Taylor Swift kicked off the second leg of her record-breaking Eras Tour last night in Miami, but her announcement earlier this week has the potential to rock another multibillion-dollar industry. The megastar announced on Good Morning America that before the tour wraps up on December 8, she’ll release a commemorative book about the experience on Black Friday.

And she’s doing it all without the help of a traditional publisher.

Swift will become the highest-profile self-published author in the world. The book, like many of her vinyl releases, will be sold exclusively at Target. The part-memoir, part-coffee table book will cost $39.99 and include over 500 photos and the superstar’s personal reflections from the tour.

T.Swift’s venturing into the publishing realm alone exemplifies her business strategy of keeping creative control and maximizing her cut. She bypassed traditional film distribution channels by self-producing the Eras Tour concert movie, making a deal directly with AMC. While that meant her team had to cover the upfront costs, she got to keep a much bigger chunk of the $260 million the film grossed worldwide.

The publishing industry is not Ready For It

The celebrity memoir has exploded in the last few years. When the pandemic pushed a lot of stars who couldn’t leave home to write a book, the Big Five publishers supercharged the celebrity trauma dump between two hardcovers.

Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, HarperCollins, and Hachette—the major US publishers—keep up a steady stream of celebrity memoirs because they make a lot of money and have a built-in audience.

• Last year, Prince Harry’s Spare sold 1.6 million copies in the US during its first week.
• Britney Spears’s The Woman in Me jumped to the top of the NYT Bestseller list after it sold 1.1 million copies in its first week.

Bottom line: While publishers are very prepared for the moment a huge celebrity like Swift decides to bind her thoughts, she’s sidestepped the entire industry.—MM

CVS replaces CEO and warns earnings will fall short. Yesterday, the healthcare juggernaut replaced Karen Lynch with David Joyner, who had been overseeing the CVS Caremark pharmacy benefit manager, and warned investors that they should not rely on guidance provided in August, which was already forecasting lower earnings, due to “elevated medical cost pressures.” CVS also announced that it was no longer pursuing a breakup of the company. In September, activist investor Glenview Capital pressed CVS to make sweeping changes. While Glenview said it “respects and supports” the CEO change, it is still pushing to shake up CVS’s board of directors.

US urges Israel to end war after Hamas leader’s death. At a press conference in Germany, President Biden said he directly pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar an opportunity for peace. The president and senior US officials have suggested that a cease-fire and hostage deal are now more likely. However, Netanyahu cautioned that “the task before us is not yet complete,” and a representative of Hamas’s Political Bureau said, “It seems that Israel believes that killing our leaders means the end of our movement and the struggle of the Palestinian people.”

Entire island of Cuba goes dark, affecting 10 million people. After one of the country’s main power plants failed at 11am local time yesterday, its entire electrical grid went down. The island has few generators, and public life suffered: Classes were canceled, a handful of police officers directed traffic in Havana, and only “indispensable workers” were supposed to venture outside the home. “We have had to paralyze the economy to guarantee a minimum of electrical service,” Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz said in a televised address. Government officials blamed US sanctions, recent hurricane damage, and aging infrastructure for the blackout.—HVL

Nearly two years after a tornado tore through the Dallas area, Sam’s Club pulled a Tony Stark and reopened its location there this week with more tricked-out tech than it had pre-disaster.

This is the wholesaler’s first new store opening in seven years and its first-ever all-digital warehouse. To pay for bulk toilet paper at the new Sam’s Club in Grapevine, Texas:

• Ring it up yourself via the store’s mobile app (not new) and walk out through the AI-powered blue arches (new). They replace the employees at the door who usually check receipts, who will instead work on other tasks like online orders, Sam’s Club said.
• You don’t have the option of a cashier. Checkout lines are all gone, and the front of the store is repurposed as a QR-coded showroom for online items, including patio furniture and a Mercedes-Benz.

Charging ahead in tech. Sam’s Club will use the Grapevine location to test out more future Silicon Valley-forward shopping features. CEO Chris Nicholas attributed a 68% bump in Gen Z membership over the past two years to the wholesaler’s tech, including the scan-to-pay app feature, which a third of customers use.

Zoom out: Costco is still top dog—its revenue last year more than doubled Sam’s Club’s.—ML

Prague is banning nighttime organized pub crawls to deter the tourists who have kept bars flush with cash but created headaches for locals and authorities who didn’t find eight drunk guys dressed as Santa Claus funny.

• The Czech capital is a popular destination for bachelor and bachelorette parties—it’s like Nashville but with way less Kid Rock. Last year, more than 7 million tourists visited the city via organized tours.
• Officials hope the ban, which begins in November, will serve as a way to attract “a more cultured, wealthier tourist…not one who comes for a short time only to get drunk.”

In 2019, Prague earned about $5 billion in revenue through tourism, which includes hotels, restaurants, tours, and travel agencies.

A chorus of booze: Organizers say that by banning pub crawls, the city is only inviting more alcohol-related mayhem. One such business is The Drunken Monkey, which told the AP that its guides help keep revelers in line and that it has not received a fine or complaint for a noise violation since the business opened in 2011.

Amsterdam also hates fun: The Dutch capital started a campaign called Stay Away last year intended to discourage tourists—particularly British men between the ages of 18 and 35—from planning alcohol-fueled parties in the city.—DL

In his new memoir, Sonny Boy, Al Pacino wrote about making—and wasting—a lot of money early in his career. CNBC reported some of his cringeworthy transactions mentioned in the book, including “paying his landscaper $400,000 a year to maintain a home he didn’t live in” and “unknowingly paying for 16 cars and 23 cellphones.” The Godfather star wrote that he got his financial act together in his 70s thanks to working on some lucrative-but-not-great movies and offering paid seminars. While having as many cellphones as pairs of chromosomes is probably not relatable, you can consider this a reminder to check for unwanted autopays on your credit card statement.—HVL