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Children's market

Another buoyant Bologna Book Fair

26 March 2018

The Bologna Children's Book FairThe Bologna Children's Book Fair or La fiera del libro per ragazzi is the leading professional fair for children's books in the world. seems to have been a liveley occasion as usual, with considerable interest in Middle Grade fiction and some reviving interest in YA too. Picture books are still difficult but there is interest in talented new writers and illustrators. Bonnier's decision to close down its Australian children's publishing arm was a real shock.  Read more

Bologna Book Fair to launch new fair in New York

3 April 2017

The Bologna Children's Book FairThe Bologna Children's Book Fair or La fiera del libro per ragazzi is the leading professional fair for children's books in the world. this week has been attracting a good number of visitors and there is every-increasing interest from outside the publishing world, from media and film companies. Reflecting the solid growth and current stability of children's publishing, the Fair offers an opportunity for everyone involved in children's publishing to gather for the biggest annual bash.  Read more

Should celebrities be signed up for children's books?

6 February 2017

It's been a lively week on the children's publishing and reading front, with an attack on the "joyless education" which is putting children off reading, an intervention from the Children's Laureate demonstrating that drawing and illustrating help children's literacy and authors complaining about celebrity signings for children's books.  Read more

US ebook unit sales declined 15%, but there's good news on children's publishing

30 January 2017

Nielsen has just reported that ebook sales in the US declined a rather surprising 15% in 2016, as compared with 2015. There seem to have been two reasons for this.  Read more

76% of children prefer print books

15 February 2016

A survey carried out by Booktrust in association with the Open University has found that children of 0-8 prefer reading print books, rather than ebooks. An astounding 76% showed a preference for print books for reading for pleasure and 69% prefer print books for educational reading too.  Read more

Children's print book sales booming

27 April 2015

Recent figures from Nielsen BookscanUK bibliographic organisation, describing itself as 'the definitive retail monitoring service for books', which shows UK bestseller lists on its website. http://www.nielsenbookscan.co.uk/ show that children's print books are doing well in eleven out of the twelve countries the research tracks, the exception being India. That means there's a real boom going on in children's books, heartening news for children's writers.  Read more

‘Another busy, buzzy Bologna’

13 April 2015

This year's Bologna Book Fair reflected the strength of children's publishing worldwide. Although relatively new fairs such as the China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair are making ambitious strides in terms of attracting children's publishers, Bologna is unsurpassed in its appeal as the international rights fair for children's books.  Read more

80% of YA titles purchased by adults for themselves

19 January 2015

Nielsen Children's Book Summit has presented a very encouraging picture of what's going on in the children's book world. Children's sales have been rising steadily and, as previously noted, the sales of children's books in the UK market recently exceeded sales of Adult Fiction. Middle grade and YA Fiction has been doing particularly well.  Read more

Print book sales recover, while children's leads the way

29 September 2014

The book trade internationally does seem to have turned the corner after a difficult few years when a major format change at the same time as a deep global recession turned everything upside down.  Read more

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