Publishing Roundup

3 publishing stories authors are asking me about - the Anthropic case, hybrid mergers, and free speech

This week is a round-up of three publishing topics that authors and my community of publishers have been asking me about. Thanks in advance for any comments or additional insights!

Anthropic Settlement: $3000 each for 465,000 copyright violations

On September 25, 2025, we got word that the Anthropic settlement has received “preliminary approval” from the judge on the case. I don’t know who’s responsible for the data-combing exercise that provided us with the list of approved authors/books, but wow—what an effort. And thank you to those people. The list allows you to look up the qualifying books by title, author, ISBN, or publisher. My imprints, She Writes Press and SparkPress, collectively have 222 titles that are eligible for claims. Simon & Schuster has 6651.

This is eye-popping brazenness on the part of these AI companies and I really hope this keeps going so that Meta and OpenAI and others will be held accountable. Ultimately, it’s such a small payout to authors for what’s been perpetrated here, and at the same time I’m excited for my authors who will (hopefully) get their $3000.

If you’re not sure if your book is on the list, check (obviously), then file your claim. If you run into issues or questions, the Authors Guild, who’s been a guardian angel to authors through this whole thing, has an FAQ here.

Some concerns being posed:

1. Final approval is not guaranteed. The court still might decline final approval if objections or procedural flaws emerge. I do think the court would feel the wrath of the author community on its head if we reverse course now, but still.

2. Delayed payments: This process will not be a fast one, and experts are saying that authors are unlikely to see any payment for at least two years, but honestly, that’s fine. Authors are a patient bunch.

3. Missing books: Several of my authors have asked me why their titles aren’t on the final list when they met the criteria for the case. I don’t know, but the Authors Guild says “it is unlikely that works not already on the list will be added.”

Through this endeavor, a lot of publishers have been exposed for not having filed for copyright at all, or in a timely manner. Notably, Macmillan has publicly stated that it will pay its authors whose copyrights it failed to process $1500 each. The Authors Guild is advocating for other publishers to follow suit.

Filing for copyright is a pain in the ass, but since we do it regularly and most publishers do, I want to give a shoutout to all the many publishers who follow process and take copyright law seriously. There would be no payouts if we didn’t care about copyright and copyright law. So good job to so many of us, and thank you again to the Authors Guild for everything they do. If you are an author and you’re not a member, now’s the time to join.

Hybrid Mergers and Partnerships

People have been asking me what I think about the acquisition of Greenleaf and Amplify by Civica Media, backed by the private equity firm BlackBern Partners.

Going on vibes alone, I don’t love it because the sole goal of private equity is to scale and make more money (emphasis on the more because yes, obviously businesses exist to make money). As an aside, the catalyst for this Substack was an article I wrote about KKR and Simon & Schuster (another major private equity acquisition that gave me pause and yet didn’t ultimately stop me from signing with Simon & Schuster Distribution in 2024). I tried to place that piece in traditional media, and when I couldn’t, Writerly Things was born.

It’s an interesting time for hybrid publishing because a lot of us have been making big changes in our businesses. Earlier this year, She Writes Press joined forces with The Stable Book Group. Then hybrid publisher Forefront and Histria Books launched the Unified Publishing Group. Now, Greenleaf and Amplify are teaming up, too.

I know the individuals driving these moves, so I know that our motivations are different in certain places and overlapping in others. One truth is that book publishing is a tough business, and it’s lonely at the top as they say, so partnering with other people doing what you’re doing brings certain benefits: shared infrastructure and systems and brainpower.

Lots of people are telling me that the merger of these two companies is good for hybrid, and I’m not sure I believe that’s true. What’s good for hybrid is hybrid publishers being fair to their authors, holding high editorial standards, being transparent in their interactions, and producing good books.

I have been a champion of hybrid from the get-go. I credit my own advocacy efforts for the widespread adoption of “hybrid” as the agreed-upon label we use for this in-between space in book publishing. But, in recent years I’ve had to caveat the label more than ever because hybrid has also become a space where authors must be skeptical about what they’re being “sold.” The more money there is backing these companies, the more pressure there is to see high earnings, and therefore the more expensive this all gets for authors. Greenleaf and Amplify are among the most costly of all the hybrids, and they don’t have traditional distribution, which means there’s little to no focus on bookstores or libraries. That said, these “thought leadership” publishing companies are pushing and selling lots and lots of books because their authors have two critical things necessary to sell books: money and visibility. Hybrid is attractive to entrepreneurial authors who look at the terms traditional publishing offers and can’t understand why they’d give up so much control and earnings. So it doesn’t surprise me at all that this particular niche of thought-leadership/self-help is booming among hybrids.

So, we’ll see about the whole private equity thing and what changes we’ll see at Greenleaf or Amplify. I imagine initially it won’t impact much other than perhaps the cost of their publishing packages and how many additional services they offer to authors.

Trump v. Penguin Random House LLC et al

Last month, Trump filed a lawsuit against Penguin Random House seeking $15 billion in damages, alleging defamation for its publication of the book, Lucky Loser. What a great title.

The book exposes how Fred Trump (Trump’s dad) used his own fortune to propel his son’s success. The dispels the myth that Trump built his empire from a modest loan. Anyone who still believes Trump is a self-made millionaire, please check your head.

Anyhoo, on September 19, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, stating that it violated procedural rules. Notably, the lawsuit was “overly long, vague, and improperly structured.” Shocking. But also a good day for constitutional rights.

Trump has 28 days to refile, so this is another wait-and-see moment. Some of this rides on how much book publishing is in Trump’s crosshairs. He seems much more interested in television, his own milieu, and of course we know he doesn’t read so it’s possible the reach of this book isn’t totally sinking in.

This kind of lawsuit is obviously intended to instill fear, and to prevent publishers from publishing anything critical (or true) about Trump. We’re watching this play out more monumentally with TV and streaming networks, but book publishing and news is vulnerable, and we all need to keep our eyes wide open.

As for PRH, who’s in the suit alongside the New York Times since its investigative journalists wrote the book, all of publishing is in your corner! Help to keep Lucky Loser on the bestseller list by buying a copy and leaving a review.