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Bestsellers

Big books in demand

14 December 2015

This article in the Guardian, Are books getting longer, shows that in both commercial bestseller lists and literary lists (measured by Booker Prize winners), the books that feature are tending to get longer. But this goes against a number of trends which you would expect to be pushing readers in the opposite direction.  Read more

Bestselling children's author leaves publishers to publish her own work

21 September 2015

In an unusual move, the UK children's publisher Chicken House and US publisher Little Brown Young Readers have both parted company with bestselling children's author Cornelia Funke, who both have published right from the beginning of her writing career. What's unusual about the split is that it's not about money, or more promotion, but about differences relating to editorial advice.  Read more

Penguin Random House swoops on Ehrlin's bestseller

7 September 2015

The speed with which Penguin Random House has moved to do a world English language deal for Ehrlin's bestselling picture book, The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep, is an indication of how much the big publishers are now relying on self-publishers to produce saleable books. Once the author has established a market, it's easy to see why the publishers want to jump on board.  Read more

Surprise bestsellers for the silly season

31 August 2015

It's the colouring books and a self-published sleep aid which are making the headlines and topping the charts as summer moves in to autumn in the northern hemisphere - not that those of us in the UK feel we've had much summer.  Read more

Looking forward to the autumn

17 August 2015

As many in the northern hemisphere are still sunning themselves (or sitting out the rain if they're in the UK), the book trade is hotting up for the autumn. In the UK It looks as if 8 October will be Super Thursday, when the combination of big books being launched reaches its peak. A successful generic Booksellers' Association promotion, Books Are My Bag, will launch on the same day.  Read more

Another bestseller for E L James

8 June 2015

It's been a pretty good surprise for the book trade that in two weeks' time (perfect timing for summer reading) E L James will publish a new book featuring the same characters as Fifty Shades of Grey. This time the story is told from Christian Grey's point of view and the book is simply called ‘Grey'.  Read more

The fourth book in Stieg Larsson's 'trilogy'

30 March 2015

It's not the first time an author has ‘written' from beyond the grave (Virginia Andrews and Robert Ludlum come to mind) but the just-announced news that, 11 years on, a fourth book in Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy will be published still strikes a cynical note.  Read more

The author as a brand

23 March 2015

Karen Joy Fowler in this week's Comment makes a totally fair point about the importance of enjoying your writing, and what makes some writers happy is writing a different kind of book each time. But is there any truth in the suggestion that writing similar books is the best way to build a successful writing career?  Read more

So what are fiction editors looking for in 2015?

26 January 2015

So what are fiction editors looking for in 2015? A handful of British editors have contributed to a recent article in the Bookseller, speaking up for home-grown talent, strong debut novels and - perhaps surprisingly - books in translation.  Read more

Bestsellers

30 June 2014

This week's Bookseller reports that E L James made £33m before tax in the year to the end of September 2013, more than three times her pre-tax earnings from the year before. This astonishing amount of money shows how very much an internationalyl bestselling author can make, especially when it's actually a trilogy.  Read more

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5 April 2021 - What's new

April 2021
  • ‘When an editor works with an author, she cannot help seeing into the medicine cabinet of his soul. All the terrible emotions, the desire for vindications, the paranoia, and the projection are bottled in there, along with all the excesses of envy, desire for revenge, all the hypochondriacal responses, rituals, defenses, and the twin obsessions with sex and money.
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