U.S. Book Show 2026 Brought the Conversations Publishing Has Been Avoiding

Hundreds of publishing professionals gathered at the New York Academy of Medicine on June 2 and 3 for Publishers Weekly sixth annual U.S. Book Show. Nineteen sessions covered everything from data strategy to social media to Hollywood adaptations. These were the moments that people are still talking about.

Publishers Are Finally Being Honest About What Data Can and Cannot Do

The Old Data Advantage Is Gone

Keith Riegert of the Stable Book Group spent 15 years building one of the most detailed BookScan tracking systems in the business. It worked until everyone else caught up. Today that same data sits on every publisher’s desk and the edge it once gave has completely disappeared.

Blind Trust in Numbers Is Now a Risk

Riegert was direct about where his company stands today. They are data informed not data driven. Acting on numbers without proper context is not smart publishing anymore. It is a shortcut that leads to the wrong decisions.

The Real Differentiator Has Shifted

David Walter from Circana put it simply. A decade ago having data was the advantage. Today every publisher has it. What separates smart publishers now is how they read it and what they do differently with it.

Follower Counts Still Fool People

Ben Sevier of Grand Central Publishing flagged something the industry keeps getting wrong. A large social media following does not guarantee book sales. What matters is whether that audience genuinely cares about the specific topic the author is writing about. That distinction is where real acquisition intelligence lives.

Surface Level Trends Will Lead You Astray

Molly Waxman from Sourcebooks used the romance novel Heated Rivalry as a perfect example. When hockey romance hit bestseller lists the easy read was to chase sports romance. The real signal was that the book was a male and male story written specifically for women readers. No standard report was going to surface that insight on its own.

Youth Reading Is Declining and the Children’s Book World Is Responding

The Numbers Are Difficult to Ignore

In 2012 around 27 percent of students said they read for fun. By 2023 that number had fallen to just 14 percent. That is not a gradual slide. That is a sharp departure from reading culture and it is happening during the most formative years.

Hachette Built a Whole Campaign Around This Problem

Megan Tingley of Little Brown Books for Young Readers helped launch the Raising Readers campaign in direct response to the decline. The focus is not on teaching reading as a skill. It is on making young people actually want to read. Parent tips in adult books, school author visits, and 200 Little Free Libraries going into underserved communities are all part of the effort.

Bringing the Library to Kids Instead of Waiting

Ruth Guerrier Pierre from the New York Public Library shared a straightforward but powerful approach. If children are not walking into libraries then libraries need to walk toward children. Her team takes programming into parks, schools, and hospitals to meet kids where they already spend their time.

Audiobooks Are Reading and That Debate Needs to End

Emily Kirkpatrick from the National Council of Teachers of English made a point the whole room needed to hear. There is no single correct way to engage with a story. Treating physical books and audio or digital formats as competitors misses the actual goal which is building a generation that genuinely loves stories.

Search Engine Optimization Is Being Replaced by Something More Powerful

What Generative Engine Optimization Actually Means

Cameron Lennon, a publishing consultant focused on Amazon sales, led a session on a shift that is already happening whether publishers are ready or not. Readers are now asking AI tools directly what to read. Traditional keyword strategy was built for a different era of search and it no longer reflects how decisions get made.

Structured Content Performs Better With AI Systems

Lennon explained that bullet points are processed more efficiently by AI than dense paragraphs. Publishers who format their content with clear structure are more likely to be picked up as a reliable source when an AI tool builds a recommendation.

Question and Answer Pages Are Being Underused

One of the most practical suggestions from the session was building Q and A style content into publisher pages. If a reader is going to ask an AI whether a book suits a particular taste then publishers should already be answering that question directly on their own platforms.

Writing for Intent Beats Writing for Algorithms

Lennon closed with the core principle behind all of it. Content that answers real questions in plain language is what AI systems reach for. Publishers who write with genuine reader intent in mind will consistently outperform those still optimizing for old browser search habits.

Authenticity Has Become the Most Valuable Currency on Social Media

Polished Content Is Losing the Attention War

Lisa Sharkey from Harper Influence opened the afternoon panel with a clear observation. Overly produced and corporate looking content is getting ignored. Readers scroll past it. Authors who feel real and unscripted are the ones actually building audiences right now.

One Unpolished Video Changed Everything for a Cookbook Author

Sharkey pointed to Melissa Ben Ishay as a live example of this shift. During the pandemic she filmed simple cooking videos at home with no production value. She was hesitant about social media but showed up anyway as herself. One of those videos became one of the most shared TikToks of 2021.

Selling All Year Round Is Not the Same as Showing Up

Karen Kang from TikTok was direct with publishers in the room. BookTok is a community built on trust and consistency. Authors who only appear when a book launches are not part of that community. They are interrupting it. Sustained presence throughout the year is what earns real loyalty.

Comment Sections Have Become Research Tools

Kristen Fassler from Penguin Random House highlighted something publishers are starting to take seriously. AI can now analyze comment sections to understand what readers respond to and what actually moves them toward buying. That kind of audience intelligence used to require expensive research. Now it lives in public threads.

Kickstarter Is Doing More Than Raising Money

Oriana Leckert from Kickstarter reframed what crowdfunding actually offers authors. Beyond funding it is a way to test genuine demand before a full launch. Holly Black ran a campaign around a card game based on her own characters and the reader’s response told her things no sales projection ever could.

Substack Rewards Relationship Over Reach

Patrick Milgram from Substack said that growth on the platform comes from something algorithms cannot manufacture which is real reader connection. Authors starting from zero have found it to be one of the most honest environments to build an audience because the readers who stay are the ones who actually care.

The Book to Screen Market Is Contracting in One Very Specific Area

Kids and Family Content Is Taking the Hardest Hit

Edward Gamarra who produced The Maze Runner gave the most direct assessment of where the adaptation market stands for children’s content. Amazon reduced its kids and family team significantly. Netflix pulled back on original children’s programming. Disney cut staff in that space. The option deal market for children’s books has felt all of it.

Data Laws Are Part of the Reason

Gamarra connected the decline to something structural. Streaming platforms are data businesses. Laws that restrict collection of data on viewers under 13 make that audience less valuable in their models. When you cannot measure an audience the way you measure others it tends to get deprioritized.

Netflix Says It Is Still Investing in Young Audiences

Liz Sarant from Netflix offered a different perspective. The streamer continues to acquire children’s content across preschool, live action family, and animation categories. She also raised a point about the gap between what parents want their children to watch and what children actually want to see for themselves.

Voice and Character Matter More Than Plot

When panelists turned to what makes a book worth adapting the answer was consistent. Strong voices and compelling characters outweigh clever plotting. Jake Bauman from Sony added that theatrical releases also need a premise strong enough to motivate audiences to leave home and buy a cinema ticket. That is a genuinely high bar.

Sales Data Undercounts Children’s Books More Than Most Realize

Mimi Diamond from RR Scouting pointed out that BookScan misses a significant portion of children’s book sales because Scholastic book club and fair purchases are not included. She said Amazon and Goodreads review counts often reveal more about a book’s real reach and reader passion than raw sales figures do.

Fan Fiction and Self Publishing Are Now Serious Acquisition Sources

Jake Bauman closed by identifying where a lot of studio energy is flowing right now. Self publishing platforms and fan fiction communities are producing adaptable stories with built in audiences already attached. For studios looking to reduce risk, that combination of story and fandom is increasingly hard to ignore.

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