What TikTok Gets Wrong About the History of Publishing 

I’ve noticed misprints and errors becoming WAAAYYY more common nowadays than even five years ago. And with every. single. publisher. Extend your deadlines! We can wait! In fact, we really need to learn to wait for things. Please take longer to release copies of books, publishers.

its really interesting that half of the time people are like "if you don't read you're stupid" and the other half is "what you read is wrong" no wonder many people don't even try to start to read for fear of being judged.

This is a bit random, but I feel this video about dime novels and newspaper serialisations and the backlash against them explains the attitude towards Jo's newspaper stories in Little Women from her future husband. Instead of being like "hey, it's so cool you write these sensational stories about fantastical murders and stuff, cause it's fun to read and you can take care of your sister" he does the snobby outrage "you are polluting the minds of the public and I would sooner my niece and nephew go blind than read such trash".

If I had a dollar for every time people got together to drag female authors and their readers through the mud for spurious reasons I'd be a billionaire...

I feel like you touched on this a little bit, but this ‘X are destroying the Y’ (especially when X are young people, women, poor people and Y is something that older, wealthy, privileged folks have attached a nostalgic sense of prestige to) is one of those awful cyclical trends that we should get rid of, and this ‘iron flame controversy’ is just the latest iteration. Honestly very boring by this point.

My mom has a learning disability and dyslexia and dyscalculia and she learned how to read from short romance novels in the 1970's and 1980's that were the modern equivalent of dime novels. She says that she eventually realized that they all have about the same plot (😂) , but that they helped her want to learn to read because they were interesting and she was driven to find out what happened next. I think that dime novels and penny dreadfuls probably similarly brought about the literacy of the United States lower classes, which is a happy state of being, given that we are mostly literate this day and age. ☺️❤️

Can we all agree that Abby clipping her microphone to a bar spoon is a mood?

Many classic authors started with serials like Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo. They were paid by the word, so that's why there are so much descriptions and subplots.

As the great-granddaughter of a Victorian publisher, I'm 5 seconds into those tictoks and screaming with laughter. I could talk at amazing length about this, but if anything sums up publishing, it's that the world only has 9 copies left of The Harris List, a book which in its day outsold the bible.

This is all very valid and interesting, I think the main thing people were complaining about though about the rushed release of Iron Flame was the fact that 75% of the books were misprints, and there were like 8 DIFFERENT kinds of misprints. Missing chapters, repeating chapters, crooked spine titles (as in halfway across the front cover crooked), flat out the wrong title on the spine, etc etc etc...

Nora Robert's is most prolific under a couple of pen names, as is Stephen King, James Patterson, and many others. Carolyn Keene was actually several people writing simultaneously to keep up with demand. I run a school library, and many of the author names repeat across all across graphic novels, fiction, and nonfiction. Dickenson wrote pop fiction, Alcott wrote it, and were not considered great authors until decades later. Shakespeare wasn't either. Time decides who gets to be a classic, not people. Unbending and enjoy what pleases you, folks.

I am a librarian, and girls and women that approach me to look for books with romance always act so ashamed. It takes so much courage for them to even ask and even after that when I try to probe to find out what they like (there's a lot of variety for different taste), it can be quite difficult for them to voice it. I get so annoyed with discussions about how terrible whatever new female author of these kind of books is. I hear it everywhere, from the RU-vid comment section to dinner parties. Even people who say they realise how sexist and classist the reaction to Twilight was will try to justify why this time it's different and their sexist and classist mocking of this new book is fine and good this time. This just results in women and girls being ashamed of their taste and afraid of voicing what they like or becoming incapable of asking for what they want. I am so tired of this bs.

I had heard a few people saying, “the publishing industry is becoming similar to fast fashion” and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why it didn’t sound right but you perfectly explained it!

As someone who worked in the library field for years one thing that the big publishers don't seem to get is that libraries are not preventing people from buying books. I say this because publishers need to stop charging libraries up to 10x more for books then they do the general public. The reality is that libraries probably encourage people to buy books because they can easily find an author they like without running the risk of buying a book but once they fall in love with an author will probably buy the books.

I was doing some research into the early history of ice skating in Vermont, and it went through a similar period of critique as dime novels where concern started with men and then quickly went to women. At first, when it was associated with boys and men, people were primarily concerned with how many people died. Then in 1851, women picked it up with a vengeance, and the critiques suddenly went to, “Everybody who ice skates is a straight up slut,” then “Omg just let women skate because at least they can’t read novels when they’re on the ice.”

Man, that description of how dime novels went from being written by big-name authors to simply being a process hits close to home. I've been working as a ghostwriter off and on for over 15 years now, and my gods the dip in quality and pay is outrageous. We're supplied with a plot that hits certain key tropes (I'm in the unenviable position of trying to work these plots to make sense, as I fix the story and then write it, hooray, look Ma, I'm using my history degree!), and then have to churn out however many words per week. The pay is absolutely LAUGHABLE, but in this economy, what can you do, y'know? When I started, I could kind of, sort of, eek out enough money to pay my rent and some other bills. Now, writing the same amount in the same genre, I can maybe cover groceries for the month. Maybe. All those historic romances with the bad covers? Yeah, you're welcome, and holy crap do we need a union. There's been a boom in the purchasing since Bridgerton, but that is NOT reflected on the poor souls churning them out. This also doesn't touch on the race/gender issue with publishing either. Diversity in publishing is being paid lip service, but the reality is way different. My real name I get paid under is very, very androgynous (like I usually get male-oriented advertisements), and I keep my ethnicity very carefully under wraps (even now, I'm using my husband's account to comment because I can't afford to get it traced back to me). When going back and forth with a publisher about a specific nonsense plot point, the moment it was revealed I was a woman, I was instantly "too emotional" to continue the discussion, when I was about as invested as I was in what colour socks I was going to wear that day. Ghostwriters that do big, flashy political or celebrity biographies tend to be men, and the ones like me slapping together bodice-rippers are women and paid pennies.

Sorry for bringing in a few male examples; Shakespeare was the original SNL of his time, and Bacon was the French language art house. Both Sherlock Holmes and Dorian Grey were written on a bet; Holmes was published as a serial before being bound. No one remembers that ACD was the GRRM of his time, becoming famous for his historical fiction first. I am currently following Jill Bearup's saga on the self-publishing of Just Stab Me Now, and it is fascinating.

11 years ago Geek & Sundry made a video of them singing about how freaking long GRRM was taking to write Wind of Winter. It was called Write Like the Wind. The man's writing speed has become a meme at this point.

I work in comics, and while similar there are differences but 100% this. I see dime novels a bit like tv shows, they’re for the masses and produce sensational entertaining stories to consume, and there will still be people going “ew you watch TV? You should read more.” Then when they do read they read stuff similar to the TV they like and its “oh i didn’t mean when i said read those books!”

4:04 We need to bring Victorian trash literature back. Jane Austen wrote parodies of gothic pieces.

Wait so you’re telling me the “my parent sold me to One Direction” trope (from unhinged fanfiction) is actually as old as the Victorians????? The more you know…. Also as I was watching it occured to me that a lot of the conversation about “fast fashion” books completely ignores the concept of the mass market paperback, which in my experience is typically found in genre fiction, and has been around for years being the closest thing we currently have to dime novels

7:03 Wow this is blowing my mind. Also, if Mary Shelley can ‘Frankenstein’ as a summer project, I’m sure there are equally if not more thrilling stories of authors during that time.

GRRM ruined unfinished book series for me. The thought of starting an unfinished series now fills me with anxiety. I can't even read Brandon Sanderson series until he's finished them, and that man cranks out books like a Ford assembly line.

So, I love the historical background in this video, as always. It's fascinating to see women's prominence in the world of dime novels. That being said, as an indie bookseller, I think the fast fashion comparison is apt. Not because of the content of the books - though I think they needed editing, much like most of the self-published books that get picked up and turned out by trad pubs without the usual level of care they put into their original books. But because of the way the release happened. I can't tell you how horrible this release was for literally everyone involved. They kept the accompanying holiday edition of Fourth Wing secret until after people found it and started preordering it without even knowing what it was - we booksellers had to sign NDAs and couldn't tell anyone. They (Red Tower / Macmillan) pushed us to host those big midnight release parties and then poured their resources into the chain bookstores instead of indies. They shipped out the books at the last minute, and only SOME bookstores who placed orders even received our copies. A ton of bookstores - that had taken preorders from customers, and placed their orders months in advance - had their orders canceled because there wasn't enough stock. For a little bookstore to have to refund customers for preorders is a huge, huge blow. And then when we got them, they looked like shit. I'm the one who unpacked and received hundreds of copies of Iron Flame and the holiday edition of Fourth Wing, and I had to ignore printing defects and damaged books that I would normally remove from stock because they don't pass our muster to sell to customers - because there was no ability to replace those copies. And then, unsurprisingly, yes, customers got upset because the books looked terrible. The title was wrong, the books were printed upside down, the maps were missing, the sprayed edges were rushed and looked awful, the stain rubbed off on your hands, there were so many more typos than normal - there was no quality control on this release. And it's because they rushed it out to get it on the shelves before Christmas. Even though they could've waited a few more months and put out actual decent quality books, and sold just as many copies. And whom do people get mad at when their preorders don't arrive, or their copies look bad? Who has to take returns and lose time and money on the refunded sales? Who's always the face of this, despite having little to no control over it? Booksellers. Indie booksellers more than most, especially because we have to charge, you know, the price printed on the cover of the book instead of selling at heavy discounts like chain stores or online retailers, and so many people already think we're swindling them because of that. It sucks. But just this once, people actually transferred their frustration onto the publisher for putting all of us into this situation, and we had a wider conversation about the industry. That's a big deal. So unfortunately I have to agree with the fast fashion comparison. They pumped out this release as quickly as possible, knowing the quality was bad and that the books consequently would not be the investment they were advertised as. The original Fourth Wing release was so much better than the "fancy" (and more expensive!) special releases - the quality of the book was better and the dragon edges were actually really cool. They didn't keep the stenciled edges on the special releases specifically because it would take longer - they were prioritizing getting the book out faster over making a book of similar quality to the first one, because they knew everyone was going to buy it regardless, so why bother? (Yes, the reason the stenciled edges were gone was confirmed by reps.) And then loads of people ended up with duplicate copies of a book they already own and read, thinking it would be something special, and it's not. It's just a mediocre use of resources sitting on their shelf, forgotten and dismissed. [And re: B&N making a comeback - yes, BookTok has been huge, but don't underestimate James Daunt's work. Once he came on board, they had an immediate turnaround. He's secured so many B&N exclusives and it's giving them a huge advantage. (And yes, indie booksellers are bitter about being left out once again...)] Anyway, apparently that's my whole thesis. Maybe some people are using the fast fashion term dismissively, but I really think it's a valuable comparison.

After such an important and fascinating discussion, the "spider monkey" clip truly pushed me over the edge into hysteria. A brilliant video as always

Before watching the video, my hottake: It's capitalism more so than TikTok.

As a local librarian, thanks for the shoutout. Go to your local library and read whatever catches yout fancy, be it the smuttiest books ever or the longest classical novel. What matters with reading is how much you enjoy it! Also, I really want to read the Milliner's apprentice now, where can I find it?

I find it funny that this printing method is how Charles Dickings got his start. His stuff came full circle that printing chapter by chapter for a working class audience, and is now considered classic literature. The cheep print them fast publishing is also how penguin books and ladybirds books got started.

Any time anyone mentions Fourth Wing, I feel compulsively obligated to mention Dragonfall--another dragon book that came out the same day and has a queer romance and is super fun! Also thanks for this!

aww thank you for placing title names on the screen when you use episodes of TV shows\movies🤩👍 this is such a nice quality of life touch, it also shows that you care about your audience, and care if we understand what you're saying in the video, and also not expecting us to know every movie and show in existence. Just wonderful, I personally really appreciate it!

As an editor, I do find myself looking up a lot of different topics to fact-check the authors I work with. It's an experience at times--none of the publishers I work for have the kind of budget available to hire someone to do in-depth checks of foreign language use, so my authors are stuck with me and my linguistics degree to check those. I try to steer my authors to be sensitive and thoughtful when including minority and other vulnerable populations in their stories, but I can only do so much.

Remember that authors like Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle etc were originally published in serial form in magazines and Jane Austen amongst others "self published " at least one of their books, not to mention Virginia Woolf and co starting their own publishing company in order to publish their books.. And Jane makes frequent reference to the "fashion" for "gothic novels " which scandalized "society " in her day...

This is a welcome video. Three of my non-fiction books were published by Random House in London 1989-1992. No details, but I never made a profit. The expenses for photography alone exceeded the advance on the first two. I feel that you very clearly laid out the process and issues. Thank you.

This explanation of the publishing industry gives me a lot more compassion for some of the authors I read. When I get frustrated about the typos and serious plot issues, I always get frustrated that they don’t have better editors around them, but it might actually be that their editing timelines don’t actually allow the author time to make the book better because the publisher just wants the book released.

I think that there definitely is a problem with snobbery and elitism when it comes to this. However, I also think that it's problematic how it's now becoming possible for some books to get a ton of attention purely because they went viral on tiktok. The books can be awfully written (in the worst case they can be marketed to YA audience but feature really problematic relationships) yet still sell a ton of copies. Because let's be honest, we have a problem today with wanting to consume content that is easy to understand, really quickly. And then books that might be actually written really well but aren't as short-form content friendly just don't get as much attention. I also don't see many people admitting that many of these viral tiktok books are just like a book form of soap operas or romcoms. There is zero problem with wanting to consume trashy content for ones enjoyment. I love reading classics but I enjoy reality tv sometimes. But call those trashy novels what they are! Besides, a book can be simple to understand and still written well. I just worry that small authors really don't get the recognition they deserve because they are shadowed by these authors that got big thanks to the tiktok algorithm.

Speaking as a fiction author who has been affected (both positively and negatively) by today’s fast publishing, I think the "fast fashion" metaphor is apt - and also an example of pearl-clutching. On the positive side, fast publishing and specifically indie publishing have removed a lot of the power of gatekeepers in the publishing industry. No publisher wants to publish your works - not unlikely when there are only about five main publishing houses in the US and they're all in NYC - or they want to pay you a smaller percentage than you (believe you) deserve? Or they'll publish your work in journals but aren't interested in short story anthologies? No problem! You can self-publish now. Take control into your own hands and keep more of the royalties than they would have given you. On the negative side, the gatekeepers aren't defending the gates so much anymore. You barely passed sixth-grade English and haven’t got a clue about story arcs or character development? No problem! If the Big Five publishers don't like your work, you can just self-publish. And if all you care about is getting as much money in royalties as possible and don't even want your own name or pen name on it, you can use ChatGPT or another AI program to create "books" that make our beloved Hallmark Christmas movies look as complex and well-developed as LOTR and publish them under someone else's pen name just to get whatever royalties you can and who cares that the real authors whose names you're abusing cringe at the fact that you’ve clearly never even MET an actual editor. I'm currently dealing with the mess caused by one of these "writers" dropping six of these bombs onto my author page in as many months, so I'm personally aware of this problem. And yes, if this particular person/people didn’t use ChatGPT to create those bombs, they really need to go back to their middle school reading and spelling classes. But we'll survive. We're already learning that it's necessary to trademark your pen name, not just copyright your actual work. Maybe we'll get laws passed to make that trademark actually mean something, maybe we'll find other ways to differentiate quality work from that of middle-school dropouts even when they try to pass their work off as ours, and maybe we'll do both. There might be more chaff on the market, but there will also be more wheat available. And, just like when the penny novels first made the written word accessible to the working class and created a market that hadn't existed before, the wheat that is able to come to this new market will remain when the cringeworthy chaff has mostly all blown away.

Unfortunately we live in a society where anything that is loved by women is dragged through the mud and labeled as "silly" "superficial" "not good enough" by others, especially hobbies and interests of young girls and women. But hobbies that men and young boys have are never put under as much scrutiny and ridicule.

I absolutely agree with you on this topic, however I have to say that books are really really expensive these days. Rushed stories/ books are not a dime anymore. So I understand the frustration and disappointment to an extent when you pay a high price for a book that the author had not enough time to really think through and edit. I know libraries exist, but as someone who isn’t from the us it is really hard to get access to certain books you are interested in. Not every book gets translated so you have to buy them.

Louisa May Alcott actually wrote a lot of potboiler sensationalistic stories under the name A.M. Barnard, before Little Women and her other wonderful children's lit. She was the main support of her family most of her life.

As a fellow lurker in the shadows and certified Book Dragon, I approve this video! Some times a good, trashy novel is exactly what a woman needs. But comparing such things to fast fashion, Temu and Shein and their ilk is preposterous!

Another thing to bring up about ethics in the publishing industry is that those who produce and edit books are often paid poorly--there's a lot of freelancing and a lot of competition and that leads to the publishers being able to exploit the people who make up a significant portion of the publishing process. I recently saw an article that recommended authors submit books to a publisher who I know from experience does not pay their proofreaders--proofers are paid in ebooks from the company, with the vague promise that if one of their paid editors leaves the company, the volunteers from their proofer group will be first under consideration for hiring. I proofed a couple novels for the company when I was first starting out and needed experience for my resume, but didn't stay for long because I can't eat ebooks. I'm a good editor, but the amount I make from editing doesn't reflect the time and skill I bring to the table, so I'm currently working on pivoting into a different career. The reality that most books don't make a lot of money contributes to this problem.

This was not a crossover in my interests that I saw coming but I am HERE for it!!! 😂 *chef's kiss* Abby!!

“I only read smut” you’re a legend for that Abby fr

Had to laugh long and hard on that "Oxford Comma" bit ! 🤣 They'll pry the Oxford Comma from my cold, dead hands ! 💀 ☠️ 🦴 💀 ☠️

You should look up G.K. Chesterton’s essay, “A Defense of Penny Dreadfuls.” May not be exactly your speed, but he makes an interesting case for not losing our heads in fear of “the decline in ART”. He says something to the effect of, “Stories are essential; literature is a luxury.”

That reminds me, I found your book in a Japanese bookstore! I was pleasantly surprised when I picked it up

I've recently been watching more book review youtubers and I find it interesting because my understanding was it's become more like fast fashion in that booktok is pushing people to consume more and more, to own more and more books so people can have bookshelves full of books that they'll toss out in a year or two. Not a bookshelf full of beloved books they truely care about. This video was super informative and gave me lots of thought about aspects I hadn't considered from that statement, though. My experience with booktok has been relatively non-existant as When ai have posted to it it has been reviews of books I checked out from the library, reguardless of if they're new or not.

I have SO many 'dime novels' at home. Small size (smaller than a notebook), same paper quality, even same colour in some cases! It's popular novels of the era, as well as classics, some non-fiction stuff, education, political, just all sorts of things. I have PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in one of those editions!

According to "common sense," the publishing industry is perpetually on the verge of collapse. And the end of Great American Writing is always upon us. Twenty years ago, it was Twilight and its fanfiction 50 Shades of Grey, and in this time, some phenomenal books have been published and been loved. Life goes on and it might be sisyphean effort to parse through the hundreds of books published a year and a truly immense back catalog but thats part of reading. Remember to visit your local library and use your library card

I remember reading serialized “spicy” stories in Red Book at my grandma’s in the early 80’s when I was bored.

Wow, yes, what a problematic comparison. Honestly hadn't thought this through and I'm glad you named it. Enjoyed learning the history of publishing, another terrific Abby deep dive 🙌

This is such a hard, nuanced topic for me. I've been in the bookselling business for eight years, I've taken bookselling courses that touch on the publishing side of things, I've been to conferences, met authors, met reps, and obviously deal with publishers in the everyday workings of the bookstore. There is SO MUCH I want to complain about in regard to predatory publishing, the industry in general, amazon's grip on publishers AND readers, publishers declaring record profits while independent bookstores (even some of the most well-known and successful!) declare bankruptcy and close their doors, or set up gofundmes to keep the lights on. But absolutely, "fast fiction" is not comparable to fast fashion. Full stop. There are definitely problems in the industries of publishing and bookselling, but successfully advertising a product is not one of them.

You’re using that long bendy drinks spoon to hold that mic and honestly, WERK 🔥

A very well thought out commentary. Well done. I had to laugh when you noted the apparent formula that enables writer Ruby Dixon to be so prolific because it immediately brought to my mind James Patterson who seems to work the same way. Isn’t escapism the whole point of reading fiction regardless of the genre? Nothing wrong it’s escapism, especially in this day and age.😊

I see your points but I think that ignoring that the pressure for speed incentivises cutting out whole steps of publishing and replacing them with AI is a bit of a missed opportunity. Publishing companies have been employing fewer copyeditors or relying on algorythmically generated corrections, sourcing translations from google before sending the product to translators to "correct" for significantly less pay than they were getting before, the non-fiction book section is filling up with either completely unresearched material (or AI generated material) produced by the same people who write for essay mills, and publishers have been caught trying to replace book cover art with AI generated images. I would argue that the pressure to put out more and more books to feed trends is not in fact "good for everyone" just because it means that authors and certain parts of the publishing industry get paid. It's squeezing out people who previously worked for the publishing industry and replacing or either cutting out their work entirely in order to meet deadlines and make money. That devaluing of workers with little regard for the skill, creativity, or the health of the industry overall sounds a lot like fast fashion to me. I research late 18th and early 19th century books (British, not American, I'm afraid), so I've read a lot of them and am fully aware of the mixed quality, the effects of canonisation on the perception of the literature of the past, audience reception, and publishing practices. I think drawing a straight line between historical publishing and modern publishing doesn't fully account for all that's changed in the last few years.

Okay so I know I'm in the minority here (from a quick scroll through the comments) but I feel this video was a miss. It didn't feel (fully) well researched or thought-out and, at points, strictly ... opinion (which is fine). I enjoyed the conversation and history of dime novels and the reminding of the near constant "this is the END of American literature" discourse through history. That part reflected the time, research, and quality of this channel I've come to expect. But the discussion of, specifically, fiction publishing and the complete dismissal of the "fast fashion" comparison as trivial and "you just don't understand the industry, bless your heart" felt really....well as a miss. Ignoring the writing quality part of the argument for a second. The problem wasn't/isn't that publishing publishes books fast. As you laid out, that's pretty standard. However, it's wrong to assume that the author had book 2 finished when it was shopped as was implied. Red Tower already had the rights and from accounts book 2 was in stores about 6-months after book 1. That is not standard in the industry. That is not just good marketing department (which yes RT def has). Less than 12-months is an unheard of speed. And to write a full fantasy novel of that length, edit it, have it go through sensitivity reads, final mark-ups/copy, get it sent to the printers and marketing, AND get it into the store in 6 months?!? And so many of the tiktoks specifically calling out Red Tower and using the "like fast fashion" phrase were commenting that you can't get decent quality at that speed. Plus the physically printed books were of horrible quality. If you want to talk about sustainability, talk about how many books were printed incorrectly, shipped across the world, only to need to be returned and destroyed. Like....that's the fast fashion comparison. That an item is sold fast and cheap and falls apart after a single wear, or in this case, read. Is it a perfect comparison, hell no. Not even close. But it's a fair comparison in Late Stage Capitalism that a company will eek out the very last ounce and cent from a product and skimp on every step of the creation to the detriment of the buyer and the environment, etc. Even Red Towers' "special editions" and "holiday editions" which barely if at all added content and we're also of low to middling quality, but made RT money, were included in the fast fashion comparison. The "creating artificial demand and scarcity mindset so they could sell more (badly made) products" was the fast fashion comparison. All in all, I feel the thesis of this video kept moving and changing. Was it about how easy reading novels have always been part of American literature? Was it about how it's ridiculous to compare badly made and fastly made books the equivalent of the unethical and horrible fast fashion industry? Was it about how it's okay to like what you like? Was it about how the publishing industry has always expected authors to write quickly? Was it about how women's likes and accomplishments will always be put down by the establishment? I'm honestly not sure.... Feel free to ignore. I know that RU-vid comment sections are not really a space for this kind of narrative and also, my dislike of a single video isn't going to stop me from watching the next one. I really do love your content.

I live for your ranty videos. Thank you. And I might add, good old classics were published as serials, ask Alexandre Dumas

As a huge fan of Sarah J Maas and Fourth Wing (I LOVED Iron Flame), I appreciate your respect when explaining trends and book popularity without dragging fans under the mud. I also think that current historical romance novels (such as Bridgeton) or "trashy" smut novels (which I totally read when I'm on my period) are completely representative of formulaic writing and massive fast production. Furthermore, as an avid reader since I was a child, I'm glad that booktok revived the industry and gave more authors the ability to present their work to a wider audience. Although I was a bit wary because of the title, I loved this video essay and the historical lesson. (English is not my native language so please excuse any errors)

When I think that most of our famous French 19th-century authors would write in newspapers before publishing, and how we are snobbish about it. It makes me laugh.

Omg, that was the funniest subtitle mistake I'v ever seen. At 5:46 Abby says "book" but somehow the subtitles think she said "fuck".

An author I know, who has gone full time, publishes 4 full length novels a year, and she's three books ahead in her series. *THREE BOOKS!* When she was finally able to quit her day job because she made enough to do so, we all breathed a sigh of relief that maybe, now, she'd be able to rest a bit. It is so hard to get published traditionally, and they're bullshit. Self publishing has it's own problems. I'm an alpha reader for a couple of authors, and we do not have much time with them before they have to be to the editor.

These big best sellers are what allow publishers to take “risk” on newer authors and “riskier” books. it’s similar to celeb memoirs that always get published near Xmas, the money from those sales from people that don’t typically buy books funds a lot of the debuts for the time following their release…

I actually already watched a booktube video about that article, disagreeing and pointing out the two industries are not comparable. Glad to see the history of dime novels and further commentary to back it from this video. Plus, the Fourth Wing book was originally published as a fancy sprayed edge edition, which doesn't exactly match the "cheap" part of fast fashion's description. Actually, books in general are still expensive lol.

I think that perhaps the most annoying thing about the comparison of “TikTok books” to fast fashion is that books are (obviously) made of paper and are thus much easier to recycle whereas fast fashion is terrible for the environment. So regardless of the quality of the books, I would much rather people be buying books and reading then buying ridiculous amount of clothes from places like shein.

Your top/dress is absolutely gorgeous, I adore that kind of green velvet fabrics in clothing, and the sleeves are so cute ;0

Barbara Cartland, the Queen of Romances, could dictate one book a day. Also very formulaic. Some were good, most were meh. My bff in high school loved them. I preferred the more modern romances and regency ones. Georgette Heyer is an amazing romance author who still gets reprinted every couple of years or so.

Whatever your opinion on the current quality of books and publishing industry, I cannot urge everyone enough to get a library card!!

You know, we still have "dime novels", they just cost more. Harlequin and Silhouette (and, once upon a time, Loveswept) release a set of 6 books a month in various subcategories (about 180 pages each) and then they're gone. Jayne Anne Krenz and Janet Evanovich got their start doing that.

totally love your 80's look Abby !

People really need to support indie/self-published authors. That's where the marginalized tend to publish because the main industry is so white, etc. I love reading books that no one has heard of and hyping them.

This couldn't have come at a better time, for me! I am a published author, but not in the mainstream. I am preparing my first, made for the mains, book based on my fathers life! Also, I am now going to cover my damn camera! You scare me! LOL

Also, many of the books that we now consider classics were originally published as serials. They only became classics because they were popular enough to persist!

BRO 😂 the clip of you asking girls at a renfaire if they'd ever read IPB and their...sheepish expressions 💖 I love it so much

This video was so amazing. Thank you for taking the time to gather all of this information. You have helped changed my perspective on the situation.

Absolutely LOVED this video!

An amazing video, as always! I'm so glad you brought this to light as I highly questioned the comparison of fast-publishing to fast-fashion, but couldn't put my finger on why I thought the pieces didn't belong in the same puzzle, so to speak. I also appreciated the note you made at the end saying it's ok to not like the books you don't like, but people being shamed and judged by what they do like to read needs to stop.

Loving the mic clipped to the bar spoon more than I probably should.

Good job, Abby. I always learn something from you videos. And, they're fun, too!

Abby always watching from the shadows is why I'm gonna make sure I do my research when it comes to Edwardian cooking practices. 😭

They did not market Fourth Wing as a "Dime Novel". That's the problem. They hyped it as if it was the next LOTR or something akin. It's just dishonest.

Thank you for this video, I learned a lot ❤

Great video! Bonus points for the Bulldog clip.

such a great informative video! I listened while working and feel like you made a lot of thought provoking points I felt but just couldn't articulate to my friends! ty abby :)

I'm so glad you used the Lady's Home Journals I sent you! This is Jenna, the Librarian! See libraries are awesome lol! This is also a great topic, so of course, I'm super interested!

Love your deep dives into topics. I learned a lot

Hi Abby, I just wanted to say this was really well put-together and informative (which, honestly, your content always is) and I appreciated the insights from your own publishing experiences. Much love!

I love learning things from Abby. Thank you for creating such an amazing corner of the Internet!!

As someone who has been a book reviewer for over 15 years, thank you for this. ❤

Fast Fashion of the Publishing World? BRB writing my thesis.

Very well done. I spent my working life in trade publishing as a production editor and copy editor. Delighted to see you understand the industry and its 19th-century origins.

I love your videos like this. Very interesting with a lot of good points made. Keep ‘em coning Abby!

Thank you for this beautiful piece of journalism. Well researched and entertaining

Great fun as always! Thank you for making my Sundays 👏🏽

I really enjoyed the research and context given in this video!

As someone who has studied Victorian serial novels I know the history of the publishing industry. I encourage people to read whatever makes them happy. I do still find booktok to be leading towards alarming trends of people willing to spend $20 or more on writing that is the same quality as what they can get for free online. If I’m going to spend the money on something professionally published, I expect something of a higher quality than what I can find on ao3. Increasingly that is just not the case and it’s harder and harder to find books that seem worth the money you spend because booktok has made cheaper quality books so profitable for the publishing industry.

I loved every second of this video. Such an interesting topic, well researched arguments, so funny and also I loved the color scheme of the clothes/hair and wallpaper 😀❤️

As someone who used to work in publishing, the self-publishing arena makes me cringe. So many self-publishing presses take advantage of first-time authors who don't know how publishing works (editing, copyediting, marketing, etc) and use contract loopholes to sell the book behind the author's back. I had to walkthrough a picture book author why she can't do anything about her press selling her book through Amazon when she wanted to sell only through her website.

Amazing. Love your deep dives. And your memes. This is what I am here for.

The comparison of fast fashion and booktok I've seen till now was mostly focused on promotion of overconsumption - book hauls (similar to clothing hauls), book trends (less space for creativity and talking only about new, trendy books instead of slightly older ones - and I by "older" I mean few years old modern fiction, not "classics"), focus on reading as much as possible because it is "productive" and sounds "smart" to say you read so much (like speeding up audiobooks or choosing shorter books to have more books read in total etc.; focus on "more" and "faster" instead of quality and fun), focus on book ownership instead of book reading resulting in huge home libraries full of unread books or books someone read just one (historically a status symbol) etc. Book industry may be more environmentally friendly than fast fashion but if we keep producing more than we need (like plenty of books that will just sit on the shelfs for years, being read once, twice or never) is still very wasteful - paper may be recycled but what about everything else (energy, transport, factory buildings and machines, other materials etc.)? Also, just because "something is an industry standard" or "has been there since forever" doesn't mean it's good - cheap materials and underpaid workers are industry standard and has always been like that but no one says it excuses fast fashion. Also, the excuse "book sales are good for authors" is only preventing us from trying to find solutions that do not require overconsumtion to provide income to author and publisher; it's accepting status quo

Ann Radcliffe's books, no matter how silly they are from any point of view, caused an insane fascination with gothic art within the regency society of England. It gave work to a lot of painters, landscapers and other authors. So yeah, silly entertaining books can cause more things than take our minds off things. And I'm sure they had typos too. 😅