I know, I know, Taylor Swift has been in headlines about everything in 2024. Music, football, politics; she’s everywhere, and this time, she’s subverted the publishing world, and we may have to talk about it.

Taylor Swift is undeniably a massive influence; her concert tickets for the Eras tour alone sold so much that Europe had legitimate economic concerns about inflation, her endorsement for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election campaign was coveted by political pundits, she’s broken record after record on Spotify and YouTube for most streams on a song or album, she’s a 14x Grammy award winner, 39x Billboard Music award winner, I could go on, but you get the picture.

The reason any of that matters when it comes to the book world, is because if she were to publish a book, it’d be the most coveted title on the market by every publisher and agent in the biz. Her advance would probably be astronomical, and she could get any publisher she wanted.

Instead, recently, Swift announced she’d be releasing an Eras Tour Book through Target. No surprise about Target, I was actually an employee there around the time the Midnights EP came out and Target was the exclusive seller for physical copies, which is a time in my life I’d very much like to forget.

Besides the point though, you may be wondering what is so groundbreaking about a book that is essentially just memorabilia for a concert tour. And the answer comes down to the age-old issue of self vs traditional publishing and the matter of copyright.

The Eras Tour book was self-published under “Taylor Swift Publishing” rather than opting for traditional publishers. One could say she “shook them off” (Okay, I’ll stop). But it is becoming evident this was a deliberate decision, and not an out-of-character one.

Swift, throughout her career, has made very careful decisions about her own IPs. It’s part of what helped her achieve billionaire status. She owns her own production company and now her own publisher. She even re-recorded her old studio albums (you know, “Taylor’s Version”) and owns the majority of rights for all of her songs under UMG. She changed the royalty game in a way that favored artists rather than large labels.

This article from The Atlantic goes more in-depth as to what this publishing news really means for the relationship between publishers and their frontlist celebrities.

Celebrity memoir is a pretty huge market for the major New York publishers. Taylor’s success could potentially lead to other celebrities to take more control over their own IPs and opt for self-publishing routes of their own. At least, that’s what a lot of the major media outlets are saying, but who really knows anything, right?

As an agent, I’m all about more power to the creator. My job is to fight on an author’s behalf so they can get a more favorable deal and not be lowballed or sold on a boilerplate contract which restricts most of their creative license. However, self-publishing is an entirely different power that pretty much gives full authority to creators. It’s the kind of creative liberty that makes self-publishing seem so sexy, and what Swift is doing may shift the balance of the market.

My opinions on self vs traditional publishing are pretty loaded, since there are pros and cons to both models, but my advice pretty much boils down to: you should only self-publish if you have the means to do so. Writing isn’t the most lucrative career unless you’re one of the best, so I don’t anticipate we’ll be seeing authors leaving traditional publishing en masse even if more creators are starting to find the value in having autonomy over their art.

Swift isn’t the first celebrity to ever self-publish her work, she won’t be the last, but it’s important to remember not many celebrities can roll out masters’ contracts with UMG and exclusive publishing contracts with a big retail distributor like Target on a whim. Taylor Swift is one of one.

But the question it begs is whether her decision to self-publish is yet another instance of her making a statement of favoring creators rather than the larger companies that the produce and distribute the IP? It’s been an age-old discussion that’s come with a great deal of copyright jargon that a lot of creators may not even understand fully. It’s the very reason why creators hire managers, agents, and lawyers to handle the legal side of things while they focus on creating and making art that sells.

If anything, even as someone who advocates for traditional routes, I am glad someone is moving the conversation in a direction that does offer more power to creators, and may lead to more change in an already rapidly evolving industry.

Something to chew on before the holiday that isn’t turkey.