The News of the Global Story Economy
In Episode 20 of Unedited, we shake up the format to bring you three bellwether news pieces from the global story economy. Adam, Sarah Elizabeth Hill of Bobi Media, and Inkshares’ own Noah Broyles sit down and unpack the rising phenomenon of publishers acquiring authors who are BookTok stars and what this means for non-viral writers hoping to break into a spice-obsessed industry. We also discuss the recent launch of Conduit, a UK publisher attempting to redress a gender imbalance in the literary landscape by publishing—initally—only male authors. Is this praiseworthy or patriarchal? To wrap up, we jump over to the Hollywood side of things, where Trump’s LA ambassador Jon Voight has penned a letter that calls for incentives but stays mum on tariffs. With leaders from screen entertainment's top organizations co-signing, what does this mean for the future of TV and film in America?

Sarah Elizabeth Hill is a writer, digital strategist, and the founder of Bobi Media, a boutique social media agency based in New York City. Before launching Bobi Media, Sarah co-founded Bookstr.com, a digital media platform for readers which she grew from zero to 3.5 million global organic followers. She secured ad or content partnerships with all five major publishers and has hosted over 100 live author interviews, including conversations with Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Sarah’s earlier work included global campaigns for brands like Nike, HBO, Oracle, and Google Politics. She hosts The Login Podcast and is working on her debut lifestyle nonfiction book that she is not allowed to mention yet…

Noah Broyles was born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee. He started out writing in a notebook, upgraded to a typewriter, and finally graduated to a laptop. At the age of fourteen he sat down to write his first novel and at the age of twenty-three his debut novel, The House of Dust, was published by Inkshares. He has been a member of the Inkshares publishing team since 2021.

Sarah Elizabeth Hill joins us for Episode 19 of Unedited. Sarah is the founder of Bobi Media, a digital marketing and brand management company based in NYC. We chart Sarah’s path from six-year-old poet to anonymous college romance columnist to the world of media and publishing, starting with her time at Bookstr, which she grew to a community of more than three million. We discuss entrepreneurship and the fulfillment Sarah finds in promoting the work of others, and we trade opinions on the “hot as hell romantasy that is taking TikTok by storm.” We also hear Sarah’s advice for writers getting started in a very digital global story economy.

Sarah Elizabeth Hill is a writer, digital strategist, and the founder of Bobi Media, a boutique social media agency based in New York City. Before launching Bobi Media, Sarah co-founded Bookstr.com, a digital media platform for readers which she grew from zero to 3.5 million global organic followers. She secured ad or content partnerships with all five major publishers and has hosted over 100 live author interviews, including conversations with Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Sarah’s earlier work included global campaigns for brands like Nike, HBO, Oracle, and Google Politics. She hosts The Login Podcast and is working on her debut lifestyle nonfiction book that she is not allowed to mention yet…

Grant Bayliss joins us for Episode 18 of Unedited. Grant was an elite military operator in the global war on terror, with fourteen years across four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and subsequent private protection for British diplomatic personnel. He is also the author of the forthcoming story and screenplay The Old Believer, which follows a group of disavowed British special forces operatives on a mysterious mission deep into the hinterlands of Siberia. On this episode, we discuss Grant's entering of the British military at fifteen and the fall of the Twin Towers two weeks later, including how that event drastically changed his future in the armed forces.

We also discuss how Cormac McCarthy kept him company on one of the longest desert marches since World War Two’s Africa campaign. We learn how the diplomatic library in Iraq introduced him to the literature of the world. More than anything, we discuss what the mindset of an elite military operator can contribute to writers trying to break into a too-often hostile global story economy. Note: this episode was recorded at the end of a long London Book Fair in a too-quick thirty minutes. We will return with Grant for a longer episode later this year.

Grant Bayliss served eleven years in the British Army, completing two tours of Afghanistan and two tours of Iraq with the elite 4/74 Special OP Battery. Throughout his career, he has read non-fiction, philosophy, geopolitics and literary fiction, but he tried his hand at writing his first novel while stranded in the British Embassy in Baghdad in 2014. Grant later became a finalist in the 2018 Inkshares’ Horror/Mystery competition with his third work, The Old Believer, which is also in development for film.

Marcus Gipps joins us for Episode 17 of Unedited. We trace his career in books, beginning as a sales manager at the flagship Blackwell’s store on Charing Cross Road, followed by his journey up the publishing ladder at one of the UK's oldest and most venerable sci-fi/fantasy houses, Gollancz, which is approaching its centenary. We also recount some of the authors he has worked with, including Andrzej Sapkowski (of The Witcher fame), Joe Hill, Michael Moorcock, and Stephen Baxter. We discuss whether romantasy is a new genre or simply old wine in new (and much, much bigger) bottles, what the commonalities and critical destinations are between North American and British publishing, and why writers shouldn't follow the market and should instead write from a place of personal passion.

Marcus Gipps is a British books editor. He joined Gollancz in 2011, where he divided his time between working on classic sci-fi/fantasy—including the complete update and republication of Michael Moorcock’s body of work—and publishing original novels. Marcus was identified as a 2012 Bookseller Rising Star, and became Publishing Director of Gollancz in 2020, where his authors included Andrzej Sapkowski (The Witcher), Joe Hill, Stephen Baxter, and Stephen Donaldson. Marcus joined The Broken Binding as part time publishing director in April 2025, while remaining as Editor-at-large at Gollancz, also part time.

Nigel Newton, founder and CEO of Bloomsbury Publishing, joins us from the floor of the London Book Fair on Episode 16 of Unedited. We discuss his journey to the top of the book world, from his days at Cambridge, to his time as a graduate trainee at Macmillan, to landing a job as a sales manager at Sidgwick & Jackson. We dive into the birth of Bloomsbury, the business plan for which Nigel wrote while on paternity leave, and we revisit the story of how Nigel’s then 8-year-old daughter Alice played a part in the original publication by Bloomsbury of Harry Potter. We also flash forward to the hottest commodity in today’s book market, romantasy, which Bloomsbury brought into mainstream publishing with A Court of Thorns and Roses. And we find out Nigel’s advice for young (in career terms) writers hoping to break out in an ever-changing world.

Nigel Newton is the Founder and Chief Executive of Bloomsbury Publishing, which he conceived in 1984 and started in 1986, launching the company with three other experienced publishers. Well known for his part in signing J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, Newton’s innovation and foresight across genres has led Bloomsbury to creative and financial success for four decades. He is a recent past President of the Publishers Association, past chairman of the British Library Trust and past chairman of the Charleston Trust. Newton received the LBF Lifetime Achievement Award in publishing. In 2021, he was awarded a CBE for services to the publishing industry in The Queen’s New Year Honours.

Rick Nicita and Bob Bookman join us for Episode 15 of Unedited. For nearly three decades, Rick and Bob were at the top of CAA's world of talent and book to film. They represented actors including Tom Cruise, Al Pacino, Nicole Kidman, and Sir Anthony Hopkins, and namebrand authors like Michael Crichton, Anne Rice, and Thomas Harris, to name only a few. We discuss how books matriculated through one of the major agencies during the apex motion picture era of Hollywood: the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. We also discuss the decline of readership culture in both Hollywood and America broadly, and the increasing tech-giant domination of Hollywood represented by Amazon’s recent full control of 007. Despite all of this, we discuss why art matters and why the book remains at the heart of Hollywood and top of the global story economy.

Rick Nicita is currently a producer and consultant to the entertainment industry. In 1980, he joined CAA, where he went on to co-head the Motion Picture Department and head the Talent Department before being named Co-Chairman of the agency in 1995. Over the years, he has represented many of the world’s leading actors and directors, including Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Al Pacino, Anthony Hopkins, Jeff Bridges, David Lynch, Kevin Costner, Kurt Russell, and Rob Reiner, to list only a few. After leaving CAA in 2008, he went on to be the Co-Chairman of Morgan Creek Productions and later produce films including Hacksaw Ridge and Freud’s Last Session.

Bob Bookman is one of the most influential book-to-screen agents of the last fifty years. He has worked at and run the book divisions of some of the most powerful agencies, beginning at IFA, later at ICM, and eventually at CAA. He has represented some of the 20th Century’s most prestigious talent, including Michael Crichton, Tom Wolfe, Anne Rice, Graham Greene, Nora Ephron, Thomas Harris, and Ken Follett. He has also represented screenwriting and directing talent including Paul Greenglass, Jonathan Demme, Cameron Crowe, Jose Eszterhas, and Brian DePalma, among many others. In addition, Bob has worked at some of the highest levels in the feature world, including at Columbia Films and ABC Motion Pictures, where he worked on enduring films including Stand By Me and Moscow on the Hudson. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and Yale Law School. Bob now continues his production activities under the banner of Smarty Pants Ventures based on the Sony Lot in Culver City.

Film executive and content innovator Liesl Copland joins us for episode fourteen of Unedited: From Idea to Manuscript and Shelf to Screen. Over a glass of grenache, we discuss her winding road from Mickey Drexler’s GAP, to a brief stint as a cruise director, to the heyday of magazines, and her rise through independent film. As Netflix’s first chief of original content, a fifteen-year veteran of the Endeavor Companies, and most recently head of strategy at Participant, Liesl shares her seasoned perspective on media innovation. In Part 1 of a conversation we will return to with Liesl, we get deep into how the streaming wars and streaming cooldown has shaped the lives of story creators and story consumers alike.

Liesl Copland has worked in the specialty film sector for most of her career, with the goal of democratizing distribution for unique, independently produced projects. She is a founding member of MATR Labs, and was formerly the Executive Vice President of Content Strategy at Participant. Prior to Participant, she was a thirteen-year veteran of the Endeavor Companies, where she served as an Executive Vice President of Content and head of Documentaries at Endeavor Content. Prior to joining Endeavor in 2008, Copland acted as the Head of Red Envelope Entertainment, the former original content division of Netflix, where she oversaw the acquisition, marketing and distribution of close to 100 films a year during their three years in existence. Across her entire career, Liesl has built in a double bottom line approach to her practice and has a deep focus on social justice reform and impact focused content.

Lawyer by training and a writer by compulsion Michael Bennett joins us for episode thirteen of Unedited: From Idea to Manuscript and Shelf to Screen. We discuss where funny comes from, what it means to be funny to different people, the evolution of satire from Don Quixote to the present, and whether, in a realm of seven-second Instagram reels, political satire still has a meaningful place in longform literature. As a father of two, former investment banker, and flight-hopping operator in international economic development, Michael gives us his thoughts on how to maximize creativity in small blocks of time. We also talk books, both expected and unexpected—from Hardy Boys to Planet of the Apes.

Michael Bennett is a lawyer by training and a writer by compulsion. After growing up in California, he graduated from Wesleyan University and Columbia Law School. Michael has lived and worked in New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris and Washington, D.C. He has published articles in numerous legal and financial journals around the world and is a dedicated supporter of the Yakult Swallows baseball club. He is the author of the political satire Young Donald.