9 Publishing Industry Podcasts to Follow in 2026

Print Run bills itself as “a podcast for books and the people who make them.” Hosts Erik Hane and Laura Zats are literary agents who have also worked as editors and booksellers, and they cover the topics most career advice skips: unionizing at the Big Five, generative AI law, advance economics, and burnout in a creative industry.

Episodes alternate between interviews (including a conversation with Laura B. McGrath about the history of literary agenting) and sharp news roundups. A paid Patreon adds query and submission shows for writers, but the free feed is where the industry analysis lives. It leans editorial and agent-side, and publishes every two months rather than weekly. For understanding the forces shaping the roles you are applying for, nothing else comes close.

Running since 2014, Minorities in Publishing is hosted by Jennifer Baker, author and editorial director, named the Publishers Weekly Star Watch SuperStar in 2019. Guests range from VPs and editors to agents, marketers, and illustrators, and the conversations focus on the everyday realities of building a career when you are underrepresented in the room.

The practical bonus is the show's newsletter, which bundles job listings, transcripts, and guest news. Episodes on diversity committees, microaggressions, and how people actually moved from assistant to manager are the kind of context a recruiter call will never give you. A new episode drops once a month, so it is a deep listen rather than a daily feed — but it is one of the only shows squarely about working in publishing, not writing for it.

Open Book originated as lunchtime conversations at Open Road Integrated Media for employees, and that insider framing carries into every episode. Host David Steinberger is Chairman and CEO of Open Road and Chairman of the National Book Foundation, and his guests reflect that access: Macmillan CEO Jon Yaged, Penguin Publishing Group president Allison Dobson, Grove Atlantic publisher Morgan Entrekin, Authors Equity CEO Madeline McIntosh, Books-A-Million CEO Terry Finley, and many more.

Episodes run 25 to 40 minutes and stay focused on how the business works at a strategic level. Listening to Jon Yaged explain why Macmillan structures its imprints the way it does, or to Lisa Lucas describe how she ran Pantheon, gives you context that no job description will provide. It is reflective rather than a news feed, so treat it as pre-interview prep. If you have a first round at any major house, it is a very good hour to spend.

Hosted by Joe Biel, CEO of Microcosm Publishing, and Elly Blue, its Vice President and associate publisher, this weekly show has run since 2015 and now has over 360 episodes — and covers the operational mechanics that most publishers never explain publicly: how books move through a warehouse, how seasonal list decisions get made, how cover design affects sales, how metadata affects discoverability, how a sales rep pitches to a bookstore buyer.

If you want to understand how a publisher actually functions from the inside out, this is your closest thing to a free internship, especially if you are targeting production, operations, distribution, or sales roles. Microcosm is a 30-year-old independent that Publishers Weekly named a fastest-growing publisher three years running (2022–2024), so the indie lens is real and Big Five scale differs, but the underlying questions about margin, inventory, and print runs are the same ones you will face in operations interviews at houses of any size.

The Book Riot Podcast is a weekly news-and-talk show on what is happening across the book world: publisher deals, the AI copyright lawsuits, BookTok bestseller lists, prize announcements, and adaptation news. Hosts Jeff O'Neal and Rebecca Schinsky run Book Riot, the largest independent book site in North America.

Written for engaged readers rather than industry insiders, it explains what is breaking and why it matters in plain language you can repeat in an interview. It does not go deep on business mechanics, but it is free, requires no prior knowledge, and shows up every week without fail.

Audiobooks are a multibillion-dollar slice of publishing, and The Spoken World is the show dedicated to that side of the business. Host Christopher Kenneally spent 18 years producing Copyright Clearance Center's industry podcast before launching this audio-focused successor in March 2025.

Episodes cover production, distribution, and marketing of audiobooks, with interviews recorded at the London Book Fair, Frankfurt, and the U.S. Book Show. It is narrow by design, so less useful if you are targeting print editorial or marketing, but it is the only current show focused on the audio segment, which happens to be one of the few areas in publishing where hiring is actually growing.

This one is built for writers, but it earns a spot for its “Shooting the Sh*t” segment, where literary agents Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra trade candid takes on the business: what authors really earn and spend, the unpaid labor of agents, and editors quietly stepping back from option books.

Listening in on agents talking shop is one of the cheapest ways to understand how the acquisitions and editorial side thinks about money, risk, and time. Most of each episode is craft and querying advice for writers, so you will be skimming for the industry segments, but those segments are genuinely worth it.

A newer biweekly from the STET Podcasts network, Adventures in Publishing-land rounds up the week's industry stories with irreverent commentary: big money moving into romantasy, the Society of Authors' “Human Authored” badge, AI scam emails targeting writers, and more.

The hosts are UK-based and opinion-forward, so cross-check specifics against US trade coverage, but the mechanics they discuss (advances, rights, marketing, and AI) are universal. It is a fast, lively supplement, and the commentary on trends like romantasy and the AI rights debate gives you ready-made talking points.