Amazon's latest figures are astounding and cement its dominance of the book business, particularly self-publishing, as well as the huge inroads it is making in many other areas. Read more
World Poetry Day has been marked by the publication of some encouraging sales figures from the UK, showing sales up 16% on last year in the first quarter. But a lot of these sales seem to be driven by social media and to feature poets who are appealing to a young female audience. Read more
The news that Scribd is reining back on successful erotica and romance titles exposes the weak link in the subscription model of bookselling. Read more
So what are the chances of the just-launched German online book retailer and e-reader, backed by bookstore chains Thalia, Weltbild and Hugendubel, Deutsche Telekom, and giant German publisher Bertelsmann providing a real challenge to Amazon? Read more
Last week's annual Books and Consumers research from Bowker showed some interesting trends in book-buying both in the UK and the US. In 2012 British consumers bought 296m books, compared to 288m in 2011, but for the fifth year in a row spend declined from £2,137m ($3.226) to £2.1086 ($3.182) as the lower prices for ebooks started to affect the overall price mix. Read more
Her touching verses about heartbreak, fat-shaming and body hair have made her Britain's most-followed poet on social media - and now she's heading for TV
IN 1978, BILL GROSE, editor-in-chief at Dell, decided to make a star of a young author from San Francisco. Grose was a thumper of novelizations from popular film and television, a fan of media tie-ins, a man with his finger in the air to feel the direction of the wind. Read more
Author Anthony Horowitz has said it's wrong "writers are running scared" due to a fear of offending, elaborating on comments he made earlier this year at Hay Festival.
As a writing coach, most of my clients come to me after months, years or even decades of trying to write a book on their own and floundering. Read more
I doubt you need to be told you should be reading more. There's a good chance you struggle to make time for reading, and it feels like just another obligation, like hitting your daily step goal, or drinking more water. Read more
Crime fiction is as popular with writers as it is readers. Fans of the genre often try their hand at writing the gripping noir and twisting tales they love. But writing crime fiction comes with its own unique challenges as crime readers demand tight plots, dark settings and gripping mysteries like no other.
If you open up any one of hundreds of news stories of rightwing "parents' rights" groups trying to have book removed from schools for having queer characters or mentioning the existence of sex, you might notice a common refrain: "We aren't banning books. Read more
American horror novelist Stephen King is taking on a new monster: corporate consolidation.
The author was the star witness in an anti-trust trial to block the two biggest US publishers' $2.2bn merger.
The US Department of Justice called on King to testify about how the proposed tie-up of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster could affect authors.
The second day of the DOJ's trial to block Penguin Random House from acquiring rival Big Five publisher Simon & Schuster featured a little star power: bestselling author Stephen King took the stand, telling the court about his rise from struggling freelance writer to mega-bestselling author, and bemoaning the continued consolidation of the publishing industry-which, he contends, is hurting Read more
'Any magazine-cover hack can splash paint around wildly and call it a nightmare, or a witches sabbath or a portrait of the devil; but only a great painter can make such a thing really scare or ring true. That's because only a real artist knows the anatomy of the terrible, or the physiology of fear.'