Monday 2 November 2026. 15 stories from across the book trade, about 5 minutes to read. Every link is free to read.
The short version
Market Developments: Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Splintered Harmony sold 1.7 million copies on day one
Deals & Acquisitions: Grand Central reportedly pays $13 million for a secret Dolly Parton memoir
People News: Amélie Nothomb is reportedly leaving Albin Michel for Gallimard after 34 years
Events: Southern indie booksellers’ alliance grows its membership by almost a third
Industry Buzz: Robert Laffont will publish a novel written with Claude and rejects AI detectors
The lead
Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Splintered Harmony sold 1.7 million copies on day one
The sixth A Court of Thorns and Roses novel reached that figure on its Tuesday release, according to Variety, and the count leaves out audiobooks and translations. A seventh book, A Court of Forgotten Melody, follows in January 2027, with one more planned but not yet dated, reports Michael Schaub for Kirkus Reviews.
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Market Developments
Catapult’s union more than doubles its severance as the press closes
The Catapult Workers Collective, about 20 staff across editorial, design, marketing, publicity, production, operations and rights, says it more than doubled the severance on offer and kept health cover to the end of the year as the independent publisher ended operations on 30 October. Who is buying Catapult’s assets is still unknown, and its 16 spring 2027 titles remain open for pre-order, reports Natalie Chandler for Publishers Weekly.
Amazon’s online store grew just 2% in the third quarter
Moving Prime Day into the second quarter explains part of the weak figure, but some analysts wondered whether consumers are starting to cut back. Sales across the company rose 12% to $201.9 billion, AWS supplied most of the operating profit, and Amazon expects fourth-quarter sales to grow 12% to 16%, reports Jim Milliot for Publishers Weekly.
Sanoma’s Spanish schoolbook publisher Vicens Vives plans up to 143 job cuts
Six months after the Finnish group bought it, the Barcelona house told staff representatives on 27 October that it would open a collective redundancy procedure. According to EFE, up to 122 jobs could go, close to half its roughly 250 staff, with 21 more at risk at the printer Gráficas Instar. Management has not confirmed the numbers, reports Clément Solym for ActuaLitté.
Read at ActuaLitté (France)
Google’s Gemini Notebook gives students free textbooks, sidestepping copyright fights
Students in the US and India can now add hundreds of textbooks from OpenStax, Open Textbook Library and India’s S. Chand Publishing to the tool, formerly NotebookLM, and get answers, quizzes and study guides grounded in the text. Relying on openly licensed sources may help Google avoid the kind of copyright claims it already faces from authors and publishers, reports Akshay Gangwar for Android Authority.
French public libraries pass 7 million registered users
Culture ministry estimates put 2026 registrations at 7,094,806, up from 6,967,989 a year earlier and the latest in a run of annual rises since 2024. The state’s flat-rate contribution to the public lending payment for authors and publishers passes €11 million, reports Antoine Oury for ActuaLitté.
Read at ActuaLitté (France)
Deals & Acquisitions
Grand Central reportedly pays $13 million for a secret Dolly Parton memoir
Page Six Hollywood, citing anonymous sources, says the Hachette imprint won the book, whose contents and date of writing are unknown, after Parton’s death in August at 80. Rival publishers stopped bidding when the agency Folio told them it held a $12 million offer, before Grand Central went higher. Neither side commented, reports Michael Schaub for Kirkus Reviews.
WORD Bookstores in Brooklyn and Jersey City are up for sale
Owners Christine and Vincent Onorati plan to move abroad in 2027. Christine Onorati, a former American Booksellers Association board president, says 2025 was the stores’ best sales year and 2026 is up 25% so far. The Greenpoint shop opened in 2007 and the Jersey City store in 2013, reports Shelf Awareness.
People News
Amélie Nothomb is reportedly leaving Albin Michel for Gallimard after 34 years
Le Parisien says the trigger was the dismissal of press director Florence Godfernaux, a close friend of the author for more than 30 years. Nothomb has published a novel with Albin Michel every year since Hygiène de l’assassin in 1992, most recently her 35th, L’Adolescence du perroquet, in August. An announcement could follow the November prizes, reports Hocine Bouhadjera for ActuaLitté.
Read at ActuaLitté (France)
Former PRH education sales chief Michael Gentile launches a consultancy
Gentile, who spent more than 25 years at Penguin Random House and was VP of education sales and marketing, has started Insight to Market to help publishers, authors and education organisations reach teachers and librarians, with content development, communications and sales and marketing services, Publishers Weekly reports.
Events
Southern indie booksellers’ alliance grows its membership by almost a third
SIBA now has 353 bookstore members, said at its virtual annual meeting that it is financially stable, and is looking for a successor to executive director Linda-Marie Barrett, who leaves at the end of the year after seven years in the role. Book banning remains more common in SIBA territory than anywhere else, reports Shelf Awareness.
Industry Buzz
Robert Laffont will publish a novel written with Claude and rejects AI detectors
Director general Frédéric Martin told Ouest-France there cannot be a good text written with AI without a good author behind it, and defended Thélyson Orélien. In February 2027 Laffont publishes Sébastien Bailly’s Les Touches fantômes, drafted mainly with Anthropic’s Claude and reworked for a year, while Madrigall will run manuscripts at Gallimard, Flammarion and its other houses through detection software from January, reports Victor De Sepausy for ActuaLitté.
Read at ActuaLitté (France)
The Home Office cancelled the Swedish writer’s travel authorisation, saying his presence was not conducive to the public good, ahead of a Tribune conference launch where he was to speak alongside Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori. Malm has asked for the decision to be reversed and will appear by video, reports James Folta for Literary Hub.
Read at Literary Hub (US)
Novelist Joe Dunthorne followed an AI-written scam fan email to its source
Dunthorne gets flattering messages from fake readers almost every day, offering to promote his books for a fee. Replying to one that claimed to run a Berlin book club, he traced the scheme to a mailing address in the Philippines and reported it to the country’s cybercrime agency, writes Joe Dunthorne in The Guardian.
Read at The Guardian (UK)
One author had to repay €47,000 for a book that never arrived, while another kept a €30,000 advance two years past the deadline. On 1 September a Paris court ordered a writer to return Flammarion’s €4,999.99 advance plus €2,000 in costs for a science book signed in March 2020, though lawyers say most such disputes are settled quietly, reports Hocine Bouhadjera for ActuaLitté.
Read at ActuaLitté (France)