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
Coming from the tech arena is a fairly hostile view of traditional publishing, which assumes that it is dead and will shortly be totally replaced by indie publishing. But is this really what is happening at present? It doesn't seem so clear-cut. Read more
Amongst the predictions springing up as we move into the new year, a hard figure is the most astonishing. The slowing-down of ebook sales is well-documented but it is quite startling that the first figure of 2017 is that the UK print market sold 195 million books in 2016, an increase of almost 7% on 2015, and volume increased by 4.5%. Read more
The question of how to price ebooks is still of great concern to indie authors and to publishers alike, and recent research from Good e-Reader reveals that readers are prepared to pay disappointingly little. Over the last two months they asked 553 Americans how much they were prepared to pay for a new e-book and the results are sobering. Read more
So what can we say that's positive about the big changes in the situation for authors over the last few years? It's really a matter of the way writers now have the opportunity to get out there and shape their own destiny. Read more
There's been a lot of discussion recently about how things have changed for writers over the last few years. In some ways it's a radically different picture, in others not so much so. Read more
The growth in self-published books reported last week comes from Amazon, whose DIY print business CreateSpace has become far and away the biggest self-publishing platform in the United States. In a week when the Association of American PublishersThe national trade association of the American book publishing industry; AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies reported major declines in sales of trade books, there's also been talk about whether depressed digital sales are hurting Amazon. Read more
Bowker has published a huge report on self-publishing in the US and, although the detailed figures are rather dry, some of the conclusions are quite explosive in their picture of a rapidly growing self-publishing scene. And where America goes, other countries tend to follow, although not at a uniform speed. Read more
There was a time when the main concern of writers coming to the site was how to find a publisher. That's when series such as Inside Publishing were created in order to answer the demand for information about publishing, so that writers could find out about what actually went on behind the scenes. Read more
The battle rages on about whether self-publishing or traditional publishing is best from the author's point of view and it all seems to come down to your own experience. If you're happily settled with a publisher and content with what they're doing for you, then of course you'll advocate that. Read more
If you had asked me to define an 'influencer' a few years ago, chances are I would have described someone, most likely female identifying, who created beauty, fashion, wellness and lifestyle content on behalf of brands and businesses. Read more
I believe that the book production process is relevant to everyone, no matter what part of the publishing industry they work in. How books get made is often crucial to deciding how they are edited, designed, marketed, sold, distributed and even consumed. Read more
With book banning and legislative attacks on the freedom to read continuing to surge across the country, the American Library Association announced today that it tracked a stunning 1,269 "demands to censor library books and resources" in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago, and nearly double the reco Read more
This generation, defined as people born between 1997 and 2015, is often considered phone-obsessed and addicted to technology. But when it comes to reading, Gen Zers say they prefer to pick up a printed book over an e-book.
Up until now, my career as a published author has been in three stages or acts. In the first phase, I was published by traditional publishing houses, from Cambridge University PressPublishing business of the University of Cambridge; granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534 world's oldest publishing house; second largest university press in world; (http://uk.cambridge.org/aboutus/infoforauthors/electronic.htm) tells you how to submit manuscripts electronically, but only deals with non-fiction. (my academic works) to HarperCollins (my more popular non-fiction works). In the second phase, my books were published by an independent publisher who offered a hybrid model. Read more
In an emphatic 47-page opinion, federal judge John G. Koeltl found the Internet Archive infringed the copyrights of four plaintiff publishers by scanning and lending their books under a legally contested practice known as CDL (controlled digital lending). And after three years of contentious legal wrangling, the case wasn't even close. Read more
‘When I first started out I wasn't even allowed to kill anyone. People were worried about it. And then it got more and more daring as we went along... Read more
'Modesty is a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world.'
‘At their core, cosy crimes are very character-driven stories about unlikely and everyday heroes, and the tone of them is very humorous. The detectives are people who are underestimated - older characters or slightly bumbling eccentrics who make mistakes along the way and get themselves into trouble.
Former Simon & Schuster staffer Filippo Bernardini has said stole more than 1,000 unpublished manuscripts because he wanted to read books before they hit stores.
In court papers published on Friday (March 10th), Bernardini apologised for his crime but claimed he did it so he could dive into the stories before they were available to the general public.
Writing and publishing a book about a controversial public figure is like diving into shark-infested waters, says ABC investigative journalist Louise Milligan. She told her Adelaide Writers' Week audience that if she'd written her 2017 award-winning book Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Cardinal Pell today, she wondered if it would even be published. Read more
World Book Day organisers urge focus on reading for pleasure, as National Literacy TrustUK-based organisation which has campaigned since 1993 to improve literacy standards across all age groups. Excellent research information and details of the many initiatives the charity is currently involved in. www.literacytrust.org.uk. It also has a useful page of news stories on UK literacy, which links to newsletter http://www.readitswapit.co.uk/TheLibrary.aspx survey reveals decline
Ahead of World Book Day on Thursday 2nd March, the charity by the same name is urging teachers, carers and parents to encourage reading for pleasure as it continues on a sharp decline. Read more
'No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o'clock news, the mumblings of wild men saddled by demons.'
‘When I first started out I wasn't even allowed to kill anyone.'
‘When I first started out I wasn't even allowed to kill anyone. People were worried about it. And then it got more and more daring as we went along... Read more