News:

This was one of the issues the Guild had discussed with Amazon, and we are pleased to see that Amazon is allowing authors greater choice in how they price their work.

Narrating your own audiobook could mean significant money—or a significant headache. We’re hosting a free webinar to help you figure it out on WEDNESDAY JULY 22. Register here:

Signed up for this webinar from @authorsguild.org Thought some of my fellow authors here might be intersted. Narrating your own audiobook. mailchi.mp/authorsguild...

🚨🚨 JULY SUBMISSION CALLS 🚨🚨 Make sure you don’t miss an opportunity, and get these and more delivered right to your mailbox by signing up for our newsletter!

"Libraries are my personal superhero!" — Min Jin Lee from the stage at this year’s ALA Annual Conference

🚨🚨 JUNE SUBMISSION CALLS 🚨🚨 Make sure you don’t miss an opportunity, and get these and more delivered right to your mailbox by signing up for our newsletter!

We’re gearing up at the Authors Guild to celebrate the ALA’s 150th anniversary, and it got us thinking about why libraries endure, and what we gain from having access to them. We’ll be sharing lots of stories, but we wanted to start out with a universal truth: “Every writer has a library story”

This essential 50 book list, recommended by our authors, is not complete, and it isn’t meant to be. America is too large, too contradictory, too alive to be captured in any single inventory. Consider it a living document, like the country itself, still being written.

Register here for our ghostwriting event on Thursday June 25 at 2 PM ET!

Important work by the Author's Guild to establish rules of the road for AI. Impressed by the bipartisan nature of the work, particularly Senator Blackburn's framework that unauthorized AI training on copyrighted works does not qualify as fair use. authorsguild.org/news/authors... @authorsguild.org

Authors Guild authors and staff recently spent two days on Capitol Hill with 12 congressional meetings in both chambers, with both parties to make the case that AI companies cannot keep training on writers' work without consent, disclosure, or compensation.

We’ve seen some discussion around a recent Codex survey we commissioned asking readers where they obtain the books they read. The findings are interesting, and we want to set the record straight. Click here to read the survey findings: authorsguild.org/news/new-aut...

“He said that discipline is giving yourself to something instead of expecting to get something from it. And it just hit me so hard, because I’ve always thought, ‘I don’t have enough discipline to do this work,” or “I need more discipline.’ As if equating it with willpower, like it’s this muscle.”

As always, the event is free but you must register to attend

How does one begin and succeed at #publishing literary #translation? @authorsguild.org hosted a roundtable discussion with esteemed #editors and #publishers from Archipelago, HarperVia, Open Letter Books, and Tilted Axis Press. Watch the roundtable on YouTube here:

Learn what @americanpublish.bsky.social President and CEO Maria Pallante and @authorsguild.org CEO Mary Rasenberger have to say about the prolific audiobook #piracy problem on YouTube and why the platform needs to step up to fix it! www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/b...

A “professional book reader who evaluates literature specifically for screen adaptation” details exactly what he’s looking for in a manuscript

The Copyright Office wants to raise registration fees and eliminate the cheapest option for solo authors. More than 500 of our members said this would hurt them. So we filed comments. Here's what's at stake—especially if you're watching the AI cases.

It was great meeting with the @authorsguild.org to discuss how Congress can take further steps to protect creative works as the rise of AI continues.

We have model contract language ready to use, and we recommend writers include these clauses in their contracts.

Congratulations to Carla Hayden, who received the 2026 Champion of Writers Award from the @authorsguild.org. Hayden was the 14th Librarian of Congress at the The Library of Congress, the first African American, first woman, and first professional librarian to hold that position.

The new study reports “a surge in the banning of nonfiction titles” in public schools, reflecting “a strain of anti-intellectualism... that mirrors the broader political attack on facts and knowledge and the skepticism and devaluation of, and disdain for, experts and expertise.”

Imagine waiting three years to hear from your publisher. Eighteen of our Authors Guild members were living this nightmare when TouchPoint Press suddenly ghosted them, leaving them with unanswered emails, missing royalties and mystery publication dates. So we took them to court.

How does your child’s school handle AI?

You’ll leave this @authorsguild.org session with actionable ways to free yourself from the algorithm-chasing burnout of social media and remember why you want to share your #writing in the first place. authorsguild.org/resource/pro... #indieauthors #publishing #selfpub #selfpublishing #writers

We sued the Trump administration. We won.

If you’re reading this go to sleep right now

Books aren’t the only reason to patronize these stores…

“Using an AI chatbot to help me write would be like using the kitchen garbage disposal to help me eat dinner”

Non-agented authors, before you sign a contract with a publisher, the @authorsguild.org will review your contract for a pretty nominal fee (I think it's $49). Considering that your book could be locked up for years (or even its lifetime for a bad contract), it's worth doing. #WritingCommunity

This National Library Week we’re proud to stand with the Massachusetts Freedom to Read Coalition in support of H.3594—critical legislation to protect access to books and defend the freedom to read. Unfortunately, book bans and censorship efforts are rising across the country—and MA is not immune.

Some hopeful scenes from last night’s Authors Guild Foundation Gala, where book bans, access to libraries, and measures against AI took center stage. Via the AP:

The Authors Guild is disappointed by the Eighth Circuit’s recent decision in PRH v. Robbins to vacate the preliminary injunction that had temporarily blocked enforcement of Iowa’s SF 496

The Black List offers fiction writers a unique entryway to potential industry exposure and connections with agents and publishers. Join us TONIGHT for a discussion with the founders about how their platform is working for fiction writers and how books are getting discovered these days!

We thank PEN America for this important report that focuses our attention once more on the urgent need to improve working terms for literary translators. Translators are co-creators of literature, and it is long past time they were treated as such.

The author of Yesteryear—already optioned for an Anne Hathaway adaptation—on making deadlines, reconnecting with ambition and the importance of networking thecreativeindependent.com/people/autho...

What books are you stuck on?

The National Association of Black Bookstores has declared today — Tuesday, April 7 __ National Black Bookstore Day in honor of the more than 300 Black-owned bookstores operating in the U.S.

One common notion most writers seem to share is there’s simply nothing else they’d rather be doing, no matter what it takes to make that possible. With that, a few highlights from this excellent @thebaffler.com piece🧵

This week @thebaffler.com asks whether you can still make it financially today as a writer—citing our Authors Guild income survey. (The answer is yes… but at what cost??)

Very excited for @joshgondelman.bsky.social to host the upcoming @authorsguild.org gala partly because I have so many questions I want to ask Cord Jefferson about his The Corrections adaptation. authorsguild.org/foundation/g...

Calling all Authors Guild members! Join @franklinleonard.bsky.social and Randy Winston for a FREE virtual event with @authorsguild.org on April 14 at 4PM PT/7PM ET. Learn more here: authorsguild.org/event/the-bl...

Perhaps the key to successful creativity is actually productivity

Here’s everything you need to know about the Topps lawsuit. *If you are an Authors Guild member who wrote in one of these series and have not been paid, please reach out to us by sending in a legal request.

We mourned the death of the Washington Post’s book section, but another more recent cut has gotten less attention.

SCOTUS ruled against authors and creators yesterday in Cox v. Sony, limiting our ability to hold internet providers accountable when they look the other way while piracy runs rampant on their networks.

Sometimes there is no right time to write and yet we continue on…

We can’t take away the emotional blow but we can try to explain why this might have happened!