It's been a pretty good year for publishers. Bertelsmann revenues were the highest for seven years, although admittedly its profits were down and the acquisition of Penguin is part of the mix. Read more
It's a sign of the times that previously unknown British author E L James has topped the New York Times bestseller list with an erotic romance, Fifty Shades of Grey. Read more
This week's there's an interesting story from the US about writer Kate Alcott, whose first novel The Dressmaker has just sold 35,000 copies in hardback and been sold for translation in five countries. It seems explicable in terms of the subject-matter because The Dressmaker is about a seamstress who goes on board the Titanic as a lady's maid, is wooed by two men from Read more
The staggering number of 285,000 new titles and editions were self-published and published by community presses in the US last year, balanced against a slightly lower figure of 275,000 coming from traditional publishing houses. Read more
So how does the world look as we venture forth into the new decade? This week we'll look at the US and next week at the UK publishing worlds in an attempt to assess how the turmoil in the book trade is affecting writers.
This weekend the Javits Center in New York has been thronged with the thousands of people attending BookExpo, the biggest annual book show in North America. It's clear from the coverage that a mass of interesting author events and the usual promotional round are making this BookExpo seem as busy as ever, and attendance figures are only slightly down. Read more
How is the economic slowdown affecting books? We've managed to stay off the subject of the recession for over two months, so now is the time to have another look at how it is affecting the book business. Read more
No sooner had the dust settled on Bertlesmann's surprise appointment of German print supremo Markus Dohle to succeed Peter Olson as CEO of Random House US, than another unexpected change hit the American publishing world. Jane Friedman, the successful and popular head of HarperCollins, also announced her immediate departure. Read more
In News Review of 5 Novemberwe noted the beginning of the Writers' Guild strike in the US. Since then there have been occasional stories in the media about tv companies being forced to put out a diet of reruns and American audiences deserting their tv screens. Read more
Submission guidelines: BIO (By Invitation Only). Authors can get in touch via email with a synopsis of between 500 - 1,000 words. Authors should then only send in manuscripts if invited to do so. Hard copy manuscripts sent in without invitation will not be read. Read more
'Over the past 20 years, some of the best novels written, as it were, or writing that serves the function of a novel, have been on Netflix and HBO. The writing is complicated, the plotting is complicated. It has subtext, and people are really responding to it in a way that, unfortunately, is not happening with books...
I have a small confession to make: I've never been told I need to cut words from my manuscripts. In fact, I'm the author envious of anyone who needs to do so because I'm the one struggling to get my manuscript up to my target word count. And for a long time, I feared I was the only writer with this issue. Read more
Alice Hoffman, author of numerous adult and young adult books including Practical Magic and Aquamarine, has a new middle grade book, When We Flew Away, a historically based imagining of Anne Frank's life before the family was forced into hiding. Young Anne is grappling with her developing identity within her family and community, at times blissfully happy and others deeply contemplative. Read more
In 2007, after my manuscript had been rejected for the 44th time, a colleague offered to introduce me to a published novelist. It turned out to be Mantel - and I was fortunate enough to soak up her wisdom for the next 15 years
My debut psychological suspense novel, The Bookseller, sold to Harper in 2013 in a pre-empt. I'm not going to lie-it was an amazing deal. The type of deal that compelled me to ask my husband, when I called to break the news, "Are you sitting down?"
'Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, the make his life full, significant and interesting.'