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Digital Census has plenty of surprises

9 November 2015

The recent Digital Census 2015 revealed some surprises in the responses. In the book trade in general there's been much talk of a slowdown and reversal in the speed of ebook adoption, accompanied by a revival in the fortunes of print. So what exactly did the Census reveal?  Read more

'Authors and readers to the forefront'

1 August 2011

American author Bob Mayer had published over 40 books with traditional publishers before he decided to take things into his own hands and convert his backlist into ebooks.  Read more

Google and British Library digitisation project

27 June 2011

The British Library and Google have just announced a partnership to digitise 250,000 out-of-copyright books from the Library's collections. Opening up access to one of the greatest collections of books in the world, this demonstrates the Library's commitment to increase access to anyone who wants to do research.  Read more

Ngram wows them all

3 January 2011

A fantastic new tool has become available for anyone interested in using the power of the web to trace word use. Google's Ngram is a digital storehouse which comprises words and short phrases - 500 billion of them from 5.2 million books - contained in books published between 1500 and 2008 in English French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Russian.  Read more

'Content is being devalued by technology'

3 May 2010

Mike Shatzkin is well-known in the publishing business on both sides of the pond for his visionary and often uncomfortable views of the future.  Read more

Google grabs rights to digitised books

27 April 2009

Google's recent class action settlement in the US will award sweeping rights to manage and sell digitised versions of every work published or made available in the US. The settlement allows Google - which has already digitised more than seven million books - the non-exclusive right to digitise every book published before 5th January this year.  Read more

Digitalisation - opportunity or threat?

10 September 2007

Digitalisation has become such a huge issue in the book world that News Review will be investigating the latest developments over the next two weeks. First, what are publishers doing about it and how will this impact on writers?  Read more

Print on demand comes of age

9 April 2007

Print on demand is coming into its own. At a recent Book Marketing Limited seminar in London entitled Managing the Long Tail, the speakers showed how radically this new technology is transforming publishing and what enormous opportunities it offers publishers and authors.  Read more

Google Book Search plans e-books

12 February 2007

In spite of publishers' and authors' uneasiness, Google Book Search is continuing to come to agreements with libraries and building up its collection of digitised material. The University of California, thought to have the largest research/academic library in the world, has now agreed to contribute selected works from its 100 plus libraries to Google Book Search.   Read more

German publishers take Google to court

12 June 2006

The latest news from Germany is that the Borsenverein (the book trade association) is supporting one large German publishing group in taking Google to court. On 28 June the district court of Hamburg will decide whether to impose an injunction preventing Google digitising content from any of the company's books.  Read more

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20 January 2020 - What's new

January 2020
  • ‘The biggest kick is reading something new and exciting and then getting other people to share your enthusiasm... Beyond all the cant and hypocrisy in publishing, that's what it's all about... I have always found comfort in the confines of a book or a manuscript, Reading is how I spend most of my time and is still the most joyful aspect of my day.
  Read more

Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize 2020

Information

Closing date: 
2 March 2020
Entry: 
Open to writers of any nationality writing in English. Entry fee £20
Prize: 
£15,000 for each prize plus a publishing deal with Bonnier for Best Unpublished Manuscript

Submissions for the two 2020 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prizes are now open. The international prize is now in its fifth year. Entries are accepted from writers of any nationality, writing in English. The deadline is 2 March.  Read more

'Sometimes the ideas just come to me. Other times I have to sweat and almost bleed to make ideas come. It's a mysterious process, but I hope I never find out exactly how it works. I like a mystery, as you may have noticed.'

— J K Rowling

'The biggest kick'

20 January 2020

‘The biggest kick is reading something new and exciting and then getting other people to share your enthusiasm... Beyond all the cant and hypocrisy in publishing, that's what it's all about...'

On receiving the Maxwell Perkins Award for lifetime achievement:  Read more