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Bookshops

Waterstones sale good for writers

30 April 2018

The sale of Waterstones to activist hedge fund Elliott Advisers has been widely welcomed in the book trade and is very much in the interests of writers. Like Barnes & Noble in the US, the British bookstore chain occupies a key position in terms of chain bookselling.  Read more

Daunt on bookselling

19 March 2018

It's unusual to find a book chain boss who went into bookselling because he liked reading, but James Daunt, founder of Daunts bookshop chain in London, and CEO of the Waterstones chain in the UK, is that rare animal. Encouragingly, he still maintains that: 'Books still work and always will'.  Read more

Print book sales recover, while children's leads the way

29 September 2014

The book trade internationally does seem to have turned the corner after a difficult few years when a major format change at the same time as a deep global recession turned everything upside down.  Read more

Foyles launches new flagship with wow factor

16 June 2014

The opening of the wonderful new Foyles bookshop in Charing Cross Road in London has shown a tremendous act of faith in bricks and mortar bookselling. The iconic bookstore has been suffering badly due to a drop in footfall relating to the building of Crossrail, a major new east-west underground line cutting through the heart of London's West End.  Read more

Ebook sales slow

29 July 2013

Ebook sales growth in the UK seems to be flattening this year. A recent Bowker study showed that digital is taking a much greater proportion of the fiction market than of narrative non-fiction, as in the US.  Read more

Reading to an audience

10 June 2013

Will Self's recent comments at the Hay Festival suggest that the literary world has changed out of all recognition: ‘What has changed in the past 30 years is that it has become impossible for the rump of the literary profession - those middling sorts (of sales, that i  Read more

Discoverability

1 April 2013

Discoverability seems to be the word on everyone's lips at the moment in the book business.　 By this is meant how people find books and it's evident from recent research that bookshops play a very important part in this.  Read more

Hocking says no to Amazon

13 February 2012

Hugely successful self-published author Amanda Hocking has grabbed the headlines again with her decision not to go with Amazon's new publishing venture, in spite of their offer of a higher advance, but to stick with St Martin's Press, which she felt would be better able to get her books into bookshops.This deal was for her new four-book seriesWatersong,with the first title,Wake,   Read more

No more bookshops?

20 June 2011

Australia breaks into the international publishing news less often than it should, but last week government minister Nick Sherry hit the headlines when he said: 'I think in five years, other than a few specialist booksellers in capital cities we will not see a bookstore, they will cease to exist.' He believes it is 'inevitable' that online shopping would wipe out general bookstores within fi  Read more

Waterstone's is sold at last

23 May 2011

Other news stories had to be shelved with the news yesterday that Waterstone's has been bought by Russian oligarch Alexander Mamut's A&NN Group. Although this negotiation has been a bit long drawn-out, the news has been well-received and is in contrast to the situation in the United States, where Borders continues to teeter on the brink.  Read more

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10 January 2022 - What's new

January 2022
  • ‘If there is anything I believe to be foundational to the business of writing then it is this: writing is work. To frame it in this way is to acknowledge that good writing doesn't come out, fully formed, at two in the morning; and nor does it require anything extraordinary in the way of genius or education, although of course it's possible to have an aptitude for it, and reading helps.
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