.

00:06:55.820 I feel like it relates a little bit to a question we answered last time about someone who said

00:06:59.740 people did not believe her when she told them how much she read and there was a lot of judgment

00:07:03.920 about reading too much. I think this all kind of ties into that, which I've been noticing it

00:07:09.380 everywhere ever since we had that conversation. There's just this disbelief that people could be

00:07:13.900 reading this much. But I think with bookshelf wealth on social media and especially on TikTok,

00:07:19.520 What it plays out as is influencers who are sitting in front of their perfectly styled bookshelves full of all of their collected books, whether they're special editions, whether they're every edition of a book they love, they have this perfectly styled out background to show that they are a book collector.

00:07:37.480 And it plays out in the romanticy space with these special editions where some readers, especially some big creators on BookTok, display their books pages out because sprayed edges are such a big part of the collectible romanticy book that they want to show all the sprayed edges, which is how medieval manuscripts were sometimes displayed in medieval libraries.

00:07:57.260 and I think that's an incredible thing

00:07:59.160 that we've cycled back around to.

00:08:01.300 So people have these beautiful walls

00:08:03.180 where you can't even tell what the books are

00:08:04.460 because you're just seeing the designs

00:08:05.800 on the sprayed edges, which is fascinating.

00:08:08.480 But even in the literary space,

00:08:10.420 in the interior design space,

00:08:11.740 we're just seeing where people styled bookshelves

00:08:14.440 that are supposed to feel so personal

00:08:16.080 are this indicator of their personal taste,

00:08:19.400 their status as an intellectual.

00:08:21.800 It has become this really important aesthetic signifier.

00:08:26.040 And I think it ties into a lot of what we're seeing with these celebrity influencer book

00:08:30.460 clubs as well.

00:08:31.240 I think reading as a class and status symbol has become something that's tied to the notion

00:08:35.840 of brain rot.

00:08:37.220 People are spending too much time on the internet and frying their attention spans.

00:08:41.280 They're watching TikToks about ballerina cappuccino, and it's become a status symbol

00:08:45.860 to be offline.

00:08:47.600 So books are a really good symbol about how you're offline.

00:08:50.780 you can process large amounts of information uh but i and there's all kinds of online guides for

00:08:57.700 how to unwrot your brain and they all include reading yes it's ironic that one of the only

00:09:02.940 places to perform this is online yes i that's such a good point and i think it's also connected to

00:09:09.880 something that we're seeing across the arts really which is like you have this big divide between like

00:09:17.760 a lot of people are consuming in en masse in digital form so like i read all of my romances

00:09:24.240 in kindle form right so i don't even own the physical book but then there's also this fetish

00:09:30.320 ization of collector's items as books as status symbols in some way and you see this in like i

00:09:38.020 think there's a newfound profound interest in collecting physical media like dvds criterion

00:09:44.600 collection yes lps actual cds and tapes right like having some sort of ownership that also speaks to

00:09:53.160 like your fandom but also you as a person who values this sort of thing like it's like a step

00:09:59.100 up and obviously the understanding favorite books as like an indicator of taste like i think back on

00:10:07.680 when we first started making facebook profiles and it was like very important what books you

00:10:12.480 listed as your favorite books like yes but you weren't putting you know it wasn't aesthetic in

00:10:18.420 that way and now because like listing is no longer enough you need to you need to demonstrate and

00:10:25.240 manifest it right yes okay reminds me of a thread that got forwarded to me in my instagram account

00:10:30.680 yesterday which was about a critique of reading like that reading is privileged oh no have you

00:10:38.380 seen this? Have you seen this? I have not. I understand this understanding that like leisure

00:10:43.260 time is a privilege, but actually even people who work a lot still have leisure time, right? They

00:10:49.620 can decide what they want to do with their leisure time. So deciding to read, I don't think that's a

00:10:54.400 privilege. No, we have libraries and libraries are like ever more accessible to people. Like you can

00:11:00.120 check out books from the library onto whatever device you have. So that part I think is more

00:11:06.640 tied up in the second part of Helena's question, which is that this like understanding of

00:11:11.460 overconsumption that like, this needs to be critiqued in some way. Why does it need to be

00:11:16.260 critiqued? Probably because a lot of women are doing it. Yeah, when I think where this gets 1.00

00:11:20.380 complicated is that like a lot of the influence are in celebrity book clubs, we're seeing crop

00:11:24.320 up are sharing more conventionally literary picks. But what those people consider reading

00:11:29.340 romanticcy as a sign of brain rot is like reading a lot of romanticcy actually signifying to these

00:11:34.880 people that you're the right kind of offline intellectual. Like there's an interesting

00:11:40.780 mix of ideas at play there. But I do think the complaints about overconsumption related to

00:11:46.400 are rooted in misogyny. And it's just like the same argument we've seen about romance readers

00:11:51.500 in a new form. Like it doesn't die. It just comes back. And now it feels like maybe with

00:11:57.380 there's so many indie romance bookstores, we can't critique just regular down the middle

00:12:01.260 romance anymore we understand that that's a misogynist like complaint but romanticy is like

00:12:07.660 it feels like the new place where we can have these kind of arguments about is this the right

00:12:12.740 kind of reading right and do you think it has to do with the fact that there's fantasy at play

00:12:19.280 like is that it or i know that some people have talked about the feeling that they get after

00:12:25.640 gorging on a romanticy because sometimes that is the feeling that it produces because it is so

00:12:32.240 effective in enthralling you with the plot like the payoff isn't exactly what you want it to be

00:12:40.320 like you feel a little like woozy afterwards it's just like fully escapist and it ties back into

00:12:46.140 this notion that we've been fighting forever of like a guilty pleasure we're like if it makes you

00:12:50.120 feel good why should you be guilty about it this is where I think it's a little bit more complicated

00:12:54.620 because I think sometimes people don't feel good after reading it

00:12:57.520 because they stay up later than they want to stay up.

00:13:00.120 It's producing addictive behaviors that they don't necessarily want to embrace,

00:13:05.800 even though they love the feeling of absorptive reading.

00:13:08.640 It's like too much absorptive reading.

00:13:10.760 Does that make sense?

00:13:13.480 I've definitely had that, and I had that with various romanticism series

00:13:16.760 where I've been like, I want to stop, but I cannot.

00:13:20.660 And I wish I had a little bit more control,

00:13:22.740 the same way that I feel about like, why can't I stop swiping on TikTok, you know?

00:13:29.420 Definitely. But it's interesting, because I think romanticity has also like driven most of

00:13:34.200 these big changes in the culture of physical media we're seeing in books and romance in the

00:13:40.180 past few years. So like, sprayed edges have completely transformed what book publishing

00:13:45.020 looks like in 2025. They became this sort of niche thing that has now become like almost

00:13:49.800 essential to making a book not just in romantics anymore but like if you have a big release in

00:13:54.300 romance you really need to have sprayed edges for it to stand out they're calling them spredges now

00:13:59.280 what a word incredible spredges uh and so i think that they're that's really interesting that they're

00:14:07.820 coming from this just like wholly absorbing addictive side of the space that like hasn't

00:14:15.420 traditionally been where collector culture is at play totally right like it's not like the

00:14:20.820 people aren't thinking out like vintage like first edition collectors well it is very hard

00:14:27.480 to get your hands on the like original covers of the court of thorns and roses books which and

00:14:32.900 they're like quite ugly but they're very expensive if you find them on the internet

00:14:37.620 How much of this do you think is a crossover from what I think of as like the leading figure in this sort of contemporary collector culture, which is Taylor Swift with the CDs and like, reintroducing this sort of collector culture to a new generation of girls? Do you think that that's true?

00:14:56.960 Yeah, I mean, they just announced, Sarah J Maas just announced that she has like a merchandising brand deal that's about to start, which means that there's probably going to be like ACOTAR merch sold at a lot of places. And that feels very Taylor Swiftian to me to have these new merch drops.

00:15:12.980 And especially to like take control of the merch yourself, because there's been so much like off brand Etsy.

00:15:19.740 yes and now she has an actual brand and she's going to be able to to own what is being produced

00:15:27.340 about a cord of wines and roses but i'm very interested to see what that ends up looking like

00:15:30.900 and how broadly it extends

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00:19:49.500 at checkout for 15% off. Okay, so next question is about book influencing. I cannot wait to talk

00:20:01.220 about this. This is from Micah. I'd love a discussion on celebrity book clubs like Oprah

00:20:06.560 and Reese and others, and book influencers on various social media as the source of tastemaking

00:20:13.440 today, in contrast to previous generations relying more on book critics. How does that affect what we

00:20:19.280 read and how we read? Tracking, TBRs, challenges. I was a teenager during the initial rise of Booktube

00:20:28.320 before Booktalk and the boom of YA publishing, specifically dystopian YA, and it's been

00:20:34.960 fascinating to see those mostly millennial older influencers get older online. Some turn into adult

00:20:41.820 readers and some stick with YA almost exclusively. What is this phenomenon? I feel like there's two

00:20:47.540 questions here because there's the question about the book clubs, right, the celebrity book clubs

00:20:51.480 and what's going on with them. And then there's the question, which I also find super interesting,

00:20:56.060 which is about the millennial book influencers getting older. So maybe let's start with the

00:21:02.340 celebrity book clubs? Yeah, this is a timely question, because a lot of what we're seeing now

00:21:07.480 is that celebrity book clubs aren't really moving the needle, like they once were. Really? Yeah. So

00:21:13.340 like, you know, if they still drive a lot of success, but it's not like a given that if you're

00:21:17.920 a celebrity book club pick, your book is going to do amazingly well. And it's because they've lost

00:21:23.020 a lot of this market share, if you will, to influencers on various various social media

00:21:28.040 platforms who have a lot of power these days but a good example of this is that recently reese's

00:21:34.100 book club selected the new emily henry book great big beautiful life as their pick i doubt they were

00:21:39.600 introducing any of their readers to emily henry for the first time yeah their selection didn't

00:21:44.640 make or break that book so why are they making that selection right like they're trying to

00:21:49.900 piggyback on the existing power of emily henry my thinking and i need to like look into the fine

00:21:56.960 print on this, but at least historically, part of what makes Reese and her team pick a book

00:22:02.260 is that when they pick it, is they're optioning it, right? So my thinking with that book is that

00:22:08.500 that was how they got the option. I mean, I think that's definitely possible, but it just feels like

00:22:12.580 more and more, they are not discovering anything new for readers. They're making picks that are

00:22:17.480 very expected. And so I think we're seeing influencers as the main source of tastemaking

00:22:22.600 because there are so many places to find them, whether you're on BookTok, whether you're on

00:22:26.100 bookstagram whether you're on reddit which like really has a lot of interesting power these days

00:22:31.140 and i think some of what we've seen because of that is an explosion in the popularity of genre

00:22:35.620 fiction because when there are more tastemakers you can find recommendations that are much more

00:22:40.920 tailored to your specific taste rather than like more general tastes that are broadly appealing

00:22:46.480 of a national book club and i think we can see this in like the rise of mainstream monster romance

00:22:51.840 we can see it in the rising popularity of dark romance of cozy fantasy these are all subgenres

00:22:58.240 that feel incredibly niche but they've exploded because you can find people who are like

00:23:02.340 guides to them to help you navigate this new to you subgenre right right whereas oprah historically

00:23:09.200 and now i think reese and read with jenna um are their picks were essentially like here's a good

00:23:16.060 middle brow pick like it wasn't necessarily like the the stories were different until the shifts

00:23:22.720 in oprah's book club that happened in the later iterations of it they were not what we think of as

00:23:27.960 like literary i'm putting that in quotes on purpose but like they they weren't like doing

00:23:32.920 experimental stuff like they i mean they were what we call book club fiction now yes book club

00:23:38.860 fiction and like I sometimes battle my own internalized taste hierarchies that when I see

00:23:45.460 that a book has been chosen by read with Jenna like whatever by a book club not Oprah's book

00:23:53.260 club anymore because she I think picks very different things now but by Jenna or by race

00:23:58.540 and I'm like oh this is just gonna be like fine and so I do think that maybe some people who have

00:24:04.500 been burned by that feeling they're like yeah that was fine like i'm not going to remember that

00:24:08.880 they are gravitating towards these more specialized recommendation engines that are essentially

00:24:16.560 influencers right and we got another question actually that we didn't include that i loved

00:24:20.620 that was like these gen z influencers are smarter on tropes than like anyone in my like 300 level

00:24:29.280 English class. They can identify how tropes are working, how narrative shifts are working,

00:24:35.220 point of view, all of these things really, really effectively. And maybe that's how we should

00:24:40.420 actually be teaching these concepts in schools. Yeah, that's fascinating. They're thinking about

00:24:44.680 it so deeply. This also made me think about the AI summer reading scandal that happened a few

00:24:49.100 months ago where several newspapers ran a list of summer reads that was AI generated and the books

00:24:54.060 didn't exist. They were all made up. And it just shows you that newspapers don't have book

00:24:59.240 critics anymore. Like the influencers have had to step in and fill this space partially because

00:25:03.840 there are very few people performing this job because no one will pay them to do it. And one

00:25:08.060 thing I've noticed is that influencers are acting more like journalists in order to fill the gap.

00:25:12.060 Like on BookTok, a genre of video I'm seeing more and more is just sharing lists of upcoming

00:25:17.720 releases and different genres and their release date, which is like the kind of thing you would

00:25:21.980 have gone to a magazine for in the past. Right. Because and some of this too is I think like the

00:25:27.440 massive destruction of of like web traffic when it comes to something like you know there used to be

00:25:35.500 the most anticipated list like if you googled summer reading lists like the first 15 results

00:25:41.120 would be like vogue summer reading lists like new york magazine like all of these different things

00:25:46.000 and now people just get the ai summary or they don't even use google for that sort of thing

00:25:50.380 right like they are searching reddit summer reads or they're searching tiktok in order to find those

00:25:56.400 things. And I don't think that like, it's not the death of the critic. It's different brand of

00:26:01.900 criticism. Yeah, I think some people think that TikTok, it's only positive. Yeah, when I find

00:26:08.300 the people on TikTok to be more willing to be negative, a lot of the time, like they're not

00:26:13.320 scared to dislike a book, they will post a pan in a way that a lot of other social media networks

00:26:18.860 are much more like they will only post about their five star reads, or there's this like sort

00:26:23.100 of etiquette that on TikTok, I don't think as many of the big creators abide by, you

00:26:28.360 know, like the format of a yes, no, maybe video, they have to say no to things and be

00:26:32.260 like, no, I didn't like this one.

00:26:34.160 Right.

00:26:34.740 What have you seen happening with millennial influencers who gained their popularity on

00:26:39.380 something like Booktube or like Bookstagram?

00:26:42.620 Like what is happening to them?

00:26:44.500 What are you seeing?

00:26:45.040 I mean, Bookstagram is still going strong, I would say.

00:26:48.080 And Booktube too.

00:26:48.720 A lot of the Booktalk people also have YouTube channels, which is funny because their Book

00:26:52.380 talk videos are already long and then their book tube videos are like 40 minutes long so i can't

00:26:56.580 imagine who is watching that much of their content but it is i mean in a lot of ways the only long

00:27:02.560 form criticism of this kind of work that is available out there um but it's interesting

00:27:08.760 because this all ties into like where genre publishing has gone because i think what we've

00:27:13.020 seen is that publishers are buying less and less ya uh it's not as big of a genre as it once was

00:27:19.520 And a lot of that energy and work has been funneled into romance and romanticcy.

00:27:23.720 And so if you look at a lot of the romanticcy editors that the big five have hired in recent years, a lot of them are coming from YA publishing.

00:27:31.080 So there's been this big shift of readers who were reading a lot of YA before who are now reading a lot of romanticcy because that's the genre that's sort of hitting the same place that YA was in the past.

00:27:43.140 And, you know, if people have only read ACOTAR, they might not know that there are genres of romanticcy that are not as explicit. So it's not necessarily that like readers of all ages are like, it's not that 13 year olds are like reading explicit sex scenes. Although, again, I mean, 13 year olds have always stolen their mom's books and read or their parents books and read these sex scenes.

00:28:11.660 like it's like this is not some I don't know like I just I love when people are like can you imagine

00:28:17.740 my 13 year old reading this and then you think back if you actually think in your mind and you're

00:28:21.380 like here's the books that I stole when I was babysitting and here's like this book that I

00:28:26.020 made sure my mom didn't know I was reading when I was 13. Yeah like how old was I when I read The

00:28:30.800 Mists of Avalon? Probably 13. I know right? Okay next question oh my gosh Melody really wants this

00:28:38.960 answer because she hates this phenomenon. This comes from Emily. I've noticed a trend in publishing 0.81

00:28:44.040 lately that I don't have an aim for. It's books that are clearly marketed at particular fandoms

00:28:49.060 with either the titles or the pen names of the authors. For example, Say You'll Remember Me by

00:28:54.840 Abby Jimenez, clearly aimed at the Swifties, or The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore,

00:29:00.920 clearly aimed at fans of Gilmore Girls. As a fan of both Gilmore Girls and Taylor Swift,

00:29:05.700 I personally find these overt references unappealing, but maybe I'm missing out.

00:29:10.940 But my question is, how does this work in terms of copyright infringement and marketing?

00:29:15.740 Is this just allowed, or do the owners of the original intellectual property get a say?

00:29:21.520 Also, are these types of books openly requested by publishing houses,

00:29:25.380 and who in marketing decides which fandoms they are going to produce these works for?

00:29:31.480 Great question. Melody, can you first tell us why this annoys you?

00:29:34.900 it just seems like such a pointless cash grab like it almost seems like pavlovian marketing 0.71

00:29:41.220 where they're like if we titled this book cruel summer all the swifties will buy it when it has

00:29:46.340 like nothing to do with right taylor swift at all i just i see these books all the time and as you

00:29:52.940 know a diehard swifty and a diehard reader i'm like this should be for me and it just pisses me

00:29:58.700 off well and it's also just kind of like condescending almost it's condescending and

00:30:02.900 it's lazy. Come up with your own turn of phrase. I think this is mostly just marketing, partially

00:30:09.940 because the growth of the romance market and indie publishing means that there's a lot more

00:30:14.240 competition for attention in this space. And so people are just desperate to figure out like how

00:30:19.840 they can make their books stand out in the market. And book publishing moves so slowly that they're

00:30:25.240 only going to do this with art and artists with significant fandoms that won't just disappear in

00:30:29.640 two years like in the time it takes them to actually get this book out so that's part of

00:30:33.980 why you're seeing a lot of taylor swift related ones because like people know people will still

00:30:39.060 like taylor swift in two years uh and the demographic really aligns with the demographic

00:30:45.040 they're aiming for with these books right like there's a lot of crossover between swifties

00:30:49.220 and rom-com readers uh yeah so i think it's a lot of that but publishers do create their own ip

00:30:56.680 projects like if you think about book packagers like alloy entertainment who created gossip girl

00:31:02.420 and sisterhood of the traveling pants so they are sometimes packaging books to fit like the desires

00:31:08.900 of these existing fan bases for things like gilmore girls and creating content for them

00:31:14.460 because they're not seeing it in the market and they're trying to meet the needs of fans who they

00:31:18.720 think will be fans of this type of novel yeah and i will say that like say you'll remember me

00:31:25.900 like that phrase is not copyrighted no and it's always like the new annabelle monaghan book is

00:31:32.760 called it's a love story i just read that but the one there is literally a book called cruel summer

00:31:39.160 and i'm like that's that's the name of a song it's not just like a lyric how is that allowed

00:31:46.040 no but like i mean cruel summer was also um hold on yeah it's a different song too

00:31:52.520 uh yeah it's a different song it's a song by banana banana rama oh yes of course maybe it's

00:31:59.900 for the banana rama fans no but like i'm just saying like that like it is a it's a phrase

00:32:06.380 almost right like and that's where taylor was also picking it up from so it's not like you

00:32:11.040 can use that phrase yeah nothing's been like so specific and they're not like collaborating like

00:32:16.960 this isn't like a crossover like a cross promotion with the gilmore girls they're just trying to like

00:32:22.040 cross promote to the fans. Yes. One, the Pumpkin Spice Cafe books have been hugely successful.

00:32:28.380 They're so popular. I saw a Pumpkin Spice Cafe coloring book at the indie romance bookstore in

00:32:33.440 Austin a couple weeks ago. I know. This is so interesting to me. Okay, so let's talk about

00:32:40.480 covers. This question comes from Catherine. How has the focus on visuals changed romance publishing

00:32:46.280 and reading, especially since they are drivers of book talk and have been financially holding

00:32:51.700 up publishing. E-readers led to a rise in indie pubs, but hard copies make content.

00:32:58.580 Okay, so Alyssa, what are your thoughts on this in this current moment?

00:33:02.740 This is another one that like we could spend this entire podcast talking about. This is a rich

00:33:07.060 text, but I think BookTok creators are really very savvy about how they visually represent

00:33:12.260 books. So if they read something on their Kindle, they'll superimpose the cover over their shoulder

00:33:16.860 in the top left corner of their video.

00:33:19.640 And so it's not stopping them from talking about books

00:33:23.200 if they've only read them digitally,

00:33:24.940 but they've all decked out their Kindles.

00:33:27.480 They have stickers behind clear cases.

00:33:29.720 They all have pop sockets on the back of their Kindles.

00:33:32.500 I've been influenced.

00:33:33.640 I have a pop socket on the back of my Kindle now.

00:33:36.440 I love it.

00:33:37.400 I don't think I could go back.

00:33:39.400 They have fancy page turners.

00:33:41.120 So there's definitely more of a visual emphasis

00:33:43.020 in terms of personalizing your Kindle

00:33:44.780 than there has been in the past.

00:33:46.860 And as someone who visits a lot of indie romance bookstores, they are all doing a very brisk

00:33:52.160 sticker business.

00:33:54.080 Like they're selling so many romance themed stickers for people's Kindles and water bottles

00:33:58.680 and laptops and everything else.

00:34:00.760 And I think that's one of the big changes we've seen is like being a reader is an identity

00:34:05.280 in a way that you can represent not just with your books, but other places.

00:34:09.740 Like I was at Target yesterday and they had a pop socket that said Hot Girls Read, which

00:34:14.420 i thought was fascinating that that has crossed over to target but we're also seeing like the you

00:34:22.460 know outside of the ebooks it's like you either have a book that doesn't exist for you at all

00:34:27.600 it's ephemeral it's on your kindle or you have like the most special edition version of the books

00:34:32.300 that you love as we're seeing this rise of book collector culture so it's driven by things like

00:34:36.820 sprayed edges illustrated special editions but another way creators and authors are leveraging

00:34:43.280 the visual nature of social media is there's this been been this huge rise in fan art to promote

00:34:48.960 romance. So authors now commission artists to create illustrations of their characters to share

00:34:54.640 with their readers. It's a huge part of the marketing process. Good fan art can make a book.

00:34:59.880 And often authors are posting fan art of the characters before the book has even been released.

00:35:05.180 Yeah, because it allows you to like, imagine them. And you know, like, I think back on

00:35:10.000 old school like harlequin romance bodice ripper covers that was a means of you like imagining who

00:35:17.520 that protagonist was and now we've moved to cartoon covers but because of that there's this

00:35:23.660 also shift back towards the sort of bodice ripper inspired like clinch covers in these fan art

00:35:28.380 illustrations that are also everywhere yes but i do think that that's really interesting my friend

00:35:34.400 jason diamond who we had on the podcast a couple weeks ago he has a new um fiction book coming out

00:35:40.020 and he's a very like physical culture nerd and he commissioned artist friends of his to make

00:35:47.500 different like posters and stuff like that just for mostly like for his own enjoyment but i also

00:35:52.560 think it's very effective it is and his cover his cover it's about like the mob in chicago

00:35:59.400 and his cover very much evokes

00:36:01.360 like the original Godfather

00:36:03.300 cover. Oh, I love that. And so I think that

00:36:05.280 we're seeing that in like different genres

00:36:07.140 too, that like right now we're

00:36:09.140 going, like it's, think about like

00:36:11.160 Lena Dunham, the cover of Lena Dunham's book and

00:36:13.160 how that was one of the first to like go

00:36:15.140 back and evoke this like 70s,

00:36:17.140 80s, Tom Wolfe, like

00:36:19.280 that style. But I think

00:36:21.220 even though we're seeing

00:36:22.400 the aesthetics of genre fiction

00:36:25.140 go in a different direction, you're seeing it in literary

00:36:27.280 fiction in different ways too. Yeah.

00:36:29.040 Well, and it's interesting because in romance especially, a lot of romances will be released with multiple different covers if you're indie publishing that you can choose which cover you want.

00:36:38.340 So there's like a traditional cartoon cover, but then there will be something like they call it a discrete cover, sort of like in the style of Fifty Shades of Grey, where there's nothing on the cover that indicates it's a romance novel.

00:36:49.740 it might just be like flowers with the title or something that's like totally anonymous if you're

00:36:55.740 not interested in having your books advertised that there are romances and Alyssa I'm blanking

00:37:00.620 on the name what's the publishing house that's like doing romances and they have like very

00:37:05.280 oh it's 831 stories yes yes so their style too can you describe that for listeners we'll put a

00:37:12.360 we'll put a cover in the in the show yeah all of their covers are following the same template and

00:37:16.960 they're both two colors usually like jewel tones and they're very geometric there was actually i

00:37:22.680 think a publisher's weekly article about this that we can find the link to like a month ago because

00:37:27.160 there's like the numbers eight three and one are like somehow visually represented in the geometry

00:37:32.020 of these covers but they're fully just like colors and text they are not representative at all

00:37:38.980 they also are kind of marketed as like highbrow different sort of romance yeah yeah yeah you will

00:37:45.560 You can find them at your snobby indie bookstore that doesn't carry any other romance, typically.

00:37:51.000 And then, like, they also, though, are aesthetically pleasing on the show.

00:37:55.540 They are.

00:37:56.480 And they have a whole line of merchandise related to romance that's been doing very well for them at the same time.

00:38:02.320 Like, they have hats that say things like, you know, competence porn or something like that related to romance tropes.

00:38:09.100 Wow.

00:38:09.560 It's fascinating.

00:38:11.060 It is.

00:38:11.500 And very savvy and also makes me feel weird inside.

00:38:14.660 That's exactly how I feel about it.

00:38:44.660 oregano, and then just a ton of olive oil. What did I use? The drizzle from Graza. And it was

00:38:51.600 amazing. There's also the sizzle, which I use every day whenever I'm like, I don't know,

00:38:56.300 anything that I'm sauteing some vegetables, whatever. And it's an everyday cooking oil

00:39:01.160 for roasting, marinating, et cetera, et cetera. And then there's the frizzle, which has a smoke

00:39:05.900 point of 490 degrees. You can use it for grilling. You can use it for frying or crisping. I use it

00:39:12.500 to crisp my tofu all of the graza olive oils come from one olive varietal from one region

00:39:18.440 no mysterious blends that means a traceable fresher product without mixing in any lower

00:39:23.340 grade or unknown oils and they also come in these super fun squeeze bottles which I love like they

00:39:30.320 just make I don't know like I'm like oh now I'm using my olive oil instead of like oh now I'm

00:39:35.220 using this giant thing of olive oil that's like covered in oil that's gross I love it right now

00:39:42.020 you can get 10% off your first order on Graza's site. And I personally suggest grabbing the trio.

00:39:47.780 That's all three squeezy bottles, the sizzle, frizzle, and drizzle. So you're set for every

00:39:52.500 style of cooking. Head to graza.co and use culture to get 10% off the trio, which includes again,

00:39:59.920 the sizzle, the frizzle, and the drizzle, and get cooking your next chef quality meal.

00:40:05.040 our next question is about a specific author and a broader trend this question comes from Nikki

00:40:16.360 my husband is a huge Brandon Sanderson guy and it feels like he has so many projects in the pipeline

00:40:22.140 but introduces them as kickstarters every single time Brandon Sanderson has a tv show on Amazon

00:40:28.380 and is a huge well-known author but it feels like cash grab after cash grab my husband does not

00:40:34.960 see it this way. Am I just a grump about this? So I had to Google Brandon Sanderson. And I just

00:40:40.560 love when I like, find out that there's something that is so tremendously popular and has given so

00:40:47.140 many people pleasure that I had no idea about because it's just like the world is vast. Yes,

00:40:52.360 there's so much going on. So can you do a quick explanation of who Brandon Sanderson is first?

00:40:58.320 Yes, Brandon Sanderson is an incredibly prolific fantasy novelist. Like he is putting out so many books per year, and people love all of them. He is like the straight fantasy version of Sarah J. Moss, right? Like they're operating in a very similar space, but he is somehow even more prolific than her.

00:41:19.160 And he has carved out this interesting space for himself where because he is so popular, he has been able to figure out a way to operate outside of traditional publishing and sell directly to his readers.

00:41:29.460 So he's basically indie publishing on a grand scale.

00:41:32.120 He's also still traditionally published, but he has these projects that he does himself that allow him to try different things and be more creative than he might be able to be at a traditional publisher where there's a lot more structure and more limitations.

00:41:45.400 And obviously, I think it's important that traditional publishing continues to exist.

00:41:48.780 but it's often people operating outside of the system that force them to make changes to the way

00:41:53.260 they do things or think differently about how they're selling things to readers. And an author

00:41:58.100 with the resources of a Brandon Sanderson trying and succeeding at new ways of monetizing his

00:42:03.000 writing also provides a resource for indie authors who don't have that level of readership or money

00:42:08.400 to see how he's doing it, try it, and see what works for them. So I think across the board-

00:42:15.060 normalize that yeah yeah like have that be like a way that people like sanderson is training

00:42:21.820 readers that this is a way to consume fiction and because he's such a trusted author they're

00:42:28.340 willing to take that leap with him and then once they do it with him they might branch out to other

00:42:32.620 indie authors who totally they don't know as well so i think it's it's interesting and across the

00:42:37.620 board we're seeing a lot of indie authors find new ways to sell their work and like that's a

00:42:41.120 that's good, especially like the farther people are able to break out of the really restrictive

00:42:45.620 Amazon ecosystem with their indie publishing. That's great because right now a lot of it is

00:42:50.580 very much tied to Kindle Unlimited in a way that means that they can't separate their livelihoods

00:42:56.500 from Amazon. Right. And like most authors that I know can't only write, right? Like that is not

00:43:05.940 their only job and so what if there was a way for it to be your only job um so he's done a number of

00:43:13.480 kickstarters melody did some research for us one in 2020 was for the leather bound edition of the

00:43:18.920 way of kings and he raised 6.7 million for that one and then in 2022 he did a kickstarter to

00:43:24.760 self-publish for secret novels that he'd written and he raised close to 42 million dollars and then

00:43:32.340 last year he partnered with a game company to develop a tabletop role-playing game based on

00:43:37.020 his mythical universe and they raised 14.6 million so like that's just a i i wanted those numbers in

00:43:44.660 there as like a testament like we're not talking about like he raised four hundred thousand dollars

00:43:49.260 like no no he is 42 million publisher unto himself uh and it would be interesting to see

00:43:55.520 if he would leverage that power for other authors who maybe don't have those opportunities but i

00:44:00.700 recommend there's an interesting article about his like he built himself like a writing bunker

00:44:05.100 like that's the level of money he is playing with here he's and people love him it reminds me

00:44:12.420 somewhat of substack in that like when people make a product that enough people want and if

00:44:18.780 you've taught them that like yes it's normal to pay someone five dollars a month or patreon right

00:44:23.940 like it's just a different a slightly different version of patreon but then like i always talk

00:44:29.520 with other newsletter writers were like oh wouldn't it be fun if we just did this all together

00:44:33.520 right and then we're like oh that would be a magazine we're just reinventing like Brandon

00:44:41.300 Sanderson it's like oh what if he brought other people in and you're like and then it would be a

00:44:45.800 publishing house like this you you eventually circle back to these more traditional means but

00:44:52.420 I have a different person at the top uh let's see oh I love this one this one is so book talk

00:44:58.280 specific, and it is so up your alley. And this comes from Jordan. I have a question for anyone

00:45:04.020 that's plugged into BookTok. How on earth did Jacqueline Hartman's novel, I Who Have Never

00:45:10.480 Known Men, go viral? I was thrilled to see it, but also very surprised since I generally associate

00:45:17.600 BookTok with romanticy. But that could be my bookstagram biases speaking. Okay, so this book

00:45:24.700 came out in 1995 the author is belgian it was originally published in french and like there

00:45:30.120 was a translation i think in the late 90s early 2000s in english but like was not just did nothing

00:45:35.460 um and i first heard of it during the last culture study what are you reading thread a bunch of

00:45:42.720 people were reading it and i was like oh is this a cool new book and people are like i read that too

00:45:47.780 where how my book club read it my book club read it like where is that coming from and someone

00:45:53.260 said BookTok. And I love how many people had no idea that they were reading this book from

00:45:59.160 1995 because of BookTok. Yeah, it's not just romanticcy. Every day. That's what I tell people.

00:46:06.200 There are tons of lit fic readers on BookTok. And this is a perfect example of that because they

00:46:12.540 made this book. It has sold hundreds of thousands of copies at this point. The new translation was

00:46:18.200 released in English in 2022 was picked up by a very small press called transit. And it went viral

00:46:24.980 when book talkers started talking about it. We think no one can totally pinpoint the exact video,

00:46:30.980 but we think partially because of women in translation month, they were posting women

00:46:35.280 in translation month content in August, 2023. One of the people who posted about it was Lauren

00:46:40.700 Louise, who was like one of the most popular lit fic book talk creators. And it also, when I was

00:46:45.580 doing some research, took off on Reddit about the exact same time. So it seems like possibly

00:46:50.100 there was some parallel Reddit readers discovering this book and book talkers discovering this book

00:46:55.740 at the same time. It's about 40 women who are kept in a cage underground and then escape into 0.79

00:47:00.800 a dystopian world. So I think one reason it's done so well is because it's a book that's both

00:47:04.940 easy to describe and sparks discussion. I saw it in a TikTok roundup about, quote,

00:47:10.380 bleak books that will have you spiraling also you forgot to mention everything else that's

00:47:16.940 happening in the world like that yes it's very timely and i've seen it compared yeah oh yeah

00:47:24.620 it's short too i've seen it compared in some ways to the handmaid's tale even though it's not you

00:47:30.140 know it's not similar like which like just the impact of the handmaid's tale tv show cannot be

00:47:36.440 overstated I feel like we're seeing a lot of that in a lot of the books that are going viral in the

00:47:41.140 past five years uh like everyone wants to comp to the handmaid's tale which is fascinating because

00:47:47.640 I totally noped out of there in season two like it was just way too much even though I was a huge

00:47:53.420 huge original fan of the novel but I do think that that is a testament to like people wanting to see

00:47:59.260 these scenarios played out and I love too that you point like it's some of it's the length some

00:48:05.200 of it's a discussion. It's a great book to talk to other people about, which is essentially

00:48:09.800 word of mouth marketing, right? Yeah, no, that makes sense. Okay, everyone. I'm going to read

00:48:16.540 it. Have you read it? Yeah, I need to. I haven't read it yet. I need to. I think it has a lot of

00:48:21.420 crossover appeal too, because several creators who typically recommend more commercial fiction

00:48:25.220 on BookTok have read and loved it. So it has sort of breached containment from just the

00:48:29.520 like weird girl lit book talk influencers to sort of a broader set of them yeah our last question

00:48:36.600 before the triple a segment is about fan fiction and we've done a whole episode on this so go back

00:48:41.880 in the archives if you want to hear specifically about stuff that's happening in fan fiction right

00:48:46.860 now but i want to hear about the pipeline and this question comes from emma i'm really curious about

00:48:51.920 the fan fiction to book talk pipeline from a publisher's perspective it's a super popular

00:48:56.840 trend. And admittedly, I've gotten back into fanfiction now in my 30s because of BookTok.

00:49:02.380 And a lot of it is really good, especially as romantic goes. Do publishers stalk BookTok and

00:49:07.440 read Archive of Our Own or AO3, one of the most popular fanfiction websites, to find the fanfics

00:49:13.780 they want to have authors rewrite to be published without the IP issues? How does this all work,

00:49:18.940 especially from a marketing standpoint, given potential sensitivities with the original

00:49:23.520 work that these books are based on. One example is Sen Lin Yu's Upcoming Alchemized, which is

00:49:29.980 based on Manacled. This is a Harry Potter fan fiction, but I know there are many other examples

00:49:35.440 from Star Wars fan fiction to One Direction fan fiction that books and movies have been made based

00:49:40.800 on. How do we want to approach this? Alyssa, do you stalk BookTok and read AO3 to find fanfics?

00:49:48.520 I mean, yes. A big part of my job is stalking BookTok to see what's going viral, right? But

00:49:55.040 the fanfiction to publishing pipeline has been strong in romance for at least the past 15 years.

00:50:00.500 This is a new phenomenon because Fifty Shades of Grey was Twilight fanfiction. It ushered in a

00:50:05.780 whole era of Twilight fanfiction romances that brought us an entire generation of popular romance

00:50:10.380 novelists like Christina Lauren. They came from Twilight fanfiction. The next big wave of romance

00:50:15.960 authors was from the Raylo fandom in 2020 that brought us current icon of the genre Allie

00:50:21.200 Hazelwood. So there's like a ton of romance authors who have come from fan fiction. It's

00:50:25.420 been a fertile breeding ground for like new romance stories. And now we're in this quote

00:50:30.640 unquote Jermaine era, which is a lot more complicated for a number of reasons. These

00:50:35.340 stories hew much closer to the original works they're adapting. And they're from IP that can't

00:50:40.420 be separated from its bigoted creator. Yes. But publishers are already on the hunt for the next

00:50:47.380 pairing or fandom that can generate a new wave of romance. And I literally started reading fan

00:50:52.280 fiction because at my first publishing job in 2011, my boss told me to read fan fiction.

00:50:58.540 What are you seeing as like a possibility, like a pairing that is hot right now?

00:51:04.800 Well, I mean, my personal taste is probably not what's going to be the next thing,

00:51:08.460 that I'm addicted to the pit fan fiction. I've heard about this. It's so good. It's like,

00:51:14.900 it's people being really good at their jobs, which is the ultimate fantasy right now in a

00:51:19.720 high stakes environment. And there's so many different doctors on the pit. There's so many

00:51:23.480 potential parents, but yeah, there's really exciting to me things happening in that space.

00:51:28.180 And now I would love to find like a medical romance, which is something that I don't think

00:51:31.940 I've ever read. Oh, interesting. Alyssa, what if they had like a really good like academia

00:51:38.100 like leaving academia oh yes I mean that's probably something that you can find fan

00:51:44.240 fiction about because a lot of the people writing fan fiction are probably people who

00:51:47.440 are sad about leaving academia

00:51:49.160 so good I typically say that romance trends start in fan fiction work their way up to indie published

00:51:57.620 works and then into traditionally published novels because fan fiction can move so much

00:52:01.920 more quickly and it's being written serially like a chapter a week so they're closer to the ground

00:52:07.120 in terms of what people want to read right now.

00:52:09.460 And so I think part of the reason why publishers like this

00:52:12.000 is because a fan fiction conversion

00:52:13.580 is a way that they can move faster

00:52:15.660 to get ahead of the trends.

00:52:17.300 Because if you're like picking up a work

00:52:18.840 that's already been written,

00:52:20.040 you can sort of cut down the timeline

00:52:21.760 it takes to get it to market.

00:52:23.720 And it's already been proven

00:52:25.120 that it's something people like.

00:52:26.480 So I do think there's something not just about,

00:52:29.680 there's really interesting,

00:52:30.560 good writing happening in fan fiction,

00:52:32.560 but it's about trends and it's about speed to market.

00:52:35.140 And I think that's why we're seeing an acceleration of these conversions happening, because with BookTok, there's like such the trend cycle has really increased its speed. And so they're having to try new things to keep up.

00:52:46.800 Yeah, no, that's super interesting. And I think that like, again, where we're seeing this like stratification, like you, the cycle seems to be getting faster and faster with like, romanticcy and like attention being directed to different authors and different series and that sort of thing. And then at the same time, I just know from personal experience, like the timeline on nonfiction, like stuff that does not sell as well.

00:53:13.960 yeah it's so slow it's like slowing even more right yeah like the allocation of resources is

00:53:22.260 not it's not um it's working differently but i'm really excited for today's ask and anything can

00:53:29.980 you stick around and talk to us about book clubs of course okay so this is a question that i think

00:53:35.900 a lot of culture study readers and listeners have been grappling with or have grappled with in the

00:53:41.160 past, so I'm really excited to talk about it. And if you're not yet a paid subscriber and you want

00:53:45.800 advice on starting and maintaining a good book club, along with how to handle drama or criticism

00:53:51.720 along the way, head to culturestudypod.substack.com and sign up. So, Alyssa, where can people find you

00:53:59.480 if they want to hear more from you? People can find me at romancingthephone.substack.com.

00:54:05.380 Amazing. Thank you so much for joining us and answering all of our weird questions.

00:54:09.660 it's just been a delight. Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure.

00:54:19.360 Thank you so much for listening to the Culture Study Podcast. Be sure to subscribe wherever you

00:54:23.960 get your podcasts. We have so many great episodes in the works and I promise you don't want to miss

00:54:28.400 any of them. If you want to suggest a topic, ask a question about the culture that surrounds you

00:54:33.660 or submit a question for our subscriber-only advice time segment. Check the show notes for

00:54:39.220 a link to our Substack. If you want to support the show and get bonus content, head to

00:54:43.880 culturestudypod.substack.com. The Culture Study Podcast is produced by me, Anne Helen Peterson,

00:54:49.940 and Melody Rowell. Our music is by Poddington Bear. You can find me on Instagram at Anne Helen

00:54:55.400 Peterson, Melody at Melodious47, and the show at Culture Study Pod. Thank you so much for your

00:55:02.300 support.

00:55:09.220 Thank you.

Culture Study Podcast - July 23, 2025

All the Latest Book & Publishing Trends, Explained

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