It s a telling state of affairs that I am spending the morning mapping out book release schedules, my daughter is far more interested in the #NBA Finals and I could care less about the World Cup. Next big event on my attention antenna: Wimbledon.

No, no they are not. We incorporate fact checking into our editing process; it takes a little longer, but the results are worth the time and effort. Started my career working for big book and magazine publishers; wonder if I would be happy there now. nymag.com/intelligence...

Interesting, tho unscientific poll from the Full Set newsletter. Book coverage continues to decline in dailies; we can’t interest the papers in large, related markets, even for our award-nominated titles. DTC still is our best bet. Interesting bookstores and libraries polled so poorly. #publishing

Long before Toronto became the centre of the hockey universe, it was a baseball town. The 1920s was the golden era of the game in the city. I’ll be recreating those times when I talk about my book “The Howleyites,” on the Toronto Mike’d podcast with @torontomike.com Tuesday.

If I could publish a book like this every day I’d be a very happy man. Our latest title is a historical work putting sports in context—the rise of Toronto in 1926 mirroring the rise of baseball’s Maple Leafs and the construction of what would become a landmark ballpark, Maple Leaf Stadium.

Art. Rachel. MoMA.

And here come the inevitable book-services pitches: three AI firms say they will verify our publishing company is AI free and issue us pretty badges to confirm. For a fee, of course.

We added a clause to our author agreements prohibiting the use of AI in book prep and authorship, accompanied by a pledge would would not use AI, either. We edit and publish the old-fashioned way and commission real graphics artists for covers. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/b...

The Minnesota snow is still less than a Cupcake high. No cause for alarm yet.

We’re closer to parity across MLB spring training facilities, as the Cardinals, Marlins and Orioles updated their player-performance spaces, with Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium also seeing a raft of updates. #MLB #springtraining #baseballbiz ballparkdigest.com/2026/03/09/p...

One sad little tech section at my local Barnes and Noble, and only two Linux titles. When our first books appeared 35 or so years ago, this section would have been 10 times larger. Back then direct sales were unheard of; today our #1 publishing channel is direct to consumer.

This is how Cupcake wants to spend her birthday

This princess turns 11 today. A proud product of the exclusive Cockapoos of Excellence program, Cupcake has been with us since puppyhood. She enjoys BBC documentaries, homemade beef stew and going out for a walk four times a day.

Eating Indian food In Philadelphia and washing it down with basmati rice beer brewed in Potosi. What a great time to be alive.

First two stops of the art day in Philly.

Doing the American history tour in Philly today. Always fascinating to see how the history of the Liberty Bell is framed.

SEO is dead, all Google wants to do is scrape your data and not send you readers, and the only path toward an assured audience is to build your own. Welcome to publishing in 2026, where we could see a bloodbath.

Well-deserved accomplishment for author ericvickrey.bsky.social, whose Before They Wore Dodger Blue reached the top spot in the Amazon best-seller list two day after release! Check out the title and its coverage of the 1968 Los Angeles Dodgers draft class at augustpublications.com.

A few tomte and a dollop of rice pudding before the girls head back to college.

So proud of this title. In 1968 the Dodgers drafted six future All-Stars—Doyle Alexander, Bill Buckner, Ron Cey, Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, and Tom Paciorek. They would form the core of outstanding teams led by Tommy Lasorda: Before They Wore Dodger Blue: www.augustpublications.com/products/bef...

Morning, world

COVER DROP! Available in preorder for August Publications and Ballpark Digest readers: Before They Wore Dodger Blue: Tommy Lasorda and the Greatest Draft Class in Baseball History.

Interesting sales trend: direct book sales on augustpublications.com now outpace Amazon sales by a 3-1 margin. Sales in both channels are way up over a year ago as well. Wonder if this is happening in the Big 5 as well. #publishing

Data point for #publishing folks out there. We used to ship at least one copy of our spring training guide to Canada. Since August, exactly zero copies of the paperback guide have been shipped to Canada, with ebook sales remaining steady.

Can’t say I am surprised. Very unresponsive, very slow to pay bills (if they did; now we have another bad debt to write off). Sad for the employees losing their jobs, though www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

I check Bluesky publishing posts every few days, and it struck me why I find it a very sad place: no one seems to be having fun! Retired from web publishing to focus on books, and overall it’s been a hoot. People: if you don’t find any joy in the creative process, then maybe it’s not for you.

So unsafe. Here’s Gold Medal Park in downtown Minneapolis. Walk the dog here four times a day. He is so full of crap.

Art in Bloom, Minneapolis Institute of Art. Great crowd — IG heaven.

There is no platform where I see worse writing and publishing advice than Threads. It’s really confounding.

Returned from AZ spring training to find our 2025 print guides completely sold out. Yay. Next book went to the printer yesterday. Yay. Will announce next two books shortly. Yay. Met with author in AZ about 2026 title. Yay. Jim Gilliam bio a solid seller. Yay. Print is a hoot.

Huh. Look at that. Landed at #1 on a few lists today. Beat out a Big Five title as well. www.augustpublications.com/products/jim...

Have a vested interest in this unbuilt ballpark for the Minnesota @twins: yes, the park and Guthrie ended up being a better use for the site; and yes, the current home of this page is within the footprint of this Downtown East site. #mlb

Received this for Xmas. Eager to tackling it soon after this tome:

Just when I thought my field was saturated with plagiarists and wannabes, I discover something new and amazing. So happy to be surprised by something hidden and unknown.

Can you imagine the courage it took to preach this message directly to the president? This is what a follower of Jesus looks like. (Partial transcript below.)

Pretty major news! Circus design dissed at the time, but it ended up being influential in several pop culture spots, like comic book design. The costumes at the Ringling Museum are sad and faded, and few examples on display at Circus World. Someone will have a great time with this!

Preemptively blocking all expat BookTokers opening accounts here to whine about the closing of TikTok. There are a lot of publishers doing just fine without spending a second on BookTok.

Checked out the referrer logs on augustpublications.com e-commerce site. Top three were our sites and newsletters; fourth was Google. At the bottom: Social media. Google used to be #1, but along the way Google decided it didn’t actually want to be a search engine.

Obligatory cow painting. Not an abundance of them at the Met, surprisingly. #metmuseum #metmuseumofart

"You currently hate the man you will end up marrying. He most likely works with your father. This dislike started in elementary school when he teased you in some gentle but humiliating way. You put him in his place by winning the spelling bee."

So in all the discourse over how men don't read, I've noticed something weird. All the articles about this issue say that there are multiple studies showing women account for 80% of fiction sales. But none of them link to the studies — just to each other. www.vox.com/culture/3929...

31 December 1995. Still the perfect goodbye.

What was the first baseball park on Manhattan Island? Not the Polo Grounds (summer 1880) but this: the Ladies' Athletic Grounds, near the site of today's Bloomingdale's flagship store. It was built to display Sylvester Wilson's two teams, the Blondes and Brunettes.

Efforts to declare Jackie Robinson Ballpark a National Commemorative Site continue, as the U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan bill moving the process forward to President Joe Biden for his signature. #MLB #MiLB #sportsbiz #baseballbiz ballparkdigest.com/2024/12/28/n...

Absolutely brutal assessment of outfielder Charlie Murray by Branch Rickey, then with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1963. Murray was a Houston .45s draftee then playing with the Moultrie Colt .22s of the Georgia-Florida League. 1/2

The neighborhood Christmas lights were pretty spectacular last night. #christmaslights #christmas

More Christmas decor. The elves were pretty busy last night. #christmastree #christmas #christmasdecor

Putting up Christmas decorations wore out Cupcake. #christmas

Dayton’s nostalgia in full bloom at the winter market. #daytonsproject #santabear

Of course I’m drinking a white cocktail tonight. #vikings #skol