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
The successful growth of new British publisher Head of Zeus shows how an international approach to publishing can put a business in a strong position through challenging the traditional approach to publishing markets. 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
Latest figures from the States suggest that readers are not parting with their print books, in spite of the growth in ebook sales, which have reached $8.5 billion in value worldwide. In the US the figures show that 23% of all male adult readers and 33% of females ones read ebooks. Read more
A new Mintel survey this week shows that ebook fans are increasing their reading because ebooks are cheaper. These UK figures show that 26% of consumers who have bought an e-book in the last year are reading more than they used to because e-books cost less than paperbacks, a figure that rises to 38% of 16 to 24-year-olds. Read more
Recent figures from Bowker in the US show a startling plunge in the number of titles printed print-on-demand by 46% year-on-year. Even more surprising perhaps is that this decline is not part of the major shift from print titles to ebooks, as the overall print figures declined by only 1.6%. Read more
'Booksellers have had many years of making themselves resilient, having had to live through the advent and growth of Amazon - they are entrepreneurial and hard-working, resourceful and creative.
Fifteen years ago, the once powerful book publisher Judith Regan, ruler of her own imprint at Rupert Murdoch's HarperCollins, embarked on a project of dubious distinction. Somehow she convinced O.J. Simpson to get on board with a mea culpa manqué about the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. It would be called If I Did It, and it had the makings of a blockbuster. Read more
The rest of the publishing world should be fifty shades of envious.
On Friday, Sourcebooks announced that they are launching a new imprint with E.L. James. What's more, the author behind the hit Fifty Shades trilogy and The Mister is bringing her entire publishing catalog with her. Read more
In 2016, we had been open for one intense and educational year as the only romance-focused bookstore in the country. After one year of building a community of romance-loving customers, it became abundantly clear to us that readers were looking for more racial diversity in their romance novels. Read more
The acclaimed author Marieke Lucas Rijneveld has pulled out of translating Amanda Gorman's poetry into Dutch, after their publisher was criticised for picking a writer for the role who was not also Black. 'My family are too frightened to read my book': meet Europe's most exciting authors Read more Read more
Are you serious about putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and finally starting that novel idea you've had for years? Costa and Orange Prize shortlisted writer Monique Roffey offers her top five tips for getting the best out of your writing process - including finding your personal rhythm, getting into the habit of drafting and how to edit successfully.
Young authors may be self-censoring because they worry they will be "trolled" or "cancelled", according to celebrated writer Sir Kazuo Ishiguro.
Sir Kazuo, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017, warned that a "climate of fear" was preventing some people from writing what they want. Read more
When I first met my agent 10 years ago, I told her about a book I wanted to write about a lighthouse. I had the set-up in mind - a mystery based on the real-life vanishing of three keepers from the Flannan Isles in 1900 - but hadn't worked out yet how to tell it, if I even had it in me to write a novel, or if what I wrote would be any good. Read more
I've been a huge fan of Jeff VanderMeer's fiction since his noir fantasy novel Finch. In the years since, I've grown to admire-and envy-his range as an author, along with the depth of his imagination and his ability to send chills down my spine while enthralling me with his prose.
It's a tough decision for a writer to make, one of the toughest. All your life you've fantasized about one of the big New York publishers buying your book and its subsequent astronomical launch into the stratosphere. But it hasn't happened yet in spite of your eating, sleeping, and researching the craft of writing for years. Read more
Open to writers of any nationality writing in English
Entry fee for Best Unpublished Novel £49
Prize:
£15,000 for Best Unpublished Novel, an advance on a publishing deal with Bonnier and £10,000 for Best Published Novel
Submissions for the two 2021 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prizes are now open. The international prize is now in its sixth year. Entries are accepted from writers of any nationality, writing in English. The deadline is 7 March. Read more
I have discovered that I cannot burn a candle at one end and write a book with the other.'