Two years into the global pandemic, the publishing industry is going strong. Laurie McLean, director of the San Francisco Writers Conference (SFWC), attributed the positive performance to people rekindling their love of reading and writing. She shared some predictions for 2022.

In a recent online conversation with the Authors Guild, Markus Dohle, CEO of Penguin Random House, likened the publication of every book to launching a startup company, replete with risks and without guarantee of success. Here are some key takeaways from Dohle’s presentation, some of them quite surprising.

A romance writer cocky enough to trademark the word “cocky” wanted to stop other writers from using the word in book titles. She failed. In a case that serves as an important lesson for authors, the U.S. District Court for Southern New York ruled in favor of the Authors Guild and the Romance Writers of America (RWA) in asserting the principle that nobody should own exclusive rights to use a common word in book and series titles.

“You are what you submit,” says a former managing editor of a literary magazine. It behooves you to submit only your best work, and yet, the submission itch—the mad rush to release one’s work to the world—is a common malady.  Before you submit, make sure you’re not making these three common mistakes.

For the publishing industry, 2020’s unprecedented restrictions and challenges due to the COVID-19 global pandemic brought unexpected gains. In all, there were 751 million print books and 191 million e-books sold last year, representing an 8 percent growth in sales in 2020 compared with 2019 sales.

Are writers the most envious people in the world? Of course, professional envy exists among academics, lawyers, investment bankers, and others, but writers seem to experience jealousy in a deeper and more enduring way. Envy isn’t just for failed writers, either. Even the most successful authors succumb to authorly jealousy.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making it easier and cheaper to translate print books and convert them into audio books. On the flipside, the same technology can be used to aid and abet book piracy, as well as to regurgitate existing works as new content without paying authors due compensation.

Some authors and writing teachers will advise you against using a pen name. They will warn you about the challenges of branding a pen name on top of your real name. Well and good, except sometimes you don’t have a choice.

What’s your burning New Year’s resolution as a writer? Maybe you can adopt these three resolutions or something similar.

An article in the Times-Herald (Vallejo, Calif.) puts the spotlight on Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s little-known love affair in the 1930s with Isabel Rosario Cooper, a young Filipino actress. “Though Cooper’s existence is not a secret, it’s hardly front row center anywhere until ‘My MacArthur,’” according to the story, referring to the historical novel by Filipino-American author Cindy Fazzi.