Writer Sanctum
Writer's Haven => Publisher's Office [Public] => Topic started by: Hopscotch on December 19, 2025, 09:21:05 AM
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From The Guardian 17 Dec 2025:
"...In the early 2020s, readers flocked to books to explain political turbulence. But is the world now too grim to read about and are podcasters taking the place of authors?
"In the decade leading up to the pandemic, nonfiction seemed unstoppable....Fast forward to the present day, and...trade nonfiction sales have slipped sharply...the category is down 8.4%...Nonfiction is increasingly competing with a glut of free - and often excellent - information elsewhere. Online video essays dissect politics and psychology in 20 minutes....[turning] public intellectualism into bite-size chunks of entertainment. Why spend ?15 on a book about one issue when a few podcasts can explain it on your commute?..."People feel they can get the same insight without wading through a book."
"...as books increasingly come under fire with bans in the US and rising political pressures on education and libraries worldwide, the importance of defending rigorous, long-form nonfiction as a tool for critical thinking has never been clearer...."
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/17/are-we-falling-out-of-love-with-nonfiction (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/17/are-we-falling-out-of-love-with-nonfiction)
I couldn't cast a pod to save my life, so I guess my nonfic is doomed.
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I don't know about "replacing authors," but podcasters replacing legacy media is absolutely a thing. The average age of a cable news viewer is around 70, so cable news will presumably die out with the Boomers.
Scroll about halfway down the page at this link and you'll see some numbers illustrating stark differences by age:
https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/first-quarter-2025-cable-news-ratings/
The 25-54 crowd is NOT tuning in. But they are watching Youtube and Twitch and who knows what else.
As for the "nonfiction" touted by The Guardian, the books they list as examples are polemics, and the taste for such polemicism ebbs and flows with the Zeitgeist.
Want to know what kind of nonfiction books are selling best? Here you go:
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Nonfiction/zgbs/digital-text/157325011
Cookbooks. War stories. Memoirs. True crime. Self-help. Biographies. In short, stuff that has timeless appeal.
ETA: Just in case anyone's curious, here's the list of the top podcasts on Youtube for the most recent week:
https://charts.youtube.com/podcasts
Top Twitch streamers:
https://twitchtracker.com/channels/ranking
Top Spotify podcasts:
https://podcastcharts.byspotify.com/
There's a good bit of overlap here with Youtube, which makes sense if you break it down into those who want video and those who prefer audio only.
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I think this might be another reason why Hollywood, and the like, is having a hard time now (not to mention AI, but that's an entire different subject). I don't know about you all, but I spend more time watching podcasters on YouTube than new movies and TV. It's become an entertainment all of its own.
But for writing... I think it's more of a threat for TV/movies/maybe audiobooks. :shrug
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Obviously, nonfiction covers a lot of area, but historical nonfiction SHOULD have footnotes or endnotes and at the very least...links to source material.
My concern is that AI (and most website searches) are often incorrect or incomplete.
At a time when we could have so much amazing information at our fingertips, so often only available in university libraries, instead we get this unreliable AI. It's so disappointing.
Kids need to learn to check sources. What's primary vs. secondary? How do you try to tell if there is bias in original sources? What are the political leanings of the author who wrote the book? Did they prefer one historical character over another?
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This is exactly one of my concerns about AI. The AI results in Google Search do come with attached sources but not with footnotes, so there is no way to tell where a specific piece of information comes from without searching for it in the sources. And indeed, it is likely that as students get more and more used to this homogenized blending of materials, it will be harder to teach them to evaluate sources in an appropriately insightful way.
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This is exactly one of my concerns about AI. The AI results in Google Search do come with attached sources but not with footnotes, so there is no way to tell where a specific piece of information comes from without searching for it in the sources. And indeed, it is likely that as students get more and more used to this homogenized blending of materials, it will be harder to teach them to evaluate sources in an appropriately insightful way.
And what happens when the "sources" turn out to be other generated AI answers which list their own sources which may be other generated AI content? How far down the rabbit hole might one end up going in the future when more and more content is AI generated and finding an actual definitive source for the information becomes an exercise in near futility?
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This is exactly one of my concerns about AI. The AI results in Google Search do come with attached sources but not with footnotes, so there is no way to tell where a specific piece of information comes from without searching for it in the sources. And indeed, it is likely that as students get more and more used to this homogenized blending of materials, it will be harder to teach them to evaluate sources in an appropriately insightful way.
And what happens when the "sources" turn out to be other generated AI answers which list their own sources which may be other generated AI content? How far down the rabbit hole might one end up going in the future when more and more content is AI generated and finding an actual definitive source for the information becomes an exercise in near futility?
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Most people want a precis, not the whole gory story. The precis is usually incorrect in the details but more or less correct in the larger sense. Anytime I have ever read a newspaper or magazine article about something I know a lot about, I find it full of factual errors. Bias, too.
I gave up on television nearly twenty years ago and movies probably twenty years before that. I have never, not once, seen myself in those media. I'm not the sidekick who gets the Eve Arden lines but not the guy, and Arden was the closest thing to me I ever saw in such media. Sarcasm and I are good friends, and like most villains, I am the hero of my own story. Of course I read and write books, where I can be center stage. I don't really think that impulse changes, nor do I think I am alone in wanting that. Podcasts and other instant media give some people that opportunity.
Everything changes. Radio used to be the big thing before I was born. Before that, newspapers. It took newspapers 100 years to die, but they and magazines are basically dead and not because of AI.
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Eve Arden stole so many scenes! She should have gotten the guy...or maybe a better guy. LOL
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Ah, Our Miss Brooks on '50s TV, from my otherwise misspent childhood.
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In a good and entertaining way, podcasts rely on sensationalism and cherry-picking the juicy info. I remember self-help books that used cartoonist illustrations and summaries like "in a nutshell" without ever getting too complicated.
Non-fiction books that provide deeper insights and detailed information or advice should still have an audience.
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Oh, I loved Our Miss Brooks!
Fun facts: it started out as a stage play. then became a radio show, and after the TV show, a movie (not all that common with television in those days). I think it may also have been responsible for some of Eve Arden's later roles, such as the principal in Grease She played a lot of roles on Broadway, in the movies and on television, but Our Miss Brooks seems to have been the role that people most associate with her.
The role was popular enough in the educational community to get her an honorary membership in the National Education Association and a service award from Connecticut Teachers' College for "humanizing the American teacher." Bizarrely, it also got her a number of offers of teaching positions. [Some people have a hard time distinguishing film and TV from reality. I've heard that the inhabitants of Baker Street were driven crazy by tourists wanting to know where 221B (Sherlock Holmes' address) was. And I know that many students involved in these large pen-pal type exchanges (like the Great American Mail Race) wrote to West Beverly Hills High School (the fictional school in Beverly Hills: 90210). I know this because the post office, not knowing what else to do with them, sent them to Beverly Hills High School, where I was working. When I was in a mischievous mood, I'd sometimes get students with names like Brandon, Dylan, and Kelly to answer them.] :hehe
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In a good and entertaining way, podcasts rely on sensationalism and cherry-picking the juicy info.
I disagree. It's very difficult to sit and bullsh*t a podcaster to his face for three hours straight without tripping yourself up at some point. For a few minutes, sure, but three hours is a Herculean challenge. We also have the advantage, when the podcast is in video form, of reading facial expressions and body language to gauge credibility. Furthermore, the comment sections at those sites allow the viewers to immediately discuss any lies or contradictions, so debunking happens essentially immediately. Long-form podcasts are one of the better vehicles we have for quickly sussing out the poseurs and charlatans.
The "sensationalism and cherry-picking" you mention is what legacy media do. It's the stuff of newspapers and television, not unedited long-form podcasts. I'm old enough to remember stuff like this (https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/33qhb9/til_nbcs_dateline_aired_a_segment_showing_gas/) (which was only debunked because GM had deep pockets and a whistleblower and was able to gather forensic evidence from junkyards; most media lies go unchallenged due to the expense and lack of whistleblowers and available forensic evidence).
Non-fiction books are extremely valuable and irreplaceable, but that's only the case if they're factual and written in good faith. An awful lot of "non-fiction" is in fact nothing but convincingly-told lies--I mean, for almost any polemic, you can find another book taking the opposite position, and they obviously can't both be true--and the format doesn't lend itself to immediate pushback like podcasts do, and that's a weakness of the format.
No, I think podcasts are a superior format for disseminating information, and I think they're here to stay until the government decides to censor--I mean, "regulate"--them in order to protect their corporate, NGO, and foreign friends and prevent their own dirty laundry from being aired.
I still love reading non-fiction books, by the way. For example, The Mutiny on the Bounty and The Ballad of the Whiskey Robber are highly entertaining and utterly fascinating, and I'll recommend them to anyone. I learned to play the banjo from reading how-to books. I gave three family members non-fiction books--two how-to books, one sports-related motivational book--for Christmas just a few days ago. And I've read plenty of more scholarly things, too, in the fields of politics and philosophy and history and economics. I obviously value that stuff. I simply recognize the format's limitations, that's all.
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Are podcasters replacing authors?
Yes. A lot.
But it goes beyond podcasts. YouTube and Nebula both have longform documentary channels. Distribution channels and creative organizations are changing. We don't need network or studio money anymore. And for the average American, they're going to lean toward a video over a book pretty much every time, especially if they like the host/presenter.
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I don't care for most podcasts because I want to skim, which is easier with a book (at least for me).
So many podcasts just...wander? I'm sure there are some great ones out there, but I sat through an hour of "meh" to get to the titled subject, which was underwhelmingly presented. I could have skimmed and seen that in five minutes. Just saying. :angel:
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So many podcasts just...wander? I'm sure there are some great ones out there, but I sat through an hour of "meh" to get to the titled subject, which was underwhelmingly presented. I could have skimmed and seen that in five minutes. Just saying. :angel:
On YouTube, at least, you can skip ahead and adjust the playback speed. I don't know if algorithms favor longer podcasts or what, but some talk so slow that you can play them at 2x the speed and they sound like someone speaking normally. I'd say I usually do about 1.5x but sometimes 1.25x is just enough. But, then, like I said, some need 2x. Of course, some are fine at 1x too.
But, yeah, some have a lot of pointless blather. The other day, I had to skip the first five minutes or so of one before they finally got to the point, and the whole thing was only 12-15 minutes long.
Many years ago, there was a site with news on a particular topic--it may have been scifi or maybe it was political news--been so long I don't remember--but I do remember where the first third or so, sometimes even half or more, of the article was basically the writer explaining how they came upon the information and patting themselves on the back for having obtained it and whatnot and it was like, get to the point already. If you're a journalist, getting the story is your job. I don't need to read all the details of how you got the information, nor do I need to know what you were wearing or what you had for lunch or who you had to butter up for information and how you did it. Just get to the point!
So, any podcast that reminds me of that, where the opening is self-congratulatory blather or whatever, I'm out. Maybe there's an audience for that but I'm not it.
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I'm still an article kind of guy for nonfiction. That's partly because of the points that PDD just made. But it's also just in general because it's faster. If the purpose is getting information, I can read faster than I can listen. I can also skim to relevant parts if it's an article that touches on many subjects. I developed this pattern while I was teaching and needed to assimilate information quickly to make enough room for things like planning and essay grading. My situation is less stressful now, but since I also work more slowly and can't concentrate for as long periods, the need to process information quickly is still there. I get frustrated with things that are only available in audio or video. Give me the transcript every time! (It's also faster to search text than audio if I need to find a specific thing.)
For the same reason, I prefer text to audiobooks. I can see their utility for something like a long commute, or for long tasks that can be performed via habit and/or muscle memory. (One of my friends listens to audiobooks while cooking. She needs free hands but not a free mind for it.)
Am I a regular podcast listener? No, not at all.
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I get frustrated with things that are only available in audio or video. Give me the transcript every time! (It's also faster to search text than audio if I need to find a specific thing.)
I just don't have the patience for them. So many people doing them are all about their own ego wank that they take forever to get to the only 30 seconds in the hour long ramble that is any use.
If someone starts out by blowing up who they are, I stop and find something else. I just don't care who they are. And if they make it about them out of the gate, then they have nothing to say anyway worth listening to.
For non-fiction, reading is far better.
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I'd take--and I've given when I experimented with video--a little background if it's relevant to the subject. In other words, I want to know a person who is discussing technical matters has the expertise to understand them. But yeah, if that runs very long, I too would give up.
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I'd take--and I've given when I experimented with video--a little background if it's relevant to the subject. In other words, I want to know a person who is discussing technical matters has the expertise to understand them. But yeah, if that runs very long, I too would give up.
Most of the time I want the how to do it information, and as long as it works, I'm good without knowing who it was.
If it's not how to do, then yeah, I want to know their credentials, but I don't really care who they are to get them. A short list that I can pause and read if I want to, is all I need, not 10 minutes to half an hour of ego wank.
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Yeah, I wouldn't want that, either.
Another pet peeve, which sometimes comes up in text as well, is padding to make the material look like it has more substance than it really does. This often involves explaining the obvious for a long period of time before getting to the five minutes or so of actionable advice. I could see that if the intended audience is total newbs, but in that case, the presentation should be labeled that way.
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I remember years ago, there was a guy with a popular blog and he sold it. The new guy decided to do vlogs instead of blogs. If I remember right, he pretty much drove the blog into the ground with that move. I think the original guy ended up eventually buying it back and returned to blogging.
A couple years ago, we bought some new equipment and there was no manual, no how-to guides, no documentation of any kind. What they did was sent you a bunch of links to the videos that explained everything. That was one of those occasions where I had to watch and listen at 2x speed.
Too often, doing video is the lazy way out. An article or sometimes even a list would convey the information faster and more effectively.
In my opinion, I think too many people jump to doing video/audio without thinking about whether that is the best use case. Granted, a lot of people these days can't be bothered to read something that might take them two or three minutes to read but will watch a fifteen or twenty minute video that's not any more informative than the written piece.
Somethings, it is better to show than describe. So a video makes sense for that. And, these days, sometimes manuals are so bad or, inexcusably, photos in manuals are so bad, that you need to find a video to figure it out.
Interviews and discussions are generally good for podcasts. Things involving comedy and music work too. Some instructional material works as well, depending on what it is. Some things are difficult to explain or difficult to make sense of from an article whereas when you see it, it's pretty easy.
Of course not all instruction is best suited for "live action" either. A few years ago, I took a class that was like an hour at night. When sitting through some of the sessions, I couldn't help but think that I don't know how I made it through years and years of seven or eight hour days sitting in a classroom. An hour was hard enough.
People have different learning styles too. Or maybe it's the quality of the presentation. I used to very good at learning how to do things just by reading about them in a book or article. These days, it's easier when I see it being done than reading about it. Question is, is that because I have changed in someway that makes it easier for me to learn by seeing rather than reading? Or, is it because the people writing how-to's and instructions and so forth these days are just so bad at writing them that it's much more difficult to learn by reading?
At any rate, in my opinion, creators need to give more thought to the best way to present the material they are offering, whether it's fiction or non-fiction. Or, they may wish to consider offering a variety of options instead of just one.
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I love the podcast/interview format. Whenever anyone smart publishes a new book, they always hit the podcast circuit to promote it and usually discuss everything they had to say in the book, just without all of the supporting analysis/data. And the good hosts always ask lots of inciteful questions to further the discussion.
I've always liked documentaries too, be it history or science, and the current crop of Indie producers are pretty amazing.
Because we are in an attention economy, this kind of media is definitely cutting into the non-fiction piece of the pie: