GQ published a survey on the state of books and reading earlier this week, featuring responses from a range of literary folks to questions on BookTok, AI, male reading patterns, advances, and other contemporary fare.

The survey is worth browsing if only to get a feel for the brackish water everyone seems to feel like we are swimming in: we don’t know what will happen with AI; we don’t know what is going on with book sales; we don’t really know how to sell books, etc.

I am probably more optimistic on the whole, if only because I have going-on-two-decades of experience covering publishing’s perpetual “we don’t even know what the sky falling would look like” back chatter.

While I enjoyed reading the responses, there were a few bald patches in the coverage. Here are some perspectives I wish we’d heard from (plus a specific suggestion or two for each).

Agents.…