The Business of Being a Writer: An Evening with Jane Friedman

Even though the book publishing industry is often considered slow moving and not as susceptible to technological change as other creative industries, it’s a transformative and challenging time for the business of books. From the rise of self-publishing to the growing influence of tech giants like Amazon, Audible, and Google, the landscape for authors, publishers, and booksellers is shifting in ways that affect what stories get told—and how they reach readers.

At the same time, artificial intelligence tools are being introduced into creative processes, sparking debates about intellectual property, artistic authenticity, and the future of human authorship. Social media platforms, once hailed as democratizing forces for reaching audiences, are now unpredictable, monetized ecosystems that leave both authors and publishers looking for new strategies. Meanwhile, the climate for traditional publishers has grown more complex, as consolidation continues to reshape the industry and books compete with other forms of media for attention in an increasingly distracted world.

How do these trends impact not just the business of books but also the art of writing? What do they mean for readers who value books as cultural artifacts and sources of intellectual enrichment? And where do independent bookstores and literary communities fit into this evolving equation?

This event is for anyone curious about the intersection of technology, culture, and the written word, and what it means for the future of publishing.

6 pm reception/6:30 pm program
Free & open to the public. Registration required.

Copies of The Business of Being a Writer will be available for sale & signing courtesy of Joseph-Beth Cincinnati.

About Jane Friedman

Jane Friedman has spent nearly 25 years working in publishing, with a focus on innovation and trend reporting in the book publishing industry. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer (The University of Chicago Press), received a starred review from Library Journal and is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs.

In addition to serving as guest faculty at creative writing programs nationwide, she’s delivered keynotes and workshops in partnership with hundreds of writing and publishing events, such as NYU's Advanced Publishing Institute, The Authors Guild, Frankfurt Book Fair, Digital Book World, and the Writer's Digest annual conference. Her expertise on publishing has been featured across media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, CNN, Wired, BBC, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Fox News, The Today Show, and NPR.

Jane has served on grant and award panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Whiting Award, and the Creative Work Fund, and also sits on the advisory board for The Chicago Manual of Style. For a while she flirted with academia, teaching writing and publishing at the University of Cincinnati and University of Virginia. She resides in Cincinnati. Learn more at JaneFriedman.com.

About Jana Reiss

Jana Riess has four jobs: she is an author, a freelance book editor, a research scholar,
and an Airbnb host. She has worked in and around the publishing industry since 1999,
with particular expertise in the religion book market. She holds degrees in religion from
Wellesley College and Princeton Theological Seminary, and a PhD in American
religious history from Columbia University. She has been interviewed by the AP, Time,
Newsweek, People, the Boston Globe, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times, among
other print publications, as well as “Voice of America,” the Today show, MSNBC, and
NPR’s “All Things Considered” and “Talk of the Nation.”

She is the author, co-author, or editor of many books. Her favorites are Flunking
Sainthood (chosen as one of Publishers Weekly’s top 10 religion books for 2011) and
The Twible: All the Chapters of the Bible in 140 Characters or Less . . . Now with 68%
More Humor!, which won the nonfiction category in a Writers Digest self-publishing
contest. Other books include What Would Buffy Do?; Mormonism for Dummies; The
Writer’s Market Guide to Getting Published; and The Prayer Wheel. Her most recent
book, The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church, was
published by Oxford University Press in 2019. She and her research partner, Benjamin
Knoll, are currently at work on a follow-up scholarly book called Leaving Mormonism:
How and Why People Exit the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which will
also be published by Oxford. She’s been writing a good deal of that book in the newly
renovated space upstairs here in the Mercantile Library.

She is a senior columnist for Religion News Service, where she has worked since 2012.
Because she writes primarily about Mormons, she gets some super interesting hate
mail.