The Most Popular Book News of the Week

NetGalley Launches Consumer-Facing Platform

NetGalley, a platform that allows publishing industry professionals to access digital ARCs of upcoming releases, has launched Booktrovert.com, a “consumer-facing marketing platform” featuring giveaways, reader activities, merch, and more.  NetGalley is positioning Booktrovert as a solution to “the book industry’s demand for robust consumer marketing tools. ” Marketing is a perpetual challenge, and publishers continue to struggle with how to get readers to buy the books they want to sell them instead of/in addition to whatever is trending on BookTok. Algorithm-driven social media has turned marketing into a casino in which the odds of gaining traction are low, but the possibility of hitting the viral jackpot compels everyone to play. Which is all to say: I understand the opportunity NetGalley sees here and why publishers might find it appealing. The real question is: what is the value proposition to the readers?

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Judge Rejects Authors’ Claims that Meta Violated Copyright Law

Books are having a tough week in court. A federal judge in California has rejected 13 authors’ claims that Meta violated copyright law  when it used their books to train AI tools without their permission. Bad news, but there’s a big catch: the ruling is limited to the authors who participated in the case and “does not mean that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials is lawful.” In contrast to a different California judge’s decision earlier this week  that use of copyrighted material to train AI is permissible as long as the materials are acquired legally, the judge in this case determined simply that the plaintiffs “made the wrong arguments” and “did not present sufficient evidence that Meta’s use of their books was harmful.”

Two wins for big tech in one week is a hard pill to swallow, but/and we should take note that both decisions came with caveats that may provide useful direction for future suits. The Anthropic case establishes use of pirated books to train AI as illegal , and this case against Meta allows that using copyrighted books without permission, no matter how they’re obtained, may cause “market harm” of which authors must provide sufficient evidence. Technology has so far outpaced the law that this these cases are likely to move in fits and starts, wins and reversals, for longer than any of us want it to take. Hold onto your butts, folks.

Is the Decline of Reading Causing Political Dysfunction?

Americans are reading less and scrolling more.  Social media erodes critical thinking skills and contributes to polarization. As book people, it can be tempting to think everything would be better if everyone just read more books. Vox‘s Eric Levitz examines the the claim that the decline in reading is poisoning our politics , and while his answer isn’t the straightforward affirmative you might be hoping for, it’s exactly the kind of nuanced analysis the moment calls for. We all need to have our assumptions challenged and to be reminded that  reading itself is not resistance.

What Books Have Defined 2025 So Far?

On today’s episode of the Book Riot Podcast, Jeff O’Neal and I compare lists of  the biggest, buzziest, most newsworthy books of 2025 so far.  Looking for the best books of the year so far? Join us Powell’s on July 9th.