▲ | smelendez 5 days ago | |
It's surprising to me that AP customer newspapers don't want book reviews to pad out their Sunday papers. Bookstores are opening more than closing in the US, and people love library apps like Libby, so you'd think they'd want reviews too. But I guess it's possible people are getting as many book recommendations as they can use from social media and TikTok and aren't interested in more detailed reviews. It doesn't surprise me that people aren't seeking out book reviews on the AP website or app—I don't think AP is particularly associated with reviews, maybe deliberately because they've historically been read in local papers that don't emphasize the AP sourcing, so people wanting reviews from a national source probably go to NYT, WaPo, WSJ, the New Yorker, etc. first. | ||
▲ | xhkkffbf 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | |
The book market is yuge and filled with many niches. There used to be more broad market offerings but the market isn't as interested lately. So it's really impossible to cover without writing 100+ reviews a week. And the AP (and their customers) can't afford that many. There's soooo much fragmentation. | ||
▲ | trenchpilgrim 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |
My top two sources for finding new books are NPR's annual book list (which is structured around discovery) and friends' recommendations. Especially going to a bookstore with a few friends, browsing, and physically pointing out books to each other. "Hey, have you read this series I liked?" kinda stuff | ||
▲ | nattaylor 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | |
My read is that no customers will leave since they are much more interested in news coverage -- and this helps the AP focus more on news. This is a tangent, but I wonder if they feel that they are just creating LLM training data and that few readers (even of Sunday papers) will actually read their reviews. |