Booksellers

The sale of Waterstones to activist hedge fund Elliott Advisers has been widely welcomed in the book trade and is very much in the interests of writers. Like Barnes & Noble in the US, the British bookstore chain occupies a key position in terms of chain bookselling.  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

This weekend New York has been the destination of thousands of booksellers, publishers and others involved with books, as they participate in the annual Americna Booksellers' Association BookExpo. Second only internationally to the Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two. in terms of size, the convention had 190 new exhibitors this year and seems to be upbeat about prospects in the book world.  Read more

 The recent news that Amazon's Kindle sales of ebooks have surpassed sales of print books led many commentators to assume that ebook sales are now outstripping print book sales.  Read more