The Week’s Biggest Book News

Welcome to your weekend edition of Today in Books, where we catch up with the biggest stories of the week.

Guess Who’s Back

After shuttering in 2020, BookCon, the reader-focused convention originally conceived as a companion to the  now-defunct BookExpo professional conference , is making a comeback. Scheduled for April 18-19, 2026 at New York’s Javits Center, the “wholly reimagined event” promises author apperances, book signings, workshops, panels, and even crafting zones aimed at “bringing our online world into a real-world space.” Details remain TBA, but I think it’s fair to assume that, given the fan-service-meets-marketing fever dream vibe of fan conventions, we’ll see a lot of BookTok faves, big-budget summer titles, photo-friendly special editions, and, yes, probably some influencer activations. What are publishers prioritizing and how do they conceptualize what readers want? Event and speaker announcements will offer an interesting glimpse.

Don’t miss your chance to win a $200 Books-A-Million gift card! Enter the sweepstakes today. You can’t win if you don’t enter.

Reese’s Book Club Steps Up to the Mic

Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine has partnered with iHeartMedia to  launch a podcast for Reese’s Book Club. Debuting June 24 as an iHeartPodcast, “Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club” will feature “irresistible conversations with celebrities, tastemakers and authors from Reese’s Book Club and beyond.” While Witherspoon, who  sold Hello Sunshine in a monster $900 million deal  in 2021, will not be hosting (that duty goes to journalist and TV host Danielle Robay), she will serve as one of the executive producers. Reigning queen of the rom-com, Emily Henry, will appear on the first episode alongside Yulin Kuang, who is directing the adaptation of Henry’s Beach Read and whose own novel  How to End a Love Story was a Reese’s Book Club pick in 2024.

The Clock Runs Out for TikTok’s Publishing Experiment

According to reporting from The Bookseller, TikTok parent company ByteDance appears to be closing 8th Note Press, the publishing imprint it launched in 2023.   No one associated with the enterprise has gone on the record to confirm, but The Bookseller has discovered that “authors and agents are currently negotiating the return of rights to titles acquired by the publisher, and the business’ digital presence has apparently been quietly deleted.” Since its launch, 8th Note Press had acquired rights to more than 30 novels, guided by an editorial approach of “building backwards” informed by online trends. When TikTok’s move into publishing was first announced, its appeal seemed obvious : TikTok was moving units and minting bestsellers at a rate publishing had never seen before, and it had the power to decide what goes viral. What author wouldn’t want a connection on the inside?

As Jane Friedman reports , 8th Note Press seems to have failed not only to reverse-engineer BookTok success from the inside but to provide its authors any reasonable amount of support: “Authors who were on a successful self-publishing path have had their earnings and career trajectory seriously hampered.”

The Unmaking of the Historical Romance Genre

Long the backbone of romance sales, the historical romance genre may be losing its primacy thanks to romantasy and rom-coms. Are we watching the unmaking of historical romance?