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Culture shock

Publication Date: Thu, 02/07/2009 - 11:07

Chief among the siren lures of publishing's Brave New Digital Future is the dream of doing away with the middleman.

From this side of the desk, the poor old retailer is usually perceived as publishing's Achilles' heel. It's every author's mantra that no book ever receives adequate instore display. Little do authors realise that the...

blog | Home | online | Peter Cox | Retail | Web
Poles apart

Publication Date: Thu, 02/07/2009 - 10:54

There are two types of conversation I repeatedly find myself having with authors at the moment.

There's the one about how a publisher has made a large unsolicited offer for their next book or books. This is the conversation with successful authors, and I have never known so much attempted poaching as publishers seek to acquire writers...

agent | blog | Clare Alexander | Home
Don't Tweet back in anger

Publication Date: Thu, 02/07/2009 - 09:06

Alice Hoffman, (or @AliceHof as she was), has disappeared off the face of Twitter. She was an interesting writer to follow, but then a series of tweets appeared encouraging people to contact Roberta Silman, a book critic on the Boston Globe. Hoffman was objecting to Silman's lukewarm review of her new book The Story Sisters. Admittedly...

Alain De Botton | Alice Hoffman | blog | Home | Kate Lord Brown | Twitter
Publishers battle for first place in 'Wacko races'

Publication Date: Thu, 02/07/2009 - 06:35

Both Headline and Carlton are vying to be the first to market with a Michael Jackson book with Carlton bringing forward publication of its illustrated book after The Bookseller reported yesterday (1st July) that Headline's Michael Jackson: Life of A Legend was due out on 17th July. But Headline has reiterated its...

Carlton | Catherine Neilan | headline | Home | John Blake | Michael Jackson | Michael O'Mara
US judge bans Catcher sequel, publisher to appeal

Publication Date: Thu, 02/07/2009 - 06:29

A US judge has banned the publication of 60 Years Later: Coming Through The Rye, the title promoted as a sequel to J D Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.

US District judge Deborah Batts ruled that the novel written and published by Swedish author Fredrik Colting, who writes under the name J D California, was too...

60 Years Later | BBC | Fredrik Colting | Home | Katie Allen | The Catcher in the Rye | US
Children's publishers back call to sell more hardbacks

Publication Date: Wed, 01/07/2009 - 14:49

Children's publishers have backed a call made by Andersen Press m.d. Klaus Flugge to make more hardback picture books available in the high street. Writing to The Bookseller last month Flugge argued that a bigger high street presence would help boost hardback picture book sales.

Fiona Macmillan, colour publisher at Random...

Andersen Press | Caroline Horn | children's | Home | kate skipper | Klaus Flugge | waterstone's
Patterson sales drop by half as market wilts in summer sun

Publication Date: Wed, 01/07/2009 - 14:15

James Patterson’s Sail (Arrow) has taken the top spot in The Bookseller's Top 50 chart for a third consecutive week, but the author dubbed the "bestseller factory" saw his weekly sales halve as the Nielsen BookScan Total Consumer Market dropped 13.3% week-on-week in the glare of the summer sun.

Book...

Bestseller News | Home | James Patterson | summer | tom tivnan
Headline the latest to enter Jackson race with July biography

Publication Date: Wed, 01/07/2009 - 07:50

Headline is hoping to be first to market with a new Michael Jackson book that it plans to publish in July, a full month ahead of rivals such as John Blake.

The publisher said it had already received pre-orders of 120,000 in the UK alone for Michael Jackson: Life of a Legend, and was planning an initial print run of 175,000....

Canada | Catherine Neilan | headline | Home | John Blake | Michael Jackson | Michael O'Mara | Pierre Turgeon | Transit Publishing
Hoare takes Samuel Johnson prize

Publication Date: Wed, 01/07/2009 - 07:30

Fourth Estate author Philip Hoare has taken this year’s BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction for his book Leviathan, or the Whale, beating other Harper titles Bad Science by Ben Goldacre and The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes.

He was awarded the £20,000 prize yesterday evening (30th June) at a...

BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction | Fourth Estate | Home | Katie Allen | Philip Hoare | Prizes
Review: the Elonex ebook

Publication Date: Tue, 30/06/2009 - 14:21

The first point to make on the Elonex [pronounced like the name Elle] ebook is that it is very simple to use. It really is just a Reader: unlike the Sony device it doesn't play music. Unlike the iLiad you can't take notes, or annotate. Unlike the Kindle it cannot connect to the web for accessing Kindle-formatted blogs or newspapers. It's not an...

Borders | digitisation | ebook | Elonex | Home | Philip Jones