Outside the Box

Doubleday’s new Outsider Editions imprint, which launched this month under the direction of Thomas Gebremedhin, is the latest in a growing number of publishing programs focused on reissuing forgotten and out-of-print books. Though many readers express an aversion to AI-narrated audiobooks, a survey commissioned by an AI audiobook company found that some listeners grow more favorable to the technology once they’re exposed to it, particularly for titles featuring multiple voices. In other news, publisher Thomson Reuters will sell a majority stake in its global print business to private equity firm KKR, which also owns Simon & Schuster, for about $500 ​million, reports Reuters. A recent study by romance fiction platform Galatea suggests that nearly all romance readers read smut regularly, via People. Meanwhile, romance publisher 831 Stories announced it will hold its first annual RomCon this October in New York City. Ohio public school librarians are raising alarms about funding cuts and increasing censorship attempts, the Ohio Capital Journal reports. A new ban on hardcover and used books in Texas prisons is threatening volunteer efforts to supply reading material to inmates, per KERA. Entertainment Weekly previews Mike Flanagan’s limited series adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie, and FX dropped the trailer for its new drama based on Bret Easton Ellis’s The Shards. And California publisher Don Ellis and Pennsylvania bookseller Betsy Rider have died at 84 and 91, respectively.