Skip to Content

News stories from the book world in February 2005

« Prev  

February 2005

  Next »

Amazon powers ahead

28 February 2005

Despite some abrupt lurches in its share price early in the New Year, Amazon powers on, and with no competition to speak of it is now expanding rapidly. Its estimated growth for 2004 was 28% to $6.8 (£3.54 billion) turnover but its figures have surpassed that. Not many retailers can look forward to anything like this.   Read more

Children's writers hit the headlines

21 February 2005

In recent years the success of the giants of the children’s book world has focused attention on the huge sales potential of writing for children. J K Rowling’s millions of books sold are a familiar phenomenon. But there’s also Jacqueline Wilson with over 20 million copies of her 30 different titles sold to date, as noted last week.  Read more

Boom in children's books

14 February 2005

Children’s books are booming.  For many years the children’s publishing business has seemed like a poor relation of its adult counterpart, with lower advances, less marketing spend and scant attention from the press.  Now all that has changed and the children of today are reaping the benefit of a flowering of children’s writing of all kinds, such as we have never seen be  Read more

World Book Day plans

7 February 2005

World Book Day was originally designed by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading. Last year over 30 countries took part and it is hoped to extend the range of the scheme this year in view of the huge discrepancies in publishing activity between different countries.   Read more