Amazon's latest figures are astounding and cement its dominance of the book business, particularly self-publishing, as well as the huge inroads it is making in many other areas. Read more
World Poetry Day has been marked by the publication of some encouraging sales figures from the UK, showing sales up 16% on last year in the first quarter. But a lot of these sales seem to be driven by social media and to feature poets who are appealing to a young female audience. Read more
Online communities are the way things are going. Publishers have been trying to establish communities of readers to sell books to for some time, but now an author blogger has called for them to set up communities of writers too, and perhaps even communities of publishers and freelances as well. Read more
It's alarming to read in Publishers' Weekly that unit sales of print fiction backlist titles in the US fell 30% in the period ended 22 July compared to the same period last year, whilst non-fiction was 13% down. American publishers have suffered badly from the demise of Borders and this hasn't been offset by a switch to online backlist sales, as you might have expected. Read more
The New Year has started with a mass of news from the ebook front, where things are really moving very fast. In the States ebook sales surged after Christmas. In the UK the figures show that more than one million ereaders and more than half a million tablet devices were received as gifts over Christmas, with Amazon and Apple the leading suppliers of e-readers and tablets respectively. Read more
So, given publishers' latest focus, are readers are switching to e-books at a staggering speed and is the whole market for books set to change radically within a short space of time? The evidence for this is actually a bit contradictory. Read more
Mike Shatzkin is well-known in the publishing business on both sides of the pond for his visionary and often uncomfortable views of the future. Read more
This year's Book Marketing Limited study Books and Consumers in 2008 showed some worrying trends in book purchasing in the UK, whilst demonstrating that books have fared comparatively well compared to music and DVDs. Volume purchases of both of the latter grew much faster than books, but both of them suffered from a huge drop in price - averages of 23% for DVDs and 34% for music.< Read more
The Internet is profoundly affecting what is happening in the staid old world of books. Two bestselling authors have waded in recently, as web threats and opportunities change the way books are written, published and sold. Read more
Amazon has dominated the headlines in the book trade press over the last few months, as it has taken a more aggressive approach to its plans for growth. Back in 1997 Jeff Bezos said he wanted the internet retailer to be one of only 'two or three leading players' Actually it's done much better than that. Read more
'How do you become a writer? Answer: you write. It's amazing how much resentment and disgust and evasion this answer can arouse. Even among writers, believe me. It is one of those Horrible Truths one would rather not face. The most frequent evasive tactic is for the would-be writer to say, But before I have anything to say, I must get experience...
At the US Book Show the energy was palpable; panels were sharper, more diverse, more geared to practical applications; and speakers were good, with costs, discoverability and AI under discussion.
A missile strike at a Ukrainian printer Factor-Druk has led to the deaths of seven employees, 22 people being injured, and the halting of all work at "one of the largest industrial printing facilities in eastern Europe".
The annual "What Kids Are Reading Report" has shown a drop of 4.4% in the number of books being read by children with "reading decline particularly acute in secondary schools". Read more
For decades, the Romance Writers of America (RWA) served as a champion for the mostly female authors of one of the country's most popular - and denigrated - genres of fiction. Read more
Caleb Carr, the scarred and gifted son of founding Beat Lucien Carr who endured a traumatizing childhood and became a bestselling novelist, accomplished military historian and late-life memoirist of his devoted cat, Masha, has died at 68.
Why are some authors and books iconic? Why do other authors and books tank? It's tempting to say that William Shakespeare is uniquely talented, and so is Stephen King. But, of course, there are plenty of amazing writers out there that you haven't heard of them.
Three years ago, Erin Decker was a middle school librarian in Kissimmee, Florida, increasingly frustrated by the state's book bans and worried that she couldn't make a difference remaining in her job.
So, she and fellow librarian Tania Galiñanes thought of a way to fight back.
Around the world, it's common for fiction writers to moonlight as translators. Even in places where there's a robust network of governmental support for writers, translation work provides, at least in theory, a welcome injection of income. Since it's difficult to make a living writing novels or stories, collecting an extra source of funding is important. Read more
For first-time writers, it's harder than ever to break out. That poses an existential crisis for publishing-and disturbing limits on your access to exciting new voices.
‘Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won't let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you're allowed to sleep. It's always in the middle of the night, or you're half-awake or tired, when your critical faculties are switched off. So letting go is what the whole game is. Read more