The public media audience includes a lot of book lovers, and it's widely known that NPR's coverage of books can influence sales.
"NPR book coverage drives discovery and subsequent sales and is contributing to a culture of reading by discussing books," Allison K Hill, chief executive officer of the American Booksellers Association, told us. "That culture of reading, and the media indicating the value of books, is important to raising young readers, engaging readers and attracting new readers."
But unlike the investigations team or the folks at Tiny Desk, there isn't a single team of staffers dedicated to the coverage of books at NPR. Rather, author interviews, reviews, the well-known Books We Love guide and stories about the publishing industry are spread across teams at NPR that coordinate their plans, but don't work from a unified strategy.
With coverage so dispersed, we wondered about the mechanics of it all. How are decisions made about what to cover? So, for this installment of the News Literacy Edition of the NPR Public Editor newsletter, we spoke with a correspondent, editors and a producer to get a better understanding. — Amaris Castillo
The journalists at NPR who report on books are also avid readers.
We asked NPR staff how they decide which books and authors to cover, with the big book publishers alone putting out roughly 100,000 new books every year in the United States.
"The through line would be, it's 'by readers for readers,' so that's who we hope is listening and engaging with the conversations," said Justine Kenin, an editor on All Things Considered who helps coordinate book coverage and author interviews. "It's just very pro-book. And I would say that we all work together well across the different shows to put the right book in the right hands."
Author interviews
Book publicists and authors themselves want to promote their work and, because of NPR's significant reach, interviews on Morning Edition or Fresh Air with Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley (which is distributed by NPR) are highly sought after. Listeners who are book enthusiasts have also come to expect interviews with high-profile authors and big-name personalities, like Ocean Vuong and Martha Stewart.
The journalists at NPR manage this through a "dibs list." Requests from hosts are given priority, Kenin said. The number of author interviews a month depends on the host.
Weekend Edition senior producer Samantha Balaban coordinates book coverage at that show.
Hosts Scott Simon and Ayesha Rascoe read books in advance of interviews with authors, but producers and other staff members provide backup, helping them prepare for the interviews. "Quantity and range, I think, is something that we provide that not every outlet can, because there are just so many readers," Balaban said. She said Simon will do at least four interviews a month (but often six or seven), and Rascoe will usually do three a month.
Like coverage of movies and culture, Balaban said they give the book segments extra time on Weekend Edition. "We realized that people want to be slowing down a little bit on the weekends. Our show values that coverage, so we give it a lot of space." Balaban also produces Picture This, a special series of conversations between the authors who write children's books and the artists who illustrate them. Balaban said the idea for the series came from her colleague Barrie Hardymon in 2019. They began with a list of just four or five books, Balaban recalled. The series became popular. Balaban said some of the books they feature move up on sellers' lists. "I think it's cool that people listen and they take our recommendations."
"Everyone grows up with picture books. Even if you're not a big reader as an adult, somebody probably read a lot of picture books to you as a kid, or you probably read a lot of picture books as a kid," she said. "I think they're just so foundational, and they evoke such strong memories, that I think it's something that everyone can relate to, even if you don't have kids or currently read picture books. It's kind of universal."
Meghan Collins Sullivan, a senior editor at the Culture Desk, is the equivalent of an air traffic controller for books at NPR. She works with the producer or editor of each magazine show responsible for book coverage, and she also works with book publicists. "I try to keep things glued together and keep all the puzzle pieces working together to create this overall network approach to books," Collins Sullivan said.
Every year, she organizes meetings in New York City with her colleagues and publicists from big publishers. There, the teams learn about which books are slated to come out over the next year.
When the "dibs system" on author interviews breaks down because of time constraints or other developing news, she implements a backup plan to ensure that those books are still covered for the audience.
Collins Sullivan also ensures balance in book coverage. "That we have coverage of the big books and authors that people are going to be looking for, but also that we are giving attention to books that may not be as well-known — debut authors that we think people should be paying attention to," she said. "I think NPR is a tastemaker, and that it's important for us to put a spotlight on books and authors that might not otherwise see coverage."
For Kenin at All Things Considered, author interviews help set NPR's book coverage apart from other big news outlets. Hosts read the book before interviewing and take particular care to make the interviews interesting for people who haven't read the book. There's an intimacy of conversation, she said, that makes sure the listener is included.
Books We Love
What started as a recommendation list for holiday gift giving has grown into a year-round resource. NPR staffers and trusted critics are asked to nominate their favorite books published that year. The result is NPR's interactive guide known as Books We Love, which is usually published right before Thanksgiving. Collins Sullivan said this project is more useful than the usual "Top 10 Books of the Year" lists.
"For us, it's different. We poll our entire staff and we get everyone involved. Everyone has such different tastes in books and reading and genres, and so we're able to put out this product," she said. "It is really, truly books we love from NPR staffers."
She said the guide provides more variety than a list. Readers browsing Books We Love can mix and match tags to filter results and create a catalog tailored specifically to their preferences.
Collins Sullivan said she doesn't think the product has transformed much with the rise of online reviews by book influencers. "I think that's another way that our staff are hearing about books, so it might in some small way be impacting what books our staff are reading that then end up in this product."
One measure of the success of Books We Love is the number of people who come to use it. "Every year, people know this is coming, and they're just waiting for it," she said, adding that the project garners between 2 and 3 million page views every year. "We know it's successful that way, just in that people wait for it. They know it exists, and they know it's there."
Finding a new audience on Instagram
As a correspondent on the Culture Desk, Andrew Limbong said part of his job is filling in the holes in book coverage at NPR. "There's a lot of things to take into consideration when it comes to what books to cover, mainly what books are already being covered within the network," he said. "I try to think about, 'OK, what can I do that maybe a host can't do? What can I do that is more agile or more reported?' And so that's how I've been thinking about my coverage."
Limbong pens the NPR Books newsletter and also hosts NPR's Book of the Day podcast, which highlights much of the lengthy high-profile author interviews heard elsewhere on NPR. It bills itself as the place where NPR listeners can get the very best writing in "a snackable, skimmable, pocket-sized podcast."
Limbong does more than introduce audience members to book titles, though. Much of his own recent reporting has centered on cuts to government funding for public libraries and what's going on with the U.S. Copyright Office.
And less than a year ago, Limbong began appearing on NPR's main Instagram page in short videos about topics related to books. Recent posts explore what your book says about you and whether audiobooks count as reading.
"I had been pushing this for a long time because it's reaching a different audience, I think, than what you find on our website or on our air," said Collins Sullivan, who works with Limbong. "I think that it's reaching a younger, more diverse audience on Instagram, or on BookTok, or other places that you find these videos."
Limbong said the videos began after meeting with NPR's visuals team. He sees them as a way to connect to a new and different audience. Collins Sullivan said most of the videos get more than 300,000 page views. "It's an interesting way to maximize certain things for each and every platform," said Limbong, adding that some content works better visually on digital, and others on just audio. "Books content is fun, and people are super engaged about it online."
NPR's coverage of books stands apart. It's more accessible (both because it's easier to consume and it's free) than that of The New York Times and more comprehensive than what consumers might find scrolling through Instagram or TikTok. Interviews with authors and stories about new books often serve as a bright spot in a bleak news cycle.
"I would like for that to continue to be the case, and I regard books as being part of arts coverage," Kenin said. "This is how we understand how we're living our lives, is through novels and nonfiction. This is just another way to make sense of the world, to me." — Amaris Castillo
The Office of the Public Editor is a team. Reporters Amaris Castillo and Nicole Slaughter Graham and copy editor Merrill Perlman make this newsletter possible. Illustrations are by Carlos Carmonamedina. We are still reading all of your messages on Facebook, Instagram, Threads and from our inbox. As always, keep them coming.
Kelly McBride
NPR Public Editor
Chair, Craig Newmark Center for Ethics & Leadership at the Poynter Institute
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