We're sweeping up the glitter after awarding the 10th annual Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize to a trio of brilliant authors just a few days ago (more on that to come). We'll be back in your feed with more author interviews soon.

In the meantime...

When Kobo in Conversation hosts Michael Tamblyn and Nathan Maharaj aren't reading books and interviewing authors for this show, they're working in the business of selling eBooks, audiobooks, and eReaders. In this episode, Nathan sat Michael down to get his takes on a bunch of book biz news making headlines now.* It's kind of an experiment, and we'll do it again soon—but we'll keep changing it up until we can make it feel right. Thoughts? Questions? Stuff you'd like us to cover? Email Nathan at nmaharaj@kobo.com or drop a comment below if you're listening on YouTube.

Topics covered in this episode:

• What's a publisher, and why doesn't everybody self-publish now?
• Why does it seem like publishers buying each other all the time?
• Why are major players in high finance poking around in the book business so much lately?
• Why are big league publishing executives leaving to create new publishing companies—just to publish books by famous people?
• Costco's not going to sell books anymore: does it matter?
• Post-pandemic peril in Australian bookselling
• The "Spotify for audiobooks" before Spotify decided to be the Spotify for audiobooks

Books mentioned:

• The Trial: The DOJ's Suit to Block Penguin Random House's Acquisition of Simon & Schuster by Michael Cader of Publishers Lunch
• Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar
• The works of Ernest Hemingway, published by Scribner

*Michael may have actually staged a one man studio sit-in, and Nathan rolled tape to get him to leave. Accounts differ.

Michael spoke with writer Stephen Maher, author of The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau. Informed by interviews with hundreds of people close to the events covered, as well as Maher's own conversations with Trudeau himself, it’s a portrait of a complex person leading through complex times.

Stephen Maher offers readers a glimpse of The Prince

Nathan spoke with Laura Tamblyn Watts, founder and chief executive of CanAge, Canada’s national seniors’ advocacy organization, and author of Let’s Talk About Aging Parents: A Real-Life Guide to Solving Problems with 27 Essential Conversations, a book about the many hard things facing adults who know their aging parents need to make some decisions—and probably some changes too—but they don’t know where to start.

Laura Tamblyn Watts on 27 essential, and uncomfortable, conversations