Blogs

#ChooseBookshops

By Philip Jones

Editor at The Bookseller

With due homage to Irvine Welsh, this week—with high street bookshops in Ireland open, and shops due to open from Monday in England and Northern... Read more

Lockdown diaries: the sales apprentice

By Yazmeen Akhtar

Sales apprentice at HarperCollins

At some point or another most apprentices will have suffered from an inferiority complex. Caught in a no man’s land between employed and yet not... Read more

Changing the story with Hashtag BLAK and The Diverse Book Awards

By Abiola Bello

Founder at Hashtag Press

I am a Black author and publisher in an industry that is dominated by white people. Black Lives Matter is not a hashtag. It is... Read more

"Do better, publishing people": an open letter to the industry

By Dorothy Koomson

Author at Headline

I have to start by admitting that when I began writing this letter last week, I was boiling mad and ready to take everyone on.... Read more

We need to call out the lack of support and erasure of Black British voices

By Crystal Mahey-Morgan

Founder at OWN IT!

Using terms such as BAME and PoC makes it harder to call out the lack of support and erasure of Black British voices (often working... Read more

Empathy – a new 'why' for the book industry

By Miranda McKearney

Founder at EmpathyLab

Simon Sinek stresses the importance of every business finding its “WHY”. But it’s not often that an entire industry can develop a whole new “why”... Read more

Virtual, hybrid, live: what next for book events?

By Alex Fane

Managing director at Fane Productions

As has been widely reported over the past few weeks, the coronavirus pandemic has caused continued closures of theatre and performing arts venues, with potentially... Read more

A killer time for crime

By Izzie Price

Writer at Freelance

As thoughtful citizens we are hemmed in now by gigantic problems that appear as insoluble as they are menacing, so how pleasant it is... Read more

Doing the right thing

By Philip Jones

Editor at The Bookseller

In his talk at the Independent Publishers Guild Spring Conference, held digitally and largely successfully this week, Bloomsbury chief executive Nigel Newton remarked on how... Read more

Remake, not return

Stephen Page c.e.o. of Faber & Faber

Reading patterns may have shifted during lockdown, but publishers must capitalise on the new opportunities and reappraise booksellers’ role. Read more

Lockdown diaries: the book marketer

By Stevie Hopwood

Senior marketing executive at Usborne

If you’d asked me how I was coping a month ago, the truth would have been not so well actually. I let the anxiety that... Read more

Blackwell’s staff have lost our shops - but we leave with heads held high

By

On the 1st of June, the day thousands of pupils returned to school as part of the government’s plan to end lockdown, I received a... Read more

Black Lives Matter in the book industry

By Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

Author at Usborne

It’s early 2012 and a young boy is walking home when he is fatally shot in the back by a neighbourhood watch officer. The officer claims... Read more

Book launches just got better

By Richard Charkin

Founder at Mensch Publishing

It’s pretty obvious that the book industry, along with nearly all other businesses, will be hammered by the plague. The damage is somewhat mitigated by... Read more