The publishing industry is in a weird spot. On one hand, you see Stephen King testifying against the controversial merger between Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, declaring that the looming deal would turn the publishing industry into an impenetrable monolith. On the other hand, TikTok’s community of book lovers — known as “BookTok” — is pushing six-year-old novels onto the New York Times bestseller list and turning self-published authors into stars. Publishing may be a mess, but at least reading is trendy.
Still, one thing remains forever stable in the world of books: it’s difficult to figure out what to read next. Tertulia, the new app from Artsy co-founder Sebastian Cwilich, is trying to fix that.
A number of companies have sprung up in recent years to solve the problem of book discovery. There’s Folio, an online bookstore with gen Z flair; Storygraph, a Goodreads alternative for people who hate Amazon as much as they love to read; or Copper, a social media platform that hel …
