The March Roundup: The Month’s Biggest Publishing Stories Every Writer Should Know About

Welcome to Five On Fridays, my weekly straight-no-chaser newsletter where I help demystify the publishing industry for new writers and early-career authors. Let’s jump right in.

March was here and gone in a flash and came with its own sets of challenges and joys. The photo I’m sharing this week is one of several I’ve taken of my dogwood tree since January. I take the pics every year as the tree goes from lifeless to full bloom. This little ritual reminds me that though dormancy can sometimes look like death, it’s actually the phase just before rebirth. There’s a lesson in there for all of us who are feeling a year’s worth of exhaustion in the span of just three months. This is also a reminder to pick up that manuscript, project, or idea that’s been resting dormant for too long. (I’m talking to you, Grace.) And now to this month’s biggest publishing stories. 

Sunrise on the Reaping

In its first week on sale, Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins’s second prequel in The Hunger Games trilogy, sold over 1.5 million world English copies. The book topped the charts in the US, UK, Ireland, and Canada and sold twice as many copies as the first prequel in the series, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The numbers makes me think (and selfishly hope) we might see an uptick in publisher interest in YA dystopian fiction again. It also makes me hopeful that people sense resistance in the air and that powerful stories like Sunrise help usher more of it in.

No more NaNoWriMo

Years ago when I first started writing fiction, NaNoWriMo was all the rage. The platform, short for National Novel Writing Month, was well loved for its community and functionality that helped writers set and monitor daily goals that motivated them to complete a novel in a month. Though many agents and editors lamented the onslaught of unpolished manuscripts that would arrive in December following NaNoWriMo, the site served as a virtual water cooler for writers at all stages of their writing journey. Sadly, on Monday, the nonprofit announced its closing citing ongoing financial problems caused in part by a controversial stance the nonprofit took on AI.

Notable new imprints and acquisitions

On the heels of the massive success of Sarah J. Maas’s romantasy novels, Bloomsbury, whose profits soared 57% last fiscal year, announced the launch of its Bloomsbury Archer imprint. The imprint will publish romantasy, horror, mythological retellings, and more. The imprint’s inaugural titles will begin releasing in the US in 2026.

Independent publisher Zando announced it had acquired the literary press Tin House. Zando, founded by former Crown publisher Molly Stern in 2020, works with select public figures and institutions to acquire and publish titles under their own imprints. Tin House, which is known for publishing critically acclaimed titles, will become a Zando imprint.

Meta trained AI with pirated books

The Atlantic published a piece that revealed that Meta employees, with permission from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, trained its AI model LLaMA3  using books from Library Genesis (LibGen), a known repository of pirated books and papers. This despite acknowledging the legal risks of doing so. The employees deliberately tried to hide their actions by, among other tactics, removing copyright markers from data. The Atlantic created a search tool authors can use to check if their works are in LibGen. And The Authors Guild offers a list of actions authors can take to defend their copyrighted work. Organizations such as the Guild and The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) have released statements denouncing Meta’s actions.

DOGE damage continues

Across the country, attacks on federal agencies and educational institutions continue, and the actions have far-reaching consequences for the book writing and reading community. Earlier in the month, the US Department of State terminated grants issued to the University of Iowa’s highly regarded and well known International Writing Program. The university’s Office of Strategic Communication shared that the loss of nearly $1 million in funding will force them to cancel their “summer youth program, dissolve distance learning courses, and discontinue the Emerging Voices Mentorship Program,” among other reductions. 

Elsewhere, virtually the entire staff at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) was placed on administrative leave on the last day of March. The IMLS provides grants to US libraries and museums that provide critical funding for internships and books, computers, and internet access for library patrons. Libraries are where the love of reading began for many writers, myself included. I can’t imagine how different my life would be if I hadn’t had access to libraries growing up. I hope the millions of children and adults around the country who rely on public libraries for life changing services don’t have to imagine their lives without them either.

That wraps up this week’s Five On Fridays. Thank you for subscribing and reading. If you found this newsletter helpful, please share it on social media and forward it to your writer friends. Happy writing!

-Grace