Shooting The Shit About Changes to the NYT Bestseller List and Editors Allegedly Using AI

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Apr 13, 2026

Big shifts in how bestseller lists are counted, with a surprising turn toward audiobooks and away from mass market paperbacks. Questions about editors allegedly uploading manuscripts into AI tools and the privacy and ethics that raises. A data-driven look at debut author advances and what writers are actually earning today.

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INSIGHT

NYT Reconfigures Lists To Prioritize Audiobooks

The New York Times updated bestseller lists to add audiobook-specific lists and reduce some paperback categories.
They added Audio Children’s Top 15 and Audio Advice/How To/Misc Top 10 while ceasing monthly mass market and demoting weekly paperback nonfiction to monthly.

INSIGHT

Audio Lists Favor Celebrity Podcaster Titles

The audio category move signals the industry expects more sales and attention to come via audiobooks and influencer-led audio.
Carly warns Audio Advice/How To likely favors podcaster or celebrity-led titles and questions where audio sales data will be sourced.

INSIGHT

Paperback And Mass Market Cuts Reflect Format Shift

Demoting mass market and weekly paperback nonfiction reflects shifts: fewer nonfiction titles reach paperback and more consumption shifts to audio.
Carly links this to hardcover-first non-fiction and the decline of mass-market paperback distribution.

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This week, Carly and CeCe dive into major shifts in publishing—from quiet updates to the ‘New York Times’ bestseller list to growing concerns about editors using AI behind the scenes. Carly and CeCe unpack what these changes signal about industry trends, including the rise of audiobooks and the decline of mass market paperbacks. They also tackle the controversy around manuscripts being fed into AI tools—and what that means for author trust and confidentiality. Plus, a fascinating breakdown of debut author advances reveals what writers are really getting paid today.

Note: CeCe Lyra is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates. If you’d like to query CeCe, please refer to the submission guidelines at www.wsherman.com. Carly Watters is a literary agent at P.S. Literary Agency, but her work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency, and the views expressed by Carly on this podcast are solely that of her as a podcast co-host and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of P.S. Literary Agency.

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AS SHARED ON THE PODCAST:

https://open.substack.com/pub/emilyzipps/p/2025-debuts-data-part-two?r=h5j0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

https://www.nytco.com/press/announcing-updates-to-our-best-seller-lists/?mc_cid=edfbfdb621&mc_eid=c3c057229b

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/some-editors-uploading-confidential-manuscripts-to-chatgpt-to-read-quickly-agent-claims

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