Ahead of the launch of Out of the Ashes, my first book for adults, the question I keep getting asked, more than any other, is: What difficulties did you encounter writing this novel, as a YA writer? Read more
Prior to December 6, 2012, there was no standalone New York Times Best Seller list for young adult novels. At that time, young adult books were merged with other chapter books, creating a list that was a mix of young adult and middle grade titles. Read more
A poll conducted by the Publishers Association has found more than half of young readers credit BookTok, a subcommunity on the social media platform TikTok focused on books and literature, with helping them discover a passion for reading.
Alex Aster grips a tall Starbucks hot chocolate in her right hand as she guides me through the second floor of the world's largest Barnes & Noble bookstore.
"I come here several times a week," she says, pointing to a corner of the Young Adult section that often acts as a background for her many viral TikToks. "I usually stack two or three books to create a sort of stand." Read more
I've kind of given up telling non-publishing people that I write for young adults. They nod knowingly and then say something dismissive like "isn't that just vampire romances?"
This leaves me with two options. Option one: bite them on the neck. Or option two: explain very politely that young adult fiction is without doubt the most exciting, innovative space in publishing today. Read more
Despite the fact young adult books are "for" teenagers, it's rarely teens who are shouting the loudest about those books. They're reading them, but they're not necessarily the ones making the most noise about books in the YA "community" on social media. Read more
The 2010s saw the rapid rise and equally rapid fall of the YA dystopian genre, with The Hunger Games and its followers dominating headlines and popular culture. Read more
When Leigh Bardugo first came face to face with her characters, she wept. In a video that was uploaded everywhere from YouTube to TikTok, the author stepped on to the Budapest set of Netflix's Shadow and Bone and embraced her heroine, Alina - or rather, the actor Jessie Mei Li in costume. "You guys look amazing," Bardugo repeats in the video, between hugs and tears. "You look so incredible. Read more
Once in a while, a book comes along that lingers long after a spine is first cracked. It consumes your every waking thought, burying itself so deep into your psyche that years later, on occasion, it will still emit some stray spark of memory. Read more
'For God's sake, never use a metaphor and then explain it...
You can assume a world from so little and readers will. So I'm more interested economy than encyclopaedism, in how little you can get away with rather than how much you can cram in...
I don't want to write puzzle stories that can be decoded to the correct answer... Read more
Less than a year after an attempt on his life, author Salman Rushdie made a rare public appearance at an awards ceremony Thursday to warn of the dangers of banning books and of related movements in the US to roll back freedoms of expression.
"The information is telling me -" wrote Martin Amis in his 1995 novel The Information. "The information is telling me to stop saying hi and to start saying bye." It was an intimation of mortality typical of Amis, who died on Friday at the age of 73 - as interested in how stylishly the thought was expressed as in what it was expressing.
Accepting the coveted Caldecott medal in 1964, an annual award honouring the "most distinguished American picture book for children", the author Maurice Sendak addressed the rumbles of disapproval his winning book had received from some quarters about it being too frightening by wryly commenting, "Where the Wild Things Are was not meant to please everybody - only children."
The intellectual property rights to the novels of British-South African author Wilbur Smith are up for sale, with ACF investment bank handling the process.
Smith, who died in 2021, published over 50 novels in genres such as adventure and historical fiction. Smith's first novel When the Lion Feeds was published in 1964.
Today in good news, the American Booksellers Association announced that membership is at its highest level in 20 years. Per reporting by Hillel Italie at the Associated Press:
James Daunt keynoted the Association of American Literary Agents programme at Publishers WeeklyInternational news website of book publishing and bookselling including business news, reviews, bestseller lists, commentaries http://www.publishersweekly.com/'s US Book Show in New York this week, telling home truths about Barnes & Noble, the company he has helmed since August 2019, in tandem with running Waterstones.
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.
Any bookish person who has ever passed through an airport in the United States will tend to have been struck by a contrast. Airport bookshops in the UK are piled high with thrillers, spy stories, romantic comedies and how-to books: untaxing fare for a long flight. Read more
It is not hard - at all - to trick today's chatbots into discussing taboo topics, regurgitating bigoted content and spreading misinformation. That's why AI pioneer Anthropic has imbued its generative AI, Claude, with a mix of 10 secret principles of fairness, which it unveiled in March. Read more
Almost 60% of LinkedIn's users are between the ages of 25 and 34, making it the single largest demographic to use the platform. And this is a demographic with a willingness to pay for news.
'The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. 'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.'
'Never use a metaphor and then explain it'
'For God's sake, never use a metaphor and then explain it...
You can assume a world from so little and readers will. So I'm more interested economy than encyclopaedism, in how little you can get away with rather than how much you can cram in...
I don't want to write puzzle stories that can be decoded to the correct answer... Read more