Here is a stat that may surprise you: more new publishers entered the UK market than ever before last year. According to Nielsen BookData figures released last week, the number of publishers which registered for their first ISBN prefixes increased by 261 in 2011, to 3,412. This is a marked contrast to 2001, when Nielsen began compiling its...

The impossible seems to have happened: independent bookshops have gained market share. Although their revenues last year were broadly in line with 2008 (about 10% by value) there was a decline in the overall market of 1.9% during 2009, according to Nielsen BookScan. This means independents achieved growth against the market in one of the...

For Transworld, it has been a long wait. Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code was published five years ago, and after over 81 million copies sold globally, a high-profile High Court case and numerous rumoured publication dates (it was originally mooted for a 2007 release), the world will finally get to read the further adventures of Harvard...

Honest, yet Machiavellian. Those are the paradoxical qualities a literary agent needs to succeed, says the man who handles the James Bond titles—United Agents' Simon Trewin. He talks to Hannah Davies

Simon Trewin, joint head of the books department at United Agents, says the relationship between agent and author should be like a...