This week in the Writing Break cafe, we're digging into QueryTracker's live data to map the real supply and demand of the slush pile. Two genres are topping agents' wish lists while barely showing up in submissions, and five genres are facing the opposite problem.

Then we head to the querying trenches for a reality check: current response timelines, why silence is the new rejection, the brutal math of agent signings, and what agents actually wish writers knew before hitting send.

Overthinking Couch Topics:

• What authors are submitting vs. what literary agents are requesting
• The two genres lit agents want but aren't receiving
• The five genres with more supply than demand right now
• Why you shouldn't chase trends but might want to rethink your genre label
• Three practical querying strategies: batching, tracking, and writing the next book
• Self-publishing vs. traditional publishing

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• Publishers Marketplace
• Alyssa Matesic's Book Genre Trends 2026 Breakdown
• Top 10 Fiction Genres | QueryTracker
• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

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This week we kick things off with a publishing conundrum: a major publisher is now offering editors optional disclosure of AI use by writers after contracts are already signed. What's the point? We want your thoughts.

Then we settle onto the Overthinking Couch for a deep dive into multiple points of view.

Overthinking Couch Topics:

• What multi-POV actually is
• Three reasons to use multi-POV
• The downsides to multi-POV
• How to choose who gets a POV and why some central characters should not get a POV
• Four practical rules for switching narrators without confusing your reader
• How to make every voice distinct

Next Episode: We're giving the narrator a break and heading to the query trenches for updates and a reality check.

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• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

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This week, we open the cafe with a toast to Dolly Parton and the 332-million-book literacy legacy she built with the Imagination Library.

In publishing news: the Anthropic settlement disbursement timeline; HarperCollins's appetite for more AI payouts; Audible's AI voice expansion; and why the "godfather of AI" still needed a human writer.

Then we settle onto the Overthinking Couch for a deep dive into third-person POV.

Overthinking Couch Topics:

• Omniscient vs. limited: scope, intimacy, and the risk of head-hopping
• Deep vs. distant limited: how close your narrator should sit
• Three questions to help you choose the right POV before you write
• Why your narrator is always a presence, even when invisible

Next Episode: Multi-POV manuscripts: giving every point-of-view character a distinct voice and keeping your readers oriented when the narrator changes every chapter.

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• Book Deals: Week of August 10, 2026
• Sales Up, Profits Down at HarperCollins in Fiscal 2026
• Court Grants Final Approval of $1.5 Billion Anthropic Copyright Settlement - The Authors Guild
• Dolly Parton's Imagination Library
• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

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When you choose a narrator, you're choosing whose personality the reader will inhabit for an entire book. Get it wrong, and you might find yourself rewriting 80,000 words. (I've seen it happen.)

We're using Vivian the Professional Mourner as our case study to explore what first-person narrators can and can't tell us, why filter words create distance, and how to leverage your character's unique knowledge without slipping into omniscient narration.

Overthinking Couch Topics:

• Why POV is a personality choice, not just a grammar choice
• What can your narrator actually tell us?
• Cash register narration might be ruining your story
• "And then" testimony vs. lived experience

Next Episode: Third-Person POV

The Writing Break podcast is a six-time award-winning show for writers who want writing tips and publishing insights. Hosted by a freelance book editor with 20+ years of experience editing for major publishing houses.

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• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

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Last week we established that voice is the narrator's personality. This week, we look at all five elements that make up voice and see if your narrator is a real person or just you in disguise.

Overthinking Couch Topics:

• Amazon KDP finally does something self-publishers want.
• Eight million books lost in Ukraine.
• Arkansas criminalizes bookshelves.
• How to write a narrator that sounds unique.

Next episode: first person vs. third person. Is your close third narrator just the protagonist in a trench coat?

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• A single Russian attack destroyed one-third of Ukraine's annual book print volume
• 5 Psychological Pricing Tactics That Attract Customers
• Where does Arkansas rank on the 2026 Best States list?
• Least Educated States 2026
• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

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Welcome to Season 10 of Writing Break! This season is all about voice, which is the thing literary agents, publishers, and readers fall in love with. In this premiere, we're setting up our makeshift Overthinking Conference Room to nail down the vocabulary that will guide us through the entire season.

1. Why a whole season about voice?
2. Trying to sound like Hemingway is a waste of your time.
3. AI detectors: why they're flagging human writers as robots
4. The actual difference between style, tone, voice, and mood?
5. What agents mean when they say "the voice isn't working."
6. This season's preview: dialogue as voice, character as voice, voice in nonfiction and memoir, when to break the rules, and how to edit for voice.
7. ElevenLabs' Michael Caine narration of *The Odyssey
8. J.K. Rowling / Robert Galbraith pseudonym

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• 'The Odyssey': Alternative Audio Versions With Ian McKellen and More
• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

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Season 10 is on hold because the rules for literary agents just changed, and not necessarily in the author's favor. This episode tells you exactly what questions to ask before you sign (or pay for) anything.

The New Literary Agent Ethics Rules

1. What the Association of American Literary Agents changed and why.
2. Which paid services literary agents may now offer.
3. Why editorial work for represented clients must still remain free.
4. The safeguards built into the revised ethics code.
5. Potential conflicts of interest writers should understand.
6. Practical questions to ask before paying for editorial, marketing, or publicity services.
7. Why due diligence matters more than ever when querying agents.

Publishing News

1. Bloomsbury reveals how much it expects to receive from the Anthropic settlement.
2. ISBNdb sources physical books for AI companies, raising new questions about copyright, preservation, and transparency.
3. Hachette launches its Reading Is Golden public service campaign to encourage daily family reading.

• AI firms are buying old books for slop-free training data
• AI firms are buying old books for slop-free training data
• Raising Readers | Reading Is Golden
• Judge Gives Final Approval of $1.5 Billion Anthropic Settlement
• Major AALA Ethics Update Allows Agents to Offer Paid Editorial, Publicity Services
• Hachette’s Raising Readers Initiative Releases PSA
• AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They're Free of AI Slop
• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

Host: Rosemi Mederos, America's Editor

Production: Allon Media

Website: writingbreak.com |

Contact: podcast@writingbreak.com

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We're closing the book on genre, two seasons, dozens of subgenres, and a lot of overthinking later. This week we revisit some highlights: novel architecture and the dreaded middle-of-the-book slump, why cross-genre mashups can backfire if you get too ambitious, the tension between writing what you love and writing what sells, adaptation lessons from film and video games, and how genres evolve to match whatever readers are actually afraid of right now.

Did I miss a genre you wanted covered? Let me know.

Next up: Season 10 is all about voice, including what it actually is and how to find yours. F

• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

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