Times change. Nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated than at the Booksellers Association Annual Conference.

Ah, those conferences of yore, typically at the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Squadrons of board members, buyers, marketers and (even) booksellers would pour into town from every one of the major chains. Publishing houses would...

Last week, I gave a presentation to the World E-Reading Congress, when I suggested that failure to diversify the distribution of book content away from Amazon and Apple would lead to walled gardens becoming super-fortresses. Today's news builds those walls...

Words change their meaning as the years roll by.  You know all the familiar examples (you’re in the words business, after all), but I’ve been struck recently by the changing meaning of “legacy”.  Not too long ago, a legacy was a handsome inheritance built up over a lifetime by an individual or an organisation...

Earlier this month, I headed off into deepest Dorset to meet some modern retailers drawing on their sector heritage. My first visit was one that I’ve promised myself for ages: store manager Claire Robertson hit the headlines in early 2009 when, refusing to accept that her Dorchester branch of Woolworths should close forever, she found a...