Now it's beginning to look as if World Book Night may shortly become just that, rather than an aspirational name for the adult version of the UK's World Book Day. The United States is to partner the UK, launching World Book Night in 2012. Read more
In the midst of all the gloom and doom, 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. has been pretty much business as usual. Writing on the last day of the Fair, visitor figures are so far up 8.1% on last year, although there has been a slight drop in exhibitor numbers. Read more
No sooner had the dust settled on Bertlesmann's surprise appointment of German print supremo Markus Dohle to succeed Peter Olson as CEO of Random House US, than another unexpected change hit the American publishing world. Jane Friedman, the successful and popular head of HarperCollins, also announced her immediate departure. Read more
Amazon has dominated the headlines in the book trade press over the last few months, as it has taken a more aggressive approach to its plans for growth. Back in 1997 Jeff Bezos said he wanted the internet retailer to be one of only 'two or three leading players' Actually it's done much better than that. Read more
Mergers and further conglomeratisation are shaking the foundations of the international publishing world, as the book trade continues to become more like other businesses, and is similarly affected by globalisation. Read more
A recent heated debate at BookExpo in Washington has highlighted the argument about territorial rights between UK and US publishers. Carolyn Reidy, President and Publisher of Simon and Schuster, accused British publishers of engaging in 'a land grab in continental Europe based on the thinnest of legal and business pretences'. Read more
A recent article in The Australian highlights the problem facing literary fiction writers in Australia. Brian Castro, prize-winning author of six novels, had difficulty in getting his seventh novel, Shanghai Dancing, into print. Read more
This has been the weekend of 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., rather later this year than usual and, with 7,223 exhibitors from 101 countries exhibiting 380,655 titles, the biggest ever. Read more
Sad news about redundancies and an Australian bookshop chain going bust show how the way books are sold is changing. This will affect everyone, from writers right down through the book chain to readers. Read more
In a move that is sure to stoke controversy about online sales of second-hand books, Abebooks, the American used book site, has announced an alliance with giant online bookseller Amazon, to be called Amazon Marketplace. This will enable the thousands of booksellers who currently list their used, rare and out-of-print books on Abebooks sites to access Amazon's huge customer base. Read more
Submission guidelines: BIO (By Invitation Only). Authors can get in touch via email with a synopsis of between 500 - 1,000 words. Authors should then only send in manuscripts if invited to do so. Hard copy manuscripts sent in without invitation will not be read. Read more
'Over the past 20 years, some of the best novels written, as it were, or writing that serves the function of a novel, have been on Netflix and HBO. The writing is complicated, the plotting is complicated. It has subtext, and people are really responding to it in a way that, unfortunately, is not happening with books...
I have a small confession to make: I've never been told I need to cut words from my manuscripts. In fact, I'm the author envious of anyone who needs to do so because I'm the one struggling to get my manuscript up to my target word count. And for a long time, I feared I was the only writer with this issue. Read more
Alice Hoffman, author of numerous adult and young adult books including Practical Magic and Aquamarine, has a new middle grade book, When We Flew Away, a historically based imagining of Anne Frank's life before the family was forced into hiding. Young Anne is grappling with her developing identity within her family and community, at times blissfully happy and others deeply contemplative. Read more
In 2007, after my manuscript had been rejected for the 44th time, a colleague offered to introduce me to a published novelist. It turned out to be Mantel - and I was fortunate enough to soak up her wisdom for the next 15 years
My debut psychological suspense novel, The Bookseller, sold to Harper in 2013 in a pre-empt. I'm not going to lie-it was an amazing deal. The type of deal that compelled me to ask my husband, when I called to break the news, "Are you sitting down?"
‘Books say: she did this because life says: she did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books. Books make sense of life. The only problem is that the lives they make sense of are other people's lives, never your own,'