Figures quoted by China Daily show that publishers in China are benefiting from 300m users of mobile devices who read electronic books. The market is up 25% year on year and reached $1.7 billion in sales last year. Read more
Some sensational figures have just been released showing the trend towards book sales in print form as opposed to ebook is continuing, as sales of consumer ebooks in the UK dropped by a whopping 17%. These figures exclude self-published titles, which have contributed a large proportion of the ebook sales. But more than 50% of genre sales are now reckoned to be in ebook form. Read more
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
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
Ebook sales plunged in October 2015, with adult books dropping 22% in one month, compared to children's ebooks which went down a whopping 44.7%. As we've discussed elsewhere, the children's market has a strong preference for print books, with both parents and children preferring them. Read more
This week has yielded some rather unexpected figures from both sides of the Atlantic relating to ebook sales. In the States it looks as if ebook sales are in decline, whereas in the UK there's also a tempering in projections of ebook growth. Read more
Ebook sales growth in the UK seems to be flattening this year. A recent Bowker study showed that digital is taking a much greater proportion of the fiction market than of narrative non-fiction, as in the US. Read more
Amazon's fourth quarter results have just come in $1 billion (£632,62m) short of analysts' expectations, but because of a 55% increase in operating income to $405m (£256m), shares rose 6%. Read more
At last there's some hard information on ebook sales in the UK and an interesting indication of future trends in the US. The Bookseller has managed to put together some ebook sales figures which show that ebook sales in the UK are currently worth around £250m. Read more
Recent figures from Bowker show self-publishing continuing its rapid growth in the US. The number of self-published books coming out has nearly tripled since 2006, with 235,625 new print and ebook titles published in 2011. Read more
"I was in the gym when the email from my editor telling me I'd won the award popped up on my phone, and I can still clearly remember how amazed and thrilled I felt. My books are now published in nine languages, but to discover that one of them has sold over a quarter of a million copies in the UK alone is just so special. Read more
In her Reith lecture of 2017, recently published for the first time in a posthumous collection of nonfiction, A Memoir of My Former Self, Hilary Mantel recalled the beginnings of her career as a novelist. It was the 1970s. "In those days historical fiction wasn't respectable or respected," she recalled. "It meant historical romance. Read more
Almost a third (30%) of the children's books published in the UK last year featured a racially minoritised character, reflecting an unprecedented and "remarkable" longterm rise in representation, according to a new report from the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE).
A third of children's books now 'feature a racially minoritised character', up from 4% in 2017, but direction of travel reversed in picturebooks and non-fiction
I make books about books, and every year hundreds of people commission me to make custom art prints for them or their loved ones, of the spines of the books that changed their lives and made them who they are today. And as a result, I've read quite a lot of books-for people of all ages-and spent a lot of time researching which books people love most.
'Good writing is remembering detail. Most people want to forget. Don't forget things that were painful or embarrassing or silly. Turn them into a story that tells the truth.'
When I started writing in about 1990, publishers were very keen on the teenage market. They knew kids were spending money on music and that there were films for kids that age, but books somehow weren't quite happening. The fuss when Junk came out was because it really was a book for teenagers. Read more
‘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.
Books for teenagers
When I started writing in about 1990, publishers were very keen on the teenage market. They knew kids were spending money on music and that there were films for kids that age, but books somehow weren't quite happening. The fuss when Junk came out was because it really was a book for teenagers. Read more