Thursday 22 October 2026. 15 stories from across the book trade, about 6 minutes to read. Every link is free to read.
The short version
Market Developments: Readers clear UK shelves of Sally Rooney as Faber stops supplying her books
Deals & Acquisitions: Catapult is being sold and will end operations on October 30, its union says
People News: Hélène Szuszkin leaves Grasset after ten years to join JC Lattès
Events: Pip Adam wins the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction for Audition
Industry Buzz: Boréal drops Thélyson Orélien after finding traces of AI in his manuscript files
The lead
Readers clear UK shelves of Sally Rooney as Faber stops supplying her books
Rooney sold 4,531 copies in the UK last week, up 291% on the week before Faber said UK law meant it could not pass on her UK earnings and would stop supplying her work, according to Nielsen BookScan. Shops in Bristol, Kent and Sheffield have sold out and cannot restock, with every title unavailable to order from wholesaler Gardners, while Kennys in Galway reports tenfold sales, 95% of the rise from Britain, and booksellers in Northern Ireland are sourcing copies from the Republic. Writers including Zadie Smith, Annie Ernaux and Anne Carson have signed letters in her support, reports Emma Loffhagen for The Guardian.
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Market Developments
Ten overseas firms asked Kyobo for 100,000-title orders as Korean publishers demand AI compensation
Kyobo Book Centre now says 10 companies, including businesses in the US and Britain, have approached it since early this year, each wanting one copy of roughly 100,000 titles, and Yes24 had a bulk inquiry for used books from a US distributor. More than 240 publishers and organisations and 702 authors, translators, illustrators and publishing professionals have joined the Korean Publishers Society's appeal for fair compensation when books are used for AI training, and LTI Korea has found 21 Korean titles on the Anthropic settlement list, reports Lee Hae-rin for The Korea Times.
Read at The Korea Times (Korea)
Only 22% of US book buyers accept AI at every stage of making a book, survey finds
BookInsights.ai, the consultancy launched this year by former Circana BookScan executive David Walter, polled 5,025 people who bought a book in the last three months: 28% want no AI in books at all, 45% don't mind an author using it as an assistant or for grammar and spelling, and 85% want AI use disclosed. Openness splits by age, with 36% of teenagers accepting AI at any stage against 11% of over-55s; full results come in November, reports Natalie Chandler for Publishers Weekly.
St. Martin's launches Tytora, a puzzle imprint run by the team behind Murdle
From 2027 the imprint will publish 24 to 30 puzzle, game and wordplay titles a year under associate publisher Nichole Argyres and editorial director Courtney Littler, whose Murdle series by G.T. Karber has sold more than 4 million copies. SMPG president Jennifer Enderlin cites "a real appetite" for puzzle books, a trend Hachette Book Group also credited for its third-quarter sales growth, reports Sophia Stewart for Publishers Weekly.
High Line Publishing Studio, launched by J.K. Rowling's agent Neil Blair, debuts in New York
The venture has two imprints: Odessa Editions, led by London editor Jacky Klein, for Jewish and Israeli fiction and nonfiction with global distribution through Hachette, and Antidote Books, a nonfiction list led by Joel Simons, formerly of HarperCollins UK. Blair said he had watched writers struggle to get published because their views did not fit conventional narratives "or perhaps their last name was Jewish or Israeli"; the first London title is Dara Horn's The Final Solution to the Jewish Question, reports Haley Cohen for Jewish Insider.
Madrid's Pérgamo bookshop must leave its home of 80 years as the landlords end the lease
Founded in 1946, the Salamanca-district shop, which kept censored books in a back room called "hell" under Franco, will close at its General Oráa address on November 17, even though its booksellers say sales, events and book clubs are strong. Pablo Cerezo and María Treviño, who run it, are looking for new premises in the city, where property pressure is squeezing many bookshops, reports Clément Solym for ActuaLitté.
Read at ActuaLitté (France)
Deals & Acquisitions
Catapult is being sold and will end operations on October 30, its union says
The independent publisher founded in 2015 by Elizabeth Koch and Electric Literature cofounder Andy Hunter is selling its assets to an unnamed buyer, and staff were told continued employment with the buyer is not an option, according to the Catapult Workers Collective, which joined UAW Local 2110 in June and is negotiating a separation agreement. It is unclear what will happen to the 16 frontlist titles across Catapult's four imprints slated for spring 2027, reports Natalie Chandler for Publishers Weekly.
Former Amazon Publishing chief Jeff Belle launches Macguffin, an IP studio publishers can option
Belle and fellow ex-Amazon executive Nicholas Denissen will develop book-led franchises backed by investors and graded by member groups during a beta period; publishers pay an option fee, smaller than an advance, before deciding whether to acquire. The first deal is with Andrews McMeel Universal for Arthur Trope's The Inscrutables, and 50 franchises are in the pipeline, reports Jim Milliot for Publishers Weekly.
People News
Hélène Szuszkin leaves Grasset after ten years to join JC Lattès
She joins the Lattès press office, headed by Charlotte Rousseau, at the end of November, after a career in press and editorial roles that began at Fayard in 1989 and took in Stock, Éditions du Toucan and Flammarion, reports Hocine Bouhadjera for ActuaLitté.
Read at ActuaLitté (France)
Alain Girardet named vice-president of France's copyright council, the CSPLA
The honorary Cour de cassation judge was appointed for three years by an order from Gérald Darmanin and Catherine Pégard published on October 21, succeeding Anne-Élisabeth Crédeville, in post since 2001. The CSPLA advises the culture minister on literary and artistic property and is chaired by book mediator Jean-Philippe Mochon, reports Antoine Oury for ActuaLitté.
Read at ActuaLitté (France)
Events
Pip Adam wins the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction for Audition
The Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation chose the Coffee House Press novel; judges Nicola Griffith, Mat Johnson, Darcie Little Badger, Fonda Lee and Peter Rock called it "an astonishing and ultimately joyful work". Adam receives $25,000, Literary Hub reports.
Read at Literary Hub (US)
Joshua Addo wins Creatives Project Ghana's New Voices Fiction Contest
His story Outside the Photograph was named the winner on October 18 at the Pa Gya! A Literary Festival, in a contest for emerging writers from Ghana and the diaspora on the theme "A Country in Motion". Addo receives GHS1,500, a GHS1,000 book voucher, mentorship and anthology publication, reports James Murua for Writing Africa.
Read at Writing Africa (Africa)
Industry Buzz
Boréal drops Thélyson Orélien after finding traces of AI in his manuscript files
The Quebec publisher will stop reprinting C'était ça ou mourir, winner of the Prix du Roman Fnac and a hit of the French autumn season in Grasset's edition, and will publish nothing more by its author, including a second novel already under contract. An outside review of his working files found "traces of AI tags" in the metadata of some documents, contradicting his denials, though Boréal says it does not know how much of the text was affected, reports Hocine Bouhadjera for ActuaLitté.
Read at ActuaLitté (France)
German publisher Molino pulls a debut love story set in occupied Kherson after threats
Juna Liebrecht's Wer ich bin, wenn du mich siehst, about a Ukrainian woman and the masked Russian soldier who rescues her, was due on November 1. The author asked for it to be withdrawn after criticism on social media and what publisher Matthias Slunitschek describes as insults and threats against her and his team, reports Clément Solym for ActuaLitté.
Read at ActuaLitté (France)
Judge dismisses Mariah Carey's brother's defamation suit over her memoir
Justice Leslie A. Stroth ruled that Morgan Carey had not met the pleading requirements for actual malice over claims in The Meaning of Mariah Carey, co-written with Michaela Angela Davis and published by Andy Cohen Books/Henry Holt in 2020; 14 of his 16 claims had already been dismissed in 2022, reports Michael Schaub for Kirkus Reviews, citing The Guardian.