'What strikes me after almost 25 years in the industry is that publishing and bookselling still attract enthusiastic, occasionally eccentric people who love and understand books'
Do we need to care for authors better, rethink staff workloads and pay more attention to each book? Yes. But the short answer to "can we publish less, but better?" is: not necessarily.
It was several hours after the Nobel prize for literature announcement before anyone was able to get hold of winner Annie Ernaux. The long-tipped, 82-year-old French writer was deep in work, avoiding her ringing phone to concentrate. When a Swedish journalist finally got in contact, she asked: "Are you sure?"
"I have been made redundant. I've lost my job," was the shocking news I received when I bumped into a former colleague recently. The news was delivered with a stoic smile, but the pain of this loss of a successful career was palpable, "I'm too young for retirement, I've still got so much to give." Her eyes welled up, my eyes welled up. Read more
When profits and sales soared in the first half of 2021, the heads of the major publishing companies knew they would face some difficult comparisons in 2022, and that's largely been the case. Read more
US book publishing generated $29.3bn (£25.7bn) industry-wide in 2021 compared to its 2020 revenues of $26.1bn (£22.9bn), an increase of 12.3%, according to 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 (AAP), with more people buying from bookshops. Read more
Publishing is facing "industry-wide burnout" according to a survey conducted by The Bookseller, which revealed 89% of staffers responding to the survey had experienced stress during the course of their work over the last year, while 69% reported burnout. Read more
Approximately 130 people, as well as others listening online, attended the Book Industry Study Group's first in-person annual meeting in three years, held April 22 in New York City. The meeting focused on the impact of the pandemic and continuing efforts to make the industry more inclusive.
‘My success, I believe, stems from a combination of factors. Firstly, the freedom of self-publishing allowed me to explore and cater to my niche without being constrained by traditional publishing expectations. This direct connexion to readers, without intermediaries, provided invaluable feedback, enabling me to refine and better my work.
For the second in our profiles of bestselling authors, this week we're delighted to speak to Mark Billingham, who was recently presented with three Nielsen Bestseller Awards: gold for selling half a million copies of Sleepyhead, and silver for selling a quarter of a million copies of both Scaredy Cat and Buried, all published by Little, Brown.
My name has always felt, somehow, apart from me. But names, like all words, are approximations. From the day of my birth, I was called Christie, though it wasn't really my name. My real name was Christine. Well, my middle name was Christine. My first name - Miriam - I heard only at the receptionist's window of the dentist's office or on the first day of school. Read more
For the last two years, I've had unexpected success in experimenting with my "chipmunk research method." I was inspired to try this technique after hearing an intriguing comment made by my friend Oriano Belusic, past president of the Canadian Federation of the Blind (CFB).
When book sales spiked in 2020 and 2021, publishers believed one reason for the increase was that more people had turned to reading during the pandemic, and they were hopeful that some of those people would continue to read when things returned to normal. However, a new report from the National Endowment for the Arts seems to dash those hopes.
In early August, after Andrew Lipstein published The Vegan, his sophomore novel, a handful of loved ones asked if he planned to quit his day job in product design at a large financial technology company. Read more
‘It really is most extraordinary, having lived all these years as a cheerful but inconspicuous blue-stockinged, gray-haired, backseat publishing lady, to become a sort of show- stopper.’