Print Run is a podcast created and hosted by Laura Zats and Erik Hane. Its aim is simple: to have the conversations surrounding the book and writing industries that too often are glossed over by conventional wisdom, institutional optimism, and false seriousness. We’re book people, and we want to examine the questions that lie at the heart of that life: why do books, specifically, matter? In a digital world, what cultural ground does book publishing still occupy? Whether it’s trends in the queries from writers that hit our inboxes or the social ramifications of an industry that pays so little being based in Manhattan, we’re here for it. Probably to laugh at it and call it names, but here for it nonetheless. Print Run is the happy-hour conversation after a long day at a catalog launch; it’s the bottle of wine you drink most of on a Tuesday when the manuscripts are no good. We’re for writers, for publishers, for anyone who’s opened a book and wanted to know—really know—what goes into getting the damn thing made. Join us. We’ll talk about the worst sex scene we’ve ever read and wonder aloud about how millennials will affect the books of the future. We’ll figure out why Jonathan Franzen wants to replace your child with a penguin and whether or not that penguin will be buying hardcovers when he grows up.
On the “season finale” episode before Erik goes on paternity leave for a few months, we talk about the many swirling feelings around going on leave in...
After another RWA mess surrounding their recent issuing of the Vivian Award, we use the occasion to ask a fundamental question: what’s the point of th...
This week, we made the whole plane out of To Loon It May Concerns. We spent the episode answering your most burning and specific publishing questions,...
It’s summer, and in publishing that means one thing: we’re all getting each other’s out-of-offices. In this episode we talk about how, actually, that’...
This week we take a look at the far too slanted battlefield on which people who want change in publishing are forced to fight--and how, rather than re...
This week we talk about the state of nonfiction publishing amidst the changing conditions of both the industry and the wider world--how has a pandemic...
This week we take on a term we all love but can never quite pin down: speculative fiction. What do industry people--and readers--mean when they say “s...
This week we take a look at Laura McGrath’s fascinating paper on how literary agents shape the acquisitions landscape. It’s got a lot of insights we a...
This week, we unpack a fascinating essay about the ways in which Philip Roth managed his authorial image and career, and the various questions it rais...
We’re back! In our first episode since going on leave in late 2020, we talk about how our approach and views toward the industry may have shifted sinc...