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News stories from the book world in August 2008

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August 2008

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Are books recession-proof?

25 August 2008

The book trade is beginning to wonder if books will weather the economic storm. The received wisdom is that they do well in a recession because they are small-ticket items, but is this really true?  Read more

A new superseller

18 August 2008

A new star has burst upon the publishing firmament. Stephenie Meyer, whose new book Breaking Dawn already has 1.3 million copies in print in the US, recorded the largest-ever first-day sale when it was published there on August 4th. The book is the 745-page fourth book in her high school vampire series The Twilight Saga.   Read more

The e-book wars - starting soon?

11 August 2008

It looks as if this autumn will finally see the worldwide availability of e-book readers, and then at last we'll find out exactly what difference this is going to make to book-buying and the publishing world. The e-book reader story has been running for some time.  Read more

The end of an era

4 August 2008

The closure of Publishing News on 25 July marked the end of an era in book trade journalism. MD Jo Henry and editor Liz Thomson thought they had a year to try to turn it round, but time was called after nine months, due to the relentlessly declining advertising revenues.  Read more