Brian Murray, HarperCollins CEO, on the rise of e-books, audiobooks and AI writing

It is important for book publishers, authors and creators that we continue to support the current copyright legal framework, which is based on human creativity, not machine language creativity. In many countries, courts will determine where that line is between machine and human. We do have authors today that are using AI tools to help them create. We just need to be certain that it is really the human who is doing the creation and the machine is responding to the human. Copyright is integral to the future of human creativity. It creates an incentive for authors to write and earn a living.

It’s true that large language models illegally use authors’ works. It is our position that authors should have consent over whether or not their materials are used in these models. There should also be some form of attribution and compensation paid to them. We’re not where we want to be yet in the United States. There are currently over 30 lawsuits in different creative industries that will help form the right roadmap.

The audiobook market is growing globally. Is it the case in India also?

It’s very early days in India, but we are seeing growth, and I think it will accelerate. Audible, Spotify and Storytel are some of the biggest global players. We are working hard to try to get the right pricing and have the right platform, the right consumer offer, so that the audiobook business in India can grow even faster. As publishers, we have some work to do to build an audiobook catalog, which, by the way, AI may help us do much more quickly. Then we have to get the pricing, marketing and consumer offer to be compelling. We’ve all seen the podcast market grow. We know streaming music is very, very big. It’s a very short step to listen to an audiobook if we can get the pricing right.

What do you believe are the most pressing challenges in publishing today?

The biggest issue book publishers face is competition for time and from other forms of entertainment. We all struggle with doom-scrolling and spending time consuming content that maybe isn’t the best. It’s so easy; you scroll, and the next thing you know, an hour has gone by. We have to convince potential readers to make an investment in a book, which could be 10 hours or 20 hours of time. But social media, as an example, does create opportunities for us to market our authors and our books in ways that we couldn’t do before. We are becoming very innovative in how we use algorithms to connect with someone who might be interested in romance, biography or history.

Despite the rise of digital formats, many readers still cherish physical books. How do you see the relationship between print and digital evolving?

I think the print book is here to stay. Our business globally is about 75 percent print and about 25 percent digital. The audio format is the fastest-growing format. We believe that audio consumption is incremental because people listen to audiobooks during the day when they can’t read, for example, if they’re driving, commuting or cooking dinner.

However, we have also seen this past year that print, particularly highly designed print books, were very big sellers in the holiday season. Retailers were very supportive of these books being at the front of stores. They would share their own social media posts, talking about the unboxing and how beautiful the books were. There is an intrinsic value to the printed book. You can place it on your bookshelf and it reflects the types of stories that you like. I don’t think that goes away anytime soon.

What’s a behind-the-scenes moment in the publishing process that stands out to you? Perhaps a funny mishap or a serendipitous event that led to a successful book launch?

There are always surprises in book publishing. For instance, in July 2024, we were completely surprised when JD Vance became the US vice presidential candidate, and we had published his book Hillbilly Elegy eight years before. We had no idea he was going to be the vice presidential candidate, and we had very little stock in our warehouse. I remember finding out on a Saturday or Sunday morning when I looked at the news, and our emails started blowing up because there were so many orders coming in from booksellers who wanted his book immediately.

And then, when something happens in the zeitgeist, like when Wicked became a movie, it can lead to a huge success. That book was originally published 20 years ago, and when you wait that long for a movie to come out and then it becomes a big hit, it’s fantastic. The marketing for a movie is so much bigger than what any publisher could afford on their own.