Digital Book World 2017 was revamped this year into four different tracks: Editorial Acquisitions and Development, Production and Distribution, Marketing and Sales, and Data Analysis and Reporting. Read more
Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired Magazine, published a book this year titled The Inevitable. In it he describes a number of ways that future mortals might experience their best-loved products and services. I recommend it. Read more
2016 - it has been agreed - is the worst year ever, and publishing hasn't escaped the catastrophe. When one of the opening keynote speakers at #FutureBook16, Tim Hely Hutchinson of Hachette UK, said "the book market is in secular decline" it felt like time to get our coats. Read more
I've tried to bring some focus to that vast landscape under the title of The Curious Incident of the Book in the Digital Age - "curious" because while the incredible revolutions we've lived through in the last 20 years may seem to have changed everything, when you really get down to it, nothing has changed at the core of our industry - it's still stories and the people who create those stories Read more
Physical Book World is not the name of the conference. But as Sourcebooks' Dominique Raccah gave her opening address at the pre-conference Launch Kids program at Digital Book World, you might have been forgiven for thinking that the "print resurgence" folks had infiltrated the hall. Read more
I've been hearing about the demise of book publishing since the first day I stepped through the doors of a publisher back in 1978. But here we are still, publishers like Little, Brown, with histories going back 100 and 200 years. What other American industry has companies still in existence after two centuries, evolving and modernizing but still doing much the same work? Read more
The future of the book industry lies in a combination of data compression technology and cryptography, according to Alec Ross, the young American "wunderkind" who gave the keynote address at the final day of the Arab Publishers Conference in Sharjah last week.
With the Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two. approaching, I expect the question regarding innovation in the publishing sphere to again be a hot topic of discussion. In previous years, I have noticed that ways to deliver content have mostly been put forward as examples of innovation, usually associated with audiovisual enhancements, magazine style apps, or unique digital protection measures. Read more
'Booksellers have had many years of making themselves resilient, having had to live through the advent and growth of Amazon - they are entrepreneurial and hard-working, resourceful and creative.
Fifteen years ago, the once powerful book publisher Judith Regan, ruler of her own imprint at Rupert Murdoch's HarperCollins, embarked on a project of dubious distinction. Somehow she convinced O.J. Simpson to get on board with a mea culpa manqué about the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. It would be called If I Did It, and it had the makings of a blockbuster. Read more
The rest of the publishing world should be fifty shades of envious.
On Friday, Sourcebooks announced that they are launching a new imprint with E.L. James. What's more, the author behind the hit Fifty Shades trilogy and The Mister is bringing her entire publishing catalog with her. Read more
In 2016, we had been open for one intense and educational year as the only romance-focused bookstore in the country. After one year of building a community of romance-loving customers, it became abundantly clear to us that readers were looking for more racial diversity in their romance novels. Read more
The acclaimed author Marieke Lucas Rijneveld has pulled out of translating Amanda Gorman's poetry into Dutch, after their publisher was criticised for picking a writer for the role who was not also Black. 'My family are too frightened to read my book': meet Europe's most exciting authors Read more Read more
Are you serious about putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and finally starting that novel idea you've had for years? Costa and Orange Prize shortlisted writer Monique Roffey offers her top five tips for getting the best out of your writing process - including finding your personal rhythm, getting into the habit of drafting and how to edit successfully.
Young authors may be self-censoring because they worry they will be "trolled" or "cancelled", according to celebrated writer Sir Kazuo Ishiguro.
Sir Kazuo, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017, warned that a "climate of fear" was preventing some people from writing what they want. Read more
When I first met my agent 10 years ago, I told her about a book I wanted to write about a lighthouse. I had the set-up in mind - a mystery based on the real-life vanishing of three keepers from the Flannan Isles in 1900 - but hadn't worked out yet how to tell it, if I even had it in me to write a novel, or if what I wrote would be any good. Read more
I've been a huge fan of Jeff VanderMeer's fiction since his noir fantasy novel Finch. In the years since, I've grown to admire-and envy-his range as an author, along with the depth of his imagination and his ability to send chills down my spine while enthralling me with his prose.
It's a tough decision for a writer to make, one of the toughest. All your life you've fantasized about one of the big New York publishers buying your book and its subsequent astronomical launch into the stratosphere. But it hasn't happened yet in spite of your eating, sleeping, and researching the craft of writing for years. Read more
Open to writers of any nationality writing in English
Entry fee for Best Unpublished Novel £49
Prize:
£15,000 for Best Unpublished Novel, an advance on a publishing deal with Bonnier and £10,000 for Best Published Novel
Submissions for the two 2021 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prizes are now open. The international prize is now in its sixth year. Entries are accepted from writers of any nationality, writing in English. The deadline is 7 March. Read more
I have discovered that I cannot burn a candle at one end and write a book with the other.'
"Writers aren't like plumbers. If you're a plumber, you fix one person's boiler in the morning, then you go and fix another in the afternoon. I didn't want to write a book unless I had something new to say - and it was good to live a little in between."