The U.K. Publishers Association (PA) was established in 1896 and is a cornerstone of the British publishing industry, working with a diverse array of companies to promote innovation, collaboration, and commercial success. Read more
The conversation around artificial intelligence (AI) and its implications for publishing and the wider creative industries is very much live. Over the last year, every corner of our industry has been confronted with the colossal innovation in the generative capability of this new technology, with little known as to how it will impact our sector.
The news earlier this week that Stephen Lotinga is due to step down as chief executive of the Publishers Association was presumably timed to coincide with yesterday's AGM, but there may be some questions around how the decision on his successor has been made.
Among many reactions to the annual report issued this month called the Statistics Yearbook from the United Kingdom's Publishers Association, this was one of my favorites, as quoted in one of The Bookseller Editor Philip Jones' commentary pieces on the report: Read more
‘I always quote Kurt Vonnegut. He said in the early part of his career he was dismissed as a science fiction writer and that critics tend to put genre books, including sci-fi, in the bottom drawer of their desk... It's true. I get the New York Times every Sunday. In 37 novels, I've never had a stand-alone review. I'm always in the crime round-up.
A survey of 787 members of the Society of Authors (SoA) has found that a third of translators and a quarter of illustrators have lost work to generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. Translators are also more likely to use AI to support their work, with 37% of respondents saying they have done so, followed by 25% of non-fiction writers.
The author Lynne Reid Banks, known for her novel The L-Shaped Room and her children's book series The Indian in the Cupboard, has died at the age of 94.
I launched my podcast Making It Up nearly three years ago with the goal of interviewing writers not for any particular work of theirs, but to talk to them about their lives. I didn't want to ask them what famous author they want to have dinner with or what their top five favorite books are ... yech. Read more
Until we have a mechanism to test for artificial intelligence, writers need a tool to maintain trust in their work. So I decided to be completely open with my readers
‘For me it always starts with the characters, and I hope that the characters take me to the plot - that's the plan, anyhow. I just start with a few ideas and hope it works out. I suppose if having written 28 books has taught me anything, it's that it might work out in the end.'