James Patterson will again support independent booksellers with a Holiday Bookstore Bonus Program, for which he has pledged a total of $300,000. The $500 bonuses will be distributed to 600 booksellers from ABA member bookstores. The deadline to nominate a bookstore employee for a holiday bonus is October 29, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.

This year Patterson has added another gift for booksellers: he'll award 10 independent bookstores a $5,000 bonus each. Owners, employees, and managers who are nominating booksellers in their store can also enter their store for a chance to win the $5,000 bookstore bonus.

"You guys love when I do something a little crazy," Patterson said in a social media video announcing this year's holiday bonus program. "So, naturally I'm going to do it again.... So starting right now you have one month to nominate your favorite indie bookseller. You could probably nominate two if you felt like it. So, who deserves a little extra holiday magic? Get nominating and good luck, and good luck to your favorite bookseller." 

Nominations can be made online by completing and submitting a nomination form that asks one question: "Why does the bookseller you are nominating deserve a bonus? (250 words or less)" The nomination form is now open.

Booksellers can self-nominate to be considered for a bonus, or they can be nominated by bookstore customers, owners, employees, managers, fellow booksellers, publishing professionals, or authors. Past recipients of James Patterson bonuses and grants are eligible for another bonus.

Following a brief closure, Big Red Books in Nyack, N.Y., has reopened under new ownership, Nyack News & Views reported.

Sisters Kara Trinler, Nicole Trinler, and Emma Crouchen purchased the bookstore from owner Richie Fulco, who founded the store in 2023. Big Red Books was closed from late August until early September while the bookstore changed hands and the new owners restocked the inventory and did some redecorating and renovating. They officially reopened on September 5.

"We believe that it’s very important to have community spaces like this dedicated to reading, a place for kids to go, especially today when people aren’t reading as much anymore and there’s AI," Crouchen told Nyack News & Views. "A bookstore like this feels more important than ever. We’re raising our kids here and we want the community to be as special a place as possible, and we hope to contribute to that."

Going forward, the new owners plan to add more locally made gift items and rebuild the store's event offerings with author readings, book clubs, and more. They've also submitted permits to add a small cafe to the bookstore as well as build out an area behind the store. 

Crouchen noted that even with the addition of the cafe, it will be a bookstore first. "We're not trying to compete with any of the great coffee places in Nyack. We're just trying to diversify as a bricks-and-mortar bookstore and bring people into the store."

Located at 120 Main St., Big Red Books sells general-interest titles for all ages. Major areas of focus going forward will be carrying children's and adult books about neurodivergence, and making the space welcoming to neurodivergent people. 

Kara Trinler, who has a son with autism, explained, "I know what it’s like to bring my son into a store and think: Is this a good day or a bad day for him? I want everyone to know that the store is open to you to bring your neurodivergent kids and know it’s a safe and happy place for them."

Previously, Big Red Books had a large red couch in the middle of the store. The new owners have removed that, but they've added a miniature red couch with three toy mice on it to a shelf above the counter. It serves as a tribute to the store's beginnings under Fulco while also reflecting the three new owners.

Reverie Room, a bookstore, bar, and lounge, opened September 29 in St. Petersburg, Fla., I Love the Burg reported.

Located at 655 31st St. South, Reverie Room carries general-interest titles for all ages, while the bar serves beer, wine, and non-alcoholic beverages. The space is divided into five rooms, each with a different theme, and the building has a horseshoe-shaped bar and numerous reading nooks.

Owner Nichole Coronado plans to host plenty of events, including book clubs, silent reading groups, yoga and Pilates classes, crafts nights, author signings, and more. The store is not far from St. Petersburg's Pinellas Trail, and Coronado would like to start an audiobook walking group. Coronado noted that she plans to keep the book clubs smaller and more intimate.

"I love books, and I love how books bond people," Coronado told I Love the Burg. "Someone you've never even talked to will walk up and say, 'hey, I read that book.' I want Reverie Room to be a third space and a community space for people to come hang out and find their next adventure in a book, as well as meet new friends they can bond with. It's a safe, comforting space and hopefully a cozy experience."

A lifelong reader, Coronado dreamed of opening a bookstore for many years while working a high-pressure office job. Roughly a year ago she decided to leave that career behind and pursue her dream.

Endless Chapters Bookshop & Cafe will open in December at 223 S. Main St. in downtown Jefferson, Wis., the Daily Jefferson County Union reported. The bookstore is aiming for an "enchanted and whimsical feel with mismatched furniture."

"My biggest thing is just being a place for people to go and have events, have book clubs, and have a place to relax and read," said owner Ashley Keebler. "It's a place where you just don't go in and shop; it's a place to stay for a while kind of vibe."

The store plans to feature coffee, dirty soda, wine and beer, as well as pastries and other merchandise. The City of Jefferson Council recently approved the business's Class B beer and liquor license. Keebler added that Endless Chapters is trying "to keep everything (as) local as possible. My coffee is coming from Madison, and I'm still looking at a couple of bakeries, but I just want to keep it community based." 

The store will feature a variety of book genres, with an emphasis on fantasy, romance, thriller, and mystery. Keebler would also like to offer "events at night, have a place to sit down and have a glass of wine or a blind date with a book. It's not really a bar scene, I would say it's more of a winery feel." 

"This has always been my dream, and it was like one of those things that was always going to be a dream. Then my whole life situation changed and I said, 'Okay, let's just do this,' " she said.

Keebler hopes to open Endless Chapters on December 1, with a grand opening event in the spring of 2027, noting: "There's a lot of construction that still needs to happen on the building before I can start working on the store itself. It's step-by-step. The holdup is that I (need) a new roof. I don't want to start working on anything else until the roof is done." She expects the roof work to be completed sometime in October.

"Thank you for following along as we turn this dream into a reality. We can't wait to welcome you through the doors," Keebler posted on social media. 

The Book Industry Charitable Foundation has named five booksellers as winners of the Susan Kamil Emerging Writers Prize, which awards $10,000 to each recipient to provide the aspiring writer-booksellers with the financial support to focus on a full-length manuscript. This year's recipients are:

Toni Chappell, a former journalist and the owner of Fiction: A Novel Bookshop in Wiscasset, Maine. She is the author of two historical fiction works-in-progress. Her two daughters and a standard poodle named Peach are not-so-silent partners in the bookshop.

Erica Caldwell, who owned and operated a bookstore for eight years and has since worked at several bookstores in Western New York, including at Author's Note in Medina, N.Y., where she is buyer. Her submitted manuscript is a work of historical eco-fiction.

Daniel Isaiah Elder, a bookseller at Annie Bloom's Books in Portland, Ore. He is a recipient of an Emerging LGBTQ Writer Fellowship from Lambda Literary, as well as an Art/Lab Fellowship for Jewish artists. His essays and short fiction have appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines. 

Nicole Yackley, a poet, bookseller, and artist from Georgia. Her work has been published in Belletrist magazine and Sixfold magazine, among others. A series of her poems were set to music by Mikeila McQueston and performed as a chamber piece for the 2019 Nief-Norf festival. 

Amanda R. Toronto, the children's buyer at WORD Bookstores in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Jersey City, N.J. She is a former buyer and manager at the Shakespeare & Co. bookstores in New York City. Amanda serves on the board of the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association. Her manuscript is a work of literary fiction.

The award honors Kamil, who was executive v-p and publisher of Random House when she died in 2019. During her publishing career, spanning more than 40 years, she was known for recognizing new literary voices and introducing them to the public. The prize was established by reporter and author Charles Duhigg and his wife Liz Alter, a professor of biology at California State University Monterey Bay, and is administered by Binc. 

"Congratulations to the winners of this incredibly generous prize and our sincere gratitude to the judges who committed countless hours to reviewing the applications, Charles and Liz, and all the talented finalists," said Binc CEO Pam French. "I look forward to following their careers."

Charles Trueheart, a journalist "who waited most of his life to write a book about the bitter rupture in 1963 between two top U.S. diplomats who were also best friends--his father, William, the No. 2 diplomat in the United States embassy in Saigon, and Ambassador Frederick Nolting Jr.--over U.S. policy toward Ngo Dinh Diem, the faltering president of South Vietnam," died on September 15, the New York Times reported. He was 75.

In the book, Diplomats at War: Friendship and Betrayal on the Brink of the Vietnam Conflict (University of Virginia Press, 2024), Trueheart focused on the period, from 1961 to 1963, before the U.S. began committing hundreds of thousands of troops to Vietnam. "The only salve for betrayal is forgiveness," he wrote. "I think the record is pretty clear that neither Fritz nor Bill ever forgave each other. They couldn't. It was a matter of principle."

Charles Trueheart was a child when the events occurred, but he waited until his late 60s to chronicle them, after his own career as a journalist, in academia, and as director of the American Library in Paris.

In June of 1963, while Nolting "was on a long, ill-timed vacation, a monk set himself on fire on a busy boulevard in Saigon, a grisly scene that escalated protests and became an international story," the Times wrote. As acting ambassador, Bill Trueheart confronted Diem, threatening to cut off U.S. support if he didn't enact reforms. "The tough talk--done with the backing of President John F. Kennedy's White House and State Department, which were also fast losing faith in Mr. Diem--differed from Mr. Nolting's style."

"It angered Diem that Nolting was not there, whom he found a much more pleasant and genial character," Charles Trueheart said in an appearance at the American Library in 2024. "And he was undoubtedly insulted that it was a mere No. 2 at the embassy delivering these warnings."

Nolting was eventually replaced by Henry Cabot Lodge, and Bill Trueheart was later transferred to a State Department position in Washington. The Nolting-Trueheart friendship was permanently fractured. On November 2, 1963, Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, were assassinated in a coup d'état encouraged by the U.S.

In 1975, David Halberstam, the Vietnam War correspondent who had written about the Trueheart-Nolting relationship in The Best and the Brightest, told Charles Trueheart that his father and godfather's relationship was worthy of a novel. That suggestion "set me to thinking and has made its way through four decades of thinking into these pages of nonfiction," Trueheart wrote in Diplomats at War.

In 2007, Trueheart was named director of the American Library in Paris, a cultural center that has the largest English-language lending library on the European continent, the Times noted, adding that during his decade at the library, he doubled membership; raised more than $2 million for its 2016 renovation; instituted its annual book award; and expanded its public programs, including author events.

"It was a venue for people to come three or four nights a week--whether from out of town or within Paris," Cullen Murphy, a friend and writer, said in an interview. "It was like a movable feast."

The Book Stall in Winnetka, Ill., hosted the launch event for local author and historian Catherine Grace Katz's Shadow Before the Flame: The Hindenburg Disaster and the Prelude to War (Viking) at the Winnetka Chapel. She was interviewed by Book Stall staffer/historian Jon Grand.

Click here to see the latest Independent Press Top 40, the weekly bestseller list celebrating the bestselling 40 fiction and 40 nonfiction titles from independent publishers, as sold by independent bookstores across the country. The list is sponsored by the Independent Publishers Caucus and the American Booksellers Association.

This week's debut fiction titles:

10. Sometimes I Scare Myself: A Collection of Horror by Jeneva Rose (Blackstone Publishing)

This week's debut nonfiction titles:

14. Stand-Up and Lead: Turning Comedy into Leadership by David Goldring (Radius Book Group)
15. Loop: Outlearn. Outmarket. Outgrow. by Kipp Bodnar, Kieran Flanagan (Forefront Books)
17. Crossing the Red Line: Biden, His Advisors, and Israel's War in Gaza by Akbar Shahid Ahmed (W.W. Norton)
28. War Is a Racket: And Other Essential Truths from General Smedley Butler by Smedley Butler (Steerforth)
33. How to Save Democracy: The Anti-Authoritarian Playbook by Melissa Dalton-Bradford (Familius)
34. A Short History of the Gaza Strip by Anne Irfan (W.W. Norton)
40. Racist by Design: Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration Control by Kelly Lytle Hernández (W.W. Norton)

Nightfall Books in Bainbridge, Ga., shared a video depicting "when the bookstore playlist hits and you don't realize there's a customer." The bookshop noted: "This happens more than I care to admit tbh."

"WE HAVE LIGHT!! I'll never take electricity for granted again," Silver Dawn Books in Grand Forks, N.Dak., posted to celebrate the not-so-minor pleasure of the power coming back on after an outage that started the day before.

Today:
Here & Now: Ayad Akhtar, author of The Radiance: A Novel (S&S/Summit, $29, 9781668078631).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Denise Brown, author of For My Sister Nicole: Love Shouldn't Hurt--What to Know About Domestic Violence (Blackstone, $29.99, 9798228476523).

CBS Mornings: Alice Cooper, author of Devil on My Shoulder: A Memoir (Da Capo, $32.50, 9780306838026). 

Live with Kelly and Mark: Pati Jinich, author of Pati Jinich Foods of La Frontera: Recipes and New Taste Frontiers from Both Sides of the Border (Harvest, $35, 9780063375062).

Drew Barrymore Show: Colleen Hoover, author of Verity (Grand Central, $18.99, 9781538784051).

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 this weekend from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.

Sunday, October 4
8 a.m. Ken Buck, author of Wake Up America!: The Rise of Socialism Is the Death of Freedom (Humanix Books, $29.99, 9781630063399). (Re-airs Sunday at 9:30 p.m.)

9 a.m. Annie Jacobsen, author of Biological War: A Scenario (Dutton, $33, 9798217046034), at Books & Books in Coral Gables, Fla.

10 a.m. Zayd Ayers Dohrn, author of Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground (W.W. Norton, $32.99, 9781324089315).

11 a.m. Pria Anand, author of The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains (Washington Square Press, $19, 9781668064023).

12:09 p.m. James M. Tabor, author of Lightning Beneath the Sea: The Race to Wire the World and the Dawn of the Information Age (W.W. Norton, $31.99, 9781324036029).

1 p.m. Eric Ries, author of Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad... and How Great Companies Stay Great (Authors Equity, $32, 9798893311860).

3:10 p.m. Jon Else, author of Frenchman Flat: The Rise and Fall of Atomic Bombs (Belknap Press, $29.95, 9780674300354).

4:15 p.m. Michael Mandelbaum, author of The American Way of Foreign Policy: Ideology, Economics, Democracy (Oxford University Press, $29.99, 9780197840931).

6 p.m. Tom Allon, editor of Sez I to Myself: The Collected Essays of Frank and Malachy McCourt (Abrams, $30, 9781419790980).

The shortlist has been selected for the Center for Fiction 2026 First Novel Prize, which recognizes "the best debut novel of the year and supports emerging voices in fiction."

The shortlisted authors will read from their work and gather with the public at the Center for Fiction First Novel Fête on Friday, December 4. The winner, who will be announced at the Center's Annual Awards Benefit on Tuesday, December 8, will receive $15,000. Each shortlisted author receives $1,000.

The shortlist:
A Real Animal by Emeline Atwood (Catapult)
Carrying by Samantha Josephs (Putnam)
Whidbey by T Kira Madden (Mariner Books)
Ruins, Child by Giada Scodellaro (New Directions)
Offseason by Avigayl Sharp (Astra House)
Blow Yourself Up by Ankur Thakkar (TriQuarterly Books)
The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford by Nafissa Thompson-Spires (Scribner)

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, October 6: 

Life Out of Order by Audrey Niffenegger (Hanover Square Press, $33, 9781335003225) is a sequel to The Time Traveler's Wife.

Other Worlds Than These by Stephen King and Peter Straub (Scribner, $35, 9781668233092) concludes the Talisman trilogy.

The Witch by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press, $29.99, 9781464249648) is a paranormal thriller about a woman returning to her family's haunted estate.

Partita: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper, $32, 9780063577541) revisits a married woman's past love affair.

Victorious by V.E. Schwab (Tor, $31.99, 9781250192233) concludes the superhero fantasy Villains series.

The Bakery Dragon and the Giant Cookie by Devin Elle Kurtz (Knopf, $19.99, 9798217118748) is the third book in the Bakery Dragon picture book series, in which the determined little dragon cooks huge Christmas cookies for a grumpy giant.

The Sixth Faction by Veronica Roth (HarperCollins, $25.99, 9780063462540) is the first in a new series that revisits Divergent and changes Tris's faction.

Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State by Michael Lewis (W.W. Norton, $29.99, 9781324131656) tells the stories of public servants targeted by Trump's Department of Government Efficiency.

The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking, $38, 9780525562238) chronicles the 1848 California Gold Rush and its consequences.

One Helluva Ride by Michael Douglas (Grand Central, $35, 9781538782224) is the actor's memoir.

Cormac McCarthy: A Legacy Revisited by Tracy Daugherty (St. Martin's Press, $35, 9781250348722) is a biography of the legendary author. 

The AGI Chronicles: The Inside Story of the Race to Create an Artificial Superintelligence by Kevin Roose (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $32, 9780374618759) looks at the tech world's decade-long obsession with creating A.I.

Paperbacks:
Rise After Silence: An ER Doctor and the Patients Who Healed Her by Dr. Anne Aspler (Fempower Publications, $20.95, 9781998721498).

It's Only Dancing by Jasmine Guillory (Scholastic, $15.99, 9781338749434).

From last week's Indie bestseller lists, available at IndieBound.org, here are the recommended titles, which are also Indie Next Great Reads:

Hardcover
Mazywood by Tananarive Due (S&S/Saga Press, $32, 9781668075142). "This is American Fiction meets Get Out; the best blend of social commentary mixed with horror. Mazelle Washington, an aspiring actress, makes a wish that brings her into childhood stardom. As she ages, she becomes part of Black Hollywood and all of its burdens." --Audrey I-Wei Huang, Belmont Books, Belmont, Mass.

The Poison Daughter by Sheila Masterson (Slowburn, $32, 9781638935971). "Standalone fantasy is so hard to come by but this one checked all the boxes! Harlow is a woman full of poison who meets her worst nightmare: a man she cannot kill. I breezed through these 600+ pages!" --Elizabeth Gorby, Charter Books, Newport, R.I.

Paperback
A Study in Sparkling: A Novel by Jodi McAlister (Atria, $19, 9781668236338). "I loved the continuation of this universe through Fiona and Satoshi's story! The struggle and the stressors of their lives, coupled with differing life stages and ages make for a tension-filled story of yearning. It was a book I couldn't put down!" --Tess Starman, Shelf Love DSM, Des Moines, Iowa

Ages 4-8
Tom Nancy: The Sheep Who Swapped Brains with a Boy by Mac Barnett, illus. by X. Fang (Tundra Books, $19.99, 9781774885710). "Oh boy, oh boy! Mac Barnett understands that there's nothing worse than being an unpleasant grownup and nothing better than being an animal. X. Fang knows exactly how to make a scheming sheep look like a Bad Kid. Tom Nancy is a brain-swapping parable about the perils of getting what you want." --Alex Schaffner, Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, Mass.

Ages 8-12
The Secret Bookstore Sleuth Society by Lindsay Currie (Sourcebooks Young Readers, $17.99, 9781464241260). "Suspenseful, surprising, and with a little something for everyone! This book is a terrific middle grade mystery with an ending I didn't see coming! Fans of Fleur Bradley will love this new one by Lindsay Currie!" --Meagan Dallner, Books Are Awesome, Parker, Colo.

Ages 13+
The Secret to Belonging by Megan E. Freeman (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, $19.99, 9781665988407). "A stunning novel-in-verse about dysfunctional family, finding your people, and freedom. You can truly feel the main character's frustration with how her parents respond to her brother's drug addiction, and the peace her new friends in Norway bring her. The second-person POV was a highly effective writing choice." --Kaylene Yandell, White Oak Books, Vancouver, Wash.

[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]

Weird Era by Ryan Schreiber tells the story of a time period in which indie music fandom stole cachet and clout from established media giants. Founded in 1996, Pitchfork took hold as the most feared and lauded music publication of the early Internet age, becoming the arbiter of cool for an entire generation of indie music lovers. Pitchfork was capable of launching an unknown act (e.g., Sigur Rós from Iceland) into sold-out venues and surprising sales numbers; it was the first publication to grasp that the Internet had changed not only how music criticism could be distributed but also how it might be conceived and democratized.

Leading the operation was an accidentally entrepreneurial music obsessive from Minneapolis, Minn., named Ryan Schreiber, who at 19 created a website to review music because he figured if he didn't, someone else would. Schreiber wasn't a trained writer or editor; he was a fan with opinions and, most importantly, enough early-Internet savvy to understand that the Web rewarded volume and specificity.

Schreiber's memoir documents the site's conception in his childhood home, its move to Chicago in 1999 and then Brooklyn in 2011, and acquisition by Condé Nast in 2015. Where other publications used stars or letter grades, Pitchfork decided that a 10-point scale with a single decimal place was more precise and therefore would spark more discussion and engagement. A 9.7 for Arcade Fire's Funeral in 2004 praised the album, helped break sales records for the label, and garnered a record-breaking number of visitors for Schreiber's website. At Pitchfork's peak in the mid-2000s, a positive review could be more valuable to an indie band than just about anything else. The list of careers galvanized and accelerated by a Pitchfork number score reflects the lion's share of a decade of indie rock history. Schreiber's voice is wry, entertaining, and honest about the line the publication sometimes crossed between taste-making and hectoring, and about his own complicity in a culture that was occasionally as mean as it was rigorous.

Pitchfork's eventual sale to Condé Nast looms over the book's final section, and Schreiber writes about it with the kind of candor that distance allows. He details his sinking recognition that the corporate machinery he'd spent his adult life outrunning had become the only path forward. Expansion projects that had been promised support were shuttered, true believers departed or were let go as the site was absorbed into GQ in 2024. It makes a genuinely melancholy ending to what had been an improbable ride.

Weird Era is compulsively readable, frequently funny, and unexpectedly moving. Even readers who spent years arguing about Pitchfork's scores will find themselves grateful it existed. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.

Shelf Talker: Weird Era, the memoir by Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber, is a testament to the strength of youthful passion and fandom to change the cultural landscape.

The Book Industry Study Group and BookNet Canada have released AI Use Across the North American Book Industry 2026. Drawing on 771 responses, the second annual report examines how publishing professionals and organizations in the U.S. and Canada are using--and thinking about--artificial intelligence.

Noting that the results show an industry "becoming more nuanced in its approach," the survey found that "organizational use of AI has grown considerably, while individual adoption has declined. At the same time, organizations are putting more structure around AI use through policies, controlled workflows, and training--even as concerns about copyright, creators, accuracy, trust, security, and sustainability remain widespread."

In 2026, 63% of respondents said their organization is using AI, up from 48% in 2025. Individual use moved in the opposite direction, falling from 46% to 38%. Organization size also matters: 88% of organizations with more than 100 employees reported using AI, primarily within controlled workflows or for specific tasks, while 49% of respondents said their organization now has an official AI policy or guidelines, up from 31% in 2025. 

"The conversation around AI in publishing is becoming much more nuanced and pragmatic," said BISG executive director Allison Belan. "Organizations are increasingly exploring where these tools actually provide value, while also putting more emphasis on policies, controlled workflows, and risk management. These results give us a clearer picture of where the industry--both organizationally and individually--is today and where more guidance and shared learning are needed."

Lauren Stewart, president & CEO of BookNet Canada, commented: "The 2026 survey release allows for an opportunity to benchmark against the insights gained during 2025's fielding. BookNet is excited to work with BISG to present a wide view of North American attitudes and adoption patterns regarding AI changing over time."

According to the report, AI use remains concentrated in practical, workflow-oriented areas, with the most common applications being administrative and operational tasks and marketing, followed by areas including research, data analysis and reporting, and metadata and title optimization.

Formal AI training remains relatively uncommon, though it is more prevalent in larger organizations. In those with more than 100 employees, 23% of leaders reported receiving formal AI training. Leaders from organizations with 51-100 employees had the highest rate of AI experimentation at 89%, with no respondents in this group reporting that they were not using AI in their work.

Among professionals already using AI, 72% said it has increased their efficiency or productivity, but the report also highlights the experiences of those who have found AI less useful, citing issues like the time required to correct inaccurate results, refine prompts, review outputs, or learn how to use the technology safely.

Copyright remains a leading issue, cited by 86% of respondents; as does trust, with 89% worried about the accuracy of AI-generated information and the same percentage about AI-generated books--including fraudulent or low-quality content--flooding major retail platforms. Concerns about protecting authors and creators, disclosure to consumers, and the ability to distinguish AI-generated, AI-assisted, and human-created work were also high.

"Taken together, the findings suggest that the industry's conversation is moving beyond simply asking whether AI is being used. Increasingly, the questions are how and if it can be used responsibly, where its use is appropriate, and how publishing's values can be protected as the technology evolves," the report noted.

At the individual staff level, the report found that 57% of employees lean negative, but "their responses reveal more tension between personal concerns and workplace realities. Key themes include pressure from management to adopt AI, fear of job displacement and deskilling, and frustration with tools that create more work than they save. At the same time, some employees see potential for AI to support administrative tasks and overburdened teams, provided there is meaningful human involvement."

The results also suggest that AI adoption is more established among larger and institutional organizations, with publishers (61%) and libraries (71%) more likely to be using AI than independent booksellers (11%). The top areas of adoption for indie bookstores were AI policy development (67%) and data privacy and security (67%).

One independent bookstore manager said: "We've had to inform multiple customers that the travel guide they ordered was AI written, and all of them immediately cancelled their order because 'they don't want that.' At best it's a glorified Google search, most likely it's frustratingly broad and inaccurate, and at worst it's actively dangerous.... My major concern is the legitimization of AI products by publishers and distributors, while refusing to introduce transparency measures that customers can use to make informed decisions. (Plus the legal and environmental concerns.)"

In its summary, AI Use Across the North American Book Industry 2026 concluded that this year's findings "point to an industry that continues to question whether AI has a place in publishing and that grapples with how it should be used, if at all..... 

"The decisions being made now will help shape the role AI plays in publishing for years to come. The goal should not be to adopt AI simply because it is available, nor to reject it without considering where it may offer genuine value. Instead, the industry has an opportunity to approach these technologies intentionally while establishing clear expectations for their use, and ensuring that efficiency does not come at the expense of the creative, professional, ethical, and cultural values that make publishing meaningful."

On Tuesday, October 20, at 1 p.m. Eastern, BISG and BookNet Canada will take a closer look at the findings during "AI in Publishing 2026: What the Data Tells Us."