The Package Matters: A Book Media Roundtable with Five People Who Know What They Are Talking About

“If I could wish for one thing in media, it would be for more publications to train their readers to want to read reviews & to give their books and culture editors the time and the space to develop."

This week’s post brings together five women who work in what is broadly called “book media” to get a state of the industry report.¹ TL;DR: It’s not great! I share this with you (writers, publicists, editors, book lovers) not to leave you dispirited but to provide insight and tools to navigate a very difficult environment. At the very least, I hope this will help you have compassion for yourself and the people behind book coverage decisions if you find yourself in the position of not having your book reviewed.

Book writers and book lovers also have a role to play here. While I am enough of a lefty to be skeptical of the view that consumer choices alone can change the world, if we want a robust ecosystem of book coverage, we also must support it. Read the outlets you dream of covering you, and if you can afford it, pay for them! At the very least, you’ll gain a greater understanding of which publication covers what, and in time, be able to use this knowledge for your own purposes.

Read on if you are interested in:

● How book media editors and critics decide which books to cover

● What kind of book coverage draws the most readers

● What kind of coverage our participants read themselves

● A spirited defense of best-of lists (with a great Umberto Eco quote to boot)

Kate Dwyer has reported on books, authors, and the publishing industry for the New York Times, the New Yorker, Esquire, the Wall Street Journal, and many other outlets. She's on Instagram and (soon) Substack.

Lucy Feldman is an Editorial Director at TIME, where she oversees coverage of books and authors. She has profiled and interviewed some of the biggest names in publishing, including Margaret Atwood, Joan Didion, Colson Whitehead, and Colleen Hoover.

Adrienne Westenfeld is a writer and editor with a decade of experience at the intersection of glossy magazines and book publishing; formerly the Books and Fiction Editor at Esquire, she now runs Adrienne Westenfeld Editorial.

Maris Kreizman is a critic and columnist and the author of I Want to Burn This Place Down (Ecco, July 2025.)

Emily Firetog is the deputy editor of Lit Hub.

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You’ve all worked in book media for years, even decades, and both book publishing and media have changed considerably in that time. Could you give us a snapshot of what book media was like when you began your careers? Was there anything we were doing then that we don’t do now? (And anything you wish we could resurrect?)

Kate Dwyer: I’ve worked in or around book publishing for roughly a decade, but I didn’t start following the media machine around literary fiction and nonfiction until late 2017, when I managed a writers’ coworking space in Manhattan. Back then, it did feel like there was a hierarchy in book media, where you’d start out by writing about midlist titles² for internet publications and work your way up to covering frontlist titles for places like NYT, NYMag, Esquire, GQ, and The New Yorker. Now, it feels like many of those lower-budget outlets either don’t exist or don’t cover books anymore, which is impacting emerging reporters who depended on the bylines as well as the midlist authors who depended on the coverage. There’s a lot of discussion these days about a crisis re: the midlist, and part of the reason for that is a lack of highly-trafficked venues for discussing those titles.

Lucy Feldman: Staffing and space have both plummeted—both over time and it feels especially so in the last few years. I worked on books coverage as an assistant at Vanity Fair, then a reporter at the Wall Street Journal (when the Arena arts section folded, RIP), and now as an editor at TIME, and I’ve felt the squeeze over time. When I first got into this work, my job was to spend hours—days! weeks!—poring over upcoming releases, thinking of inventive ways we could write about books, connecting dots and identifying themes and trends, and fussing with beautiful print layouts. The change is not necessarily for lack of interest in books—everyone I work with (and for) cares deeply about books. It’s just a different reality. I work on big, tentpole projects like TIME100 and Women of the Year, and I see part of my role as trying to get authors recognition on those big lists, so part of the strategy has to be adapting.

Adrienne Westenfeld: When I started covering books at Esquire in 2016, we published ten issues a year, all of which included some form of books coverage, like a round-up of new books, an author profile, a buzzy nonfiction excerpt, and/or a commissioned work of fiction. At that time, covering books was non-negotiable; it was part of who we were and what we did. Nearly a decade later, most mainstream glossy magazines cover books sparingly, if at all. Print circulation has diminished drastically, and many of the publications that adapted their coverage for digital readers seem to be scaling back their investments. In this shrinking landscape, I share Kate’s concern about the paucity of paths upward for emerging journalists and midlist authors.

One thing I’d like to resurrect is the glory days of first serial excerpts. Earlier in my career, high dollar bidding wars for first serial rights were a constant feature of my job.^[3] I’d spend weeks negotiating lucrative five figure deals with agents as other magazines competed to outbid us, then I’d have the privilege of working with some of the world’s greatest writers to package and adapt their work for our readership. Certainly that structure favored frontlist titles by established authors like Stephen King and Bret Easton Ellis, but not always; in fact, I’ve been in many a bidding war for first serial rights on buzzy debuts, like Nico Walker’s Cherry, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Friday Black, and Torrey Peters’ Detransition Baby. Nowadays, fewer publications are running excerpts, and many that do are no longer willing to pay top dollar—or pay at all! The glory days of editorial budget largesse are gone, but I’d like to see a renewed focus on first serial excerpts. There’s still a lot of value in that equation for publications, book publishers, authors, and readers alike.

Maris Kreizman: Where to begin? I started in book media around the time when people were like, “Have you heard about these things called blogs? They’re gonna change the way we cover books” to now, when people are like, “Have you heard about these things called newsletters? They’re gonna change the way we cover books.” I do know that since I first began freelancing in 2011, rates from established media companies have either stayed exactly the same or gone down. I used to know a few, but at this stage I don’t know any freelancers who can make a living wage just from writing about books, and I think that’s sad both for the workers and the authors who are getting reviewed.

Emily Firetog: Similarly to Maris, I’ve been at this a while. I started out in book publishing when everyone was discussing whether e-books were ever really going to work. But I think it was my experience at literary magazines that was the most formative. At a literary magazine fifteen years ago, whether it was The Stinging Fly or The Paris Review, there was a sense that you already had the attention of certain people and your job was to give them good, quality writing. And there were just so many magazines out there, a truly endless stream of places to discover new writers. What’s changed more than anything is that now magazines are competing for attention itself, and on top of that you’re competing against every other type of media as well. Today, for many magazines, the niche has dropped out and the goal is to reach as many readers as you possibly can. I think that’s why you find a lot of legacy media closing their book pages. If you’re only chasing traffic numbers, then of course you’re going to move away from book coverage – the majority of the population doesn’t consider themselves readers. When we started Lit Hub ten years ago, the goal was very similar to that of a literary magazine – we’ve tried to preserve the idea that reaching a small, dedicated readership is more important than reaching everyone; we’re a niche magazine at scale rather than treating scale as a virtue.

What makes you want to write about a book? Could you give some examples of effective pitch strategies (or even sample effective pitches!) from publishers or authors?

Kate Dwyer: When I was covering books, the most effective pitch strategy had very little to do with pitches — it was word-of-mouth buzz. You can tell when there’s energy around a title because people in the industry get excited about it (which actually only happens a few times a year). I followed the “three makes a trend piece” rule, and requested to see a book after three people had mentioned it to me. To answer your question, I personally responded to pitches that promised intellectual rigor, some sort of love story, and a little mystery — whether that was the literal mystery baked into the book, or an examination of life’s great mysteries. But now I’m just describing my taste, which is to say: the pitch language didn’t matter as much as the book itself. I usually read the entire book before I committed to coverage. There were only two instances where I didn’t, and I seriously regretted one of them.

Lucy Feldman: Oof, I admit I know that regret! For me, working for a single outlet for a long time (8+ years now), I have encoded in my brain what makes a great TIME story. Some of the publicists I work with regularly really understand that, and they’re able to hit the points that they know will resonate and capture my attention. Specifically for TIME, we’re deeply interested in influence—so if a pitch can make the case to me why this particular author at this particular moment is having a major impact on some (large and) specific population or part of life, that will do it. Especially if we’re getting first access and/or getting to break some news in the process.

Adrienne Westenfeld: The pitches that move the needle with me always achieve two things: one, they show a thoughtful awareness of their target, and two, they connect books to cultural conversations. “One size fits all” pitches function more like news blasts; they clue me into an upcoming release, but they don’t make the case for why a book is relevant to any particular audience. By contrast, when a pitch is tailored for a publication’s readership or a writer’s interests, it’s much likelier to succeed. As for cultural conversations, I’m always intrigued when a pitch connects a book to something going on in the zeitgeist, whether that means positioning the book as an interesting commentary or identifying the author as a relevant expert. When a pitch simply communicates that a book is new and good, that doesn’t explain why anyone should click on it or buy it. But when it goes a layer deeper, I’m intrigued.

Maris Kreizman: There’s nothing I love more than when a publicist knows exactly what kinds of books I’ve liked in the past and uses that to inform their pitches. But a lot of the time, the truth is, if I don’t already know the name of the author, then the package matters.³ Does this look like the kind of book I’d want to read, based on the cover and font and marketing copy? It matters! But as Kate was saying, I try not to agree to coverage until I’ve actually sat down and read a chunk of the book. The idea is only one important part; the execution is everything.

What are recent examples of coverage that has gotten the most engagement, and was that engagement surprising and/or replicable, and if so, why? What do people want to read about when they read about books?

Kate Dwyer: I can’t speak to engagement numbers beyond the responses to my own pieces, but I think the best book coverage addresses the question: “What’s happening in the book world, and why should we care?” In other words, a great piece about books is also cultural coverage that examines 1) why certain books are being published now, and 2) why certain books were being written 1-2 years ago. Jennifer Wilson does this really well — take her new piece on homeownership, for example, or her piece last year on polyamory. The homeownership piece tackles narrative power — how have books (and films) about real estate shaped our expectations and self-conception? I also think a lot about Namwali Serpell’s NYRB piece “Hit Me, Baby,” on the wave of “remaster” novels in the wake of Sally Rooney, and how they addressed a cultural mood on the content level, but also on the aesthetic level.

Right now, the hot topics in publishing are divorce, motherhood, and climate change. COVID isolation prompted a mass reckoning with relationships and domestic gender roles, but I do think we’re only starting to get a sense of how writers will respond to climate change. Within the next decade, every single fiction writer will need to contend with climate change because it will impact every aspect of what it means to be a person living on Earth.

I also think we’ll start to see more books tackling loneliness and addiction among young American men. Personally, I’m compelled by fiction in the vein of Andrew Martin (Early Work) and Caleb Azumah Nelson (Open Water). Where are the straight men writing about their relationships? Who will be the Sally Rooney for boys??

Lucy Feldman: I love Kate’s answer, and I want to plug her piece for TIME on Rooney, which she really nailed: There Will Never Be Another Sally Rooney. But I’ll be blunt: at a big, broad outlet like TIME, the work we do that gets the most engagement is our recommendation lists, most of all our end-of-year lists. And I mean a lot of engagement—like some of the highest numbers for any kind of coverage. People love to hate on lists, and I get it (and sometimes feel it)—but I also think it’s a mistake to overlook the value they can add, particularly for authors we might not be able to cover otherwise. A debut novelist most likely isn’t getting a profile in TIME, but we can feature them in a list, and that appearance can directly result in books sold. Readers who come to us for books coverage are generally looking for our guidance on which books will be worth their time, and I really value the opportunity to nudge them in the direction of some gems they might not otherwise hear about.

Adrienne Westenfeld: I completely agree with Lucy that it’s a mistake to overlook the value these lists add and the reader service they provide. I’ve always said that lists are an opportunity to surprise, delight, and challenge readers—or to do all three at once. The form might be stale, but in the hands of a gifted writer and curator, it can feel downright subversive.

When I was the Books and Fiction Editor at Esquire, the books stories that scored the highest traffic numbers were the recommendation lists. But even though lists were a traffic backbone, they never generated the most social traffic. After all, engagement is about so much more than numbers; it’s also about driving conversation, both on social media and around the book world. Far and away, my biggest successes in that department were investigative features about the publishing world, like Sophie Vershbow’s investigation into the broken blurb system, Madeline Diamond’s deep dive on galleys as status symbols, or our very own Kate’s opus about the difficulty of launching a debut novel. So much of the books coverage out there today focuses on process and craft, which are interesting and important subjects, to be certain. But in my experience, the data has always shown that readers are just as interested, if not more interested, in how the sausage gets made—how money and power change hands in the publishing world, and what goes on behind closed doors. Anyone who’s written for me has heard me say this a thousand times, but I’m always thinking about the person who walks into their local Barnes & Noble without knowing what they’re going to buy. That reader is smart and curious, and they have big picture questions about the business of books. Publications are leaving money on the table by failing to tell those stories.

Emily Firetog: The list will always reign supreme. Lists are accessible, they’re pretty to scroll through, they’re fun! I think inside the industry we might complain about putting them together, but that’s because there is a ton of work that goes into curating them. When we do our twice yearly most anticipated lists at Lit Hub, we’re scanning catalogues from hundreds of imprints and small presses. But we see lists as a public service and a discoverability tool for readers who don’t get books mailed to them for free every day. I hate the incredible snobbery about lists, as if the only way to talk about books is longform criticism. Lit Hub editor Emily Temple always brings up this quote by Umberto Eco about how lists are the origin of culture, “What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible… And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists…”

We also see great engagement when authors engage with the news – the personal is political, and as a writer if you have something engaging to say about current events, that’s a great way to engage with readers who are looking beyond book coverage.

Maris Kreizman: I never say no to a year-end list. Lists are imperfect in so many ways and not what I would choose as my primary source of writing, but they get the eyeballs and remind my publishing contacts that I’m still around? Otherwise yeah, I can tell you that author profiles have fallen out of fashion, and that straight reviews are tough to get eyes on unless you’re an Andrea Long Chu or a Parul Sehgal. Trend pieces do tend to work best, but I really don’t want to see book coverage turn into trend pieces or nothing. If I could wish for one thing in media right now, it would be for more publications to train their readers to want to read reviews, to give their books and culture editors the time and the space to develop their writers and do more eccentric coverage. I know that’s risky because clicks rule the world, but I think we lose so much important culture when we judge all content only on their popularity.

Who are the critics you most like to read? Is there anyone whose tastes in books you really trust, or at least whom you are always excited to hear from, even if you disagree with them?

Kate Dwyer: I always read Alexandra Jacobs, partly out of loyalty — she was an early editor of mine — and partly because her reviews are so sharp, witty, and warm. She clearly delights in her role as critic, and that joy comes across on the page. I also drop everything and read Parul Sehgal and Andrea Long Chu, who have different approaches to reviewing but always take their readers somewhere surprising. Bookforum as an outlet still feels exciting because you can see emerging critics develop their voices on the page — I’d love to write for them at some point, if I ever muster the courage to publish criticism.

In general, I roll my eyes at overly-mean reviews, because they’re so often self-aggrandizing. Who is a takedown really for?

Adrienne Westenfeld: I share the love for Parul Sehgal and Andrea Long Chu. Their reviews and essays always feel downright electric; they send me back to the page with brand new eyes. I’m also a huge fan of Jonathan Russell Clark, whose criticism does a phenomenal job connecting books to culture. I’m always excited to read Dwight Garner’s reviews, too. Even when I disagree with his reading of a book, I find his reviews to be remarkably crafted; every sentence is its own little journey of humor, taste, and style.

Maris Kreizman: Jamie Hood, Jennifer Wilson, Becca Rothfield, Lauren Michele Jackson, Merve Emre, Adam Dalva, Hillary Kelly Harron Walker, Sarah Chihaya, Jane Hu. The list goes on. I may not always agree with their takes but I’m always interested in what they have to say.

Emily Firetog: ​​I love the reviewers mentioned above, of course, but I also make it a point to read the book pages of newspapers. There are only a handful of book review sections left, so I think it’s important to click and prove that their coverage is worthwhile

A question for Kate: the last good thing I saw on X/Twitter before I left was this call to regularly attend public events as a way to counterbalance the “extreme individualism” and attendant loneliness and political apathy that is such a part of contemporary American life. How can bookstore programming foster community and create connections?

Kate Dwyer: I went full-time at McNally Jackson because it feels like independent bookstores are the future of book media, as spaces that offer both curated book recommendations and thoughtful programming where readers can connect with each other. The reader-facing gaps we see in book media can be filled by visiting an indie bookstore and talking with either a bookseller or someone you meet at an event. And certainly, there’s room for bookstores to get into the content game. (In the art world, galleries and auction houses are building out their programming, focusing on “community,” and starting their own magazines. And in film, A24 has created a content empire with a robust publishing arm. Also, see: Metrograph.)

Because bookstores are not beholden to any one publisher, there’s a sense of editorial independence behind bookseller recommendations and programming decisions. And in the absence of Book Twitter, the word-of-mouth energy at bookstores is more important than ever. It’s still totally possible for indies to “make” a book.

Not to mention, bookstores are social spaces, too. There’s a rich tradition of social scenes forming around literary magazines like The Drift, n+1, and The Paris Review, but we’re starting to think about McNally Jackson as a place where readers and writers can find each other in New York City (where it’s increasingly hard to find community as an adult). If people come to our events and meet someone they want to keep hanging out with, my job is done.

To piggyback on Kate’s answer, given the challenges discussed above, what do you see as the future of book media?

Adrienne Westenfeld: The million dollar question! If only I had the answer. Whenever I think about the future of book media, the question I inevitably circle back around to is, “How do we get journalists and critics paid?” The current state of affairs is downright bleak; publications are constantly axing books coverage, staff jobs are in diminishingly short supply, and rates from even marquee publications are stagnant, if not shrinking. Meanwhile, a survey by the Freelance Solidarity Project concluded that most freelance book critics make less than minimum wage. When writers can’t make a living wage doing books coverage, they have to make a living elsewhere, and the coverage suffers for the lack of their voices.

So the question remains: where can we write about books and make a decent living doing it? Independent newsletters can be a great platform, but I often hear from newsletter writers that they’re tired of working alone and crave collaboration with editors and colleagues. That gets me thinking about a more grassroots business model—is the solution to pull our labor from the mainstream and bundle writers together outside of corporate media? Certainly there’s immense creative freedom and community value there, but again, I have to wonder: where’s the money going to come from? I also think about a “patron of the arts” model, but patrons can pull their funding anytime (as we saw with Catapult Magazine). In my years working in corporate media, I’ve met some visionary thinkers from the business side of magazines—people who believed in great writing and moved mountains to find funding for it. I hope that some of them turn their talents to smaller outfits, because we need them! All of this is to say, I don’t have the answer, but I believe the future of book media has to prioritize our economic health, as well as our communal and creative health. We need to find a sustainable business model that can support our storytelling for the long haul.

Emily Firetog: To be honest, the future of book media is bleak. We all know places for dedicated book coverage are disappearing, but more importantly the freedom to publish, to keep books in libraries, to publicize books, is under attack. Of course, the most important thing is the books themselves, so as long as there’s a culture of people who feel passionately about books and are in it for that reason, then the only thing book media can do is to continue insisting on itself.

And a question for Maris: You have a book coming out! What do you feel like you've learned about how to be a good author from your literary life experiences?

Maris Kreizman: I think the main thing I know how to do is to manage my expectations. I think my publishing team is sharp and talented and able to do many wonderful things and I’m so appreciative of their skills, but I’m not expecting to be an Oprah pick or get the front page of the Times Book Review. I know how hard it is for authors to do this: you work so hard on this thing for years, and it’s only right to expect that the world will open up to you once the book is published. But I’ve seen enough to know that there are other rewards: to be able to connect with readers and booksellers and librarians who are interested in what I have to say, to put on a few great events, to maybe get some other kind of writing opportunity that maybe I wouldn’t have had I not published a book.

What's one forthcoming book (not your own) that you're excited to see in the world?

Kate Dwyer: I’m curious to see how Audition by Katie Kitamura will be received — it’s the kind of novel that demands conversation, and I’m hoping it reinvigorates channels for book discourse online. Some readers, I believe, will be uncomfortable with the depth of its ambiguity, while others will find it thrilling. (The big question: What is this book actually about?) I’m also excited for The Mobius Book by Catherine Lacey, which is composed of two shorter volumes — a novella and memoir — bound together and addressing the same emotional experience. The first page of each rhymes with the last page of the other, which feels like an aesthetic device that’s always existed, yet I can’t think of another example.

Lucy Feldman: Kate, I absolutely second your curiosity about Audition, which I devoured and then was so frustrated to realize that no one else had read it yet. It does demand conversation, and I will now be calling you for the download. Kevin Wilson’s Run for the Hills is another I’m looking forward to talking to people about. I can’t wait to read Susan Choi’s Flashlight. And, to plug two books that are already out, though very recently so, Amanda Nguyen’s Saving Five and Amy Griffin’s The Tell are two astonishing memoirs of survival that I think everyone should read to understand a little more about the world we live in.

Adrienne Westenfeld: This season, I’ve often found myself turning to speculative fiction. Don’t we all want to live in a different reality right now? Returning to what I said above about connecting books to conversations, I can’t wait to press Joe Mungo Reed’s Terrestrial History into the hands of anyone curious about climate disaster and colonizing Mars. While tech magnates litter our planet with flaming spaceship debris, Reed masterfully traces the human costs of these endeavors. I also loved Metallic Realms, Lincoln Michel’s pulpy, metafictional new novel about a group of writers penning stories in a shared sci-fi universe, told by Michael Lincoln, the group’s most deranged member. Laila Lalami’s The Dream Hotel and Karen Russell’s The Antidote, both out this month, are other recent standouts in this genre. We’re truly living in a golden age of speculative fiction, and lately, it’s been such a balm in helping me imagine a different future.

Maris Kreizman: You know you can’t ask us to pick just one! There’s a ton of great nonfiction coming out in the next couple of months, so I’ll name a few: Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age by Vauhini Vara, Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert, Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America by Bridget Read, Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age by Amanda Hess, and Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream by Megan Greenwell.

Emily Firetog: I loved Amy Gerstler’s poetry collection, Is This My Final Form? And Tezer Özlü’s Journey to the Edge of Life, both out in April. I’m ready to be emotionally destroyed by Yiyun Li’s Things in Nature Merely Grow in May; can’t wait to read the new Edward St Aubyn novel out in June; and I just got the galley for Nicholas Boggs’ long-awaited Baldwin biography which is massive, in all senses of the word.

1. This column was Kate Dwyer’s idea and wouldn’t exist without her organizational aplomb.

2. Midlist titles are books that fall between bestsellers and less-well-known titles, generating moderate sales and often receiving an advance in the middle tier of what a given publishing imprint can pay for a book. Most books published are midlist books.

3. In keeping with the theme of giving credit where it’s due, I asked my longtime trusty assistant Sophie for title ideas for this week’s column, and this week was hers. After five years of working together, Sophie will be leaving me and TGC for a great job as an Assistant Editor at Grove Atlantic. She will be so missed, and now that we no longer work together, I look forward to many NSFW conversations.