The Report: August 24, 2026
As we enter the last stretch of summer, we've got a round up of sci-fi and fantasy titles that open portals to new worlds. Also in this edition of The Report, a past BookLife Prize winner chats about smart promotional strategies.
BookLife Biz: Sam KimSam Kim, who won the 2024/2025 BookLife Prize Nonfiction Contest, offers candid advice about selling books, cutting costs, spotting predatory companies, and finding your audience via giveaways and other promotional campaigns.
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BookLife Opportunities
- Call for Submissions: Indie Spotlight: Our September Indie Spotlight will feature picture books. To submit your book, email booklife@booklife.com with the subject line: "Indie Spotlight: Picture Books." Include your book name, author name, illustrator's name, and a personal statement (written in first-person).
- Free BookLife Editorial Features for Indie Authors: Get more eyes on your book! Have a look at our free opportunities, including Indie Spotlight, First Lines, or Behind the Story.
- Write for BookLife!: We're currently looking for pitches from the BookLife community concerning craft, self-publishing, marketing, and other editorial topics. With the subject line "BookLife Pitch," please write to booklife@booklife.com with your article idea and a brief bio.

From the Shelves: BookLife Titles on Our Radar
- 'Hard Count' by Lucas Malone: “Let the gay football sex opera begin,” Malone declares in an author’s note at the start of this first entry in the saga of Piper Ashton, Los Angeles’s anxious golden-boy quarterback.
- 'Final Chronicles of Illumination' by C. A. Pack: In the rousing climactic installment of Pack’s Library of Illumination fantasy series, teen librarians and sweethearts Johanna and Jackson must defend the magical, interdimensional Library of Illumination from a viral exposé that threatens its future.