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News stories from the book world in May 2009

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May 2009

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132% increase in US print on demand

25 May 2009

Astonishing new figures just released by Bowker in the States show that US book production declined by 3% in 2008 but print on demand publishing almost doubled. This means that a staggering 275,232 new titles and new editions were published, but this figure is actually down from the 284,370 that were published in 2007.   Read more

Agents in trouble?

18 May 2009

Agents are badly hit by the recession. There's little hard evidence of this, but cutbacks in the number of books being published have had a serious impact on their ability to earn a reasonable living.   Read more

New Poet Laureate

11 May 2009

The announcement of the new UK Poet Laureate, combined with a series of BBC programmes on poets, has brought poetry into the headlines in the UK in the last couple of weeks. The appointment of Carol Ann Duffy, the first woman to hold the post, also means that the Laureate will be someone whose work is familiar to a very wide range of people, as her books have been very successful   Read more

New Brown mega-seller coming this autumn

4 May 2009

The surprise announcement of a new novel from Dan Brown to be published in the autumn has emphasised yet again the importance of big bestsellers to the book world.  Read more