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News stories from the book world in January 2013

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A challenge to Harry Potter?

30 December 2013

The latest self-publishing success story comes from the most unlikely place - France. Or perhaps it is not so surprising, since the French publishing world is known for its rigidity and for its success at fighting off change of any kind, leaving the literary establishment firmly in charge.  Read more

‘And the winner is...'

23 December 2013

The world of big literary prizes has become much more complicated. It used to be just the Booker amongst English-language prizes which was of international interest, in spite of the fact that only UK and Commonwealth authors' books could be entered.  Read more

Short story site

16 December 2013

A new site for short story writers and readers has recently launched. Yaktale is a place where writers can post their stories, after they have emailed with the request and sent a brief account of past work. Already existing writers on Yaktale have the ability to invite other writers onboard, but they only have a limited number of invites so they are encouraged to distribute them wisely.  Read more

Self-publishing v publishing traditionally

9 December 2013

A very interesting article from Digital Book World explores some fascinating research into writers' different approaches to publishing traditionally and self-publishing. This relates to a study from last year carried out by Digital Book World and Writer's Digest and involving American 5,000 authors.  Read more

Finding a publisher through self-publishing

2 December 2013

Pan MacmillanOne of largest fiction and non-fiction book publishers in UK; includes imprints of Pan, Picador and Macmillan Children’s Books in the UK has just acquired Mary Wood, a self-published author of five historical sagas, taking on all five as well as two new books. Pan Macmillan will publish the novels in paperback and e-book throughout 2014 and 2015.  Read more

Ebook growth slows

25 November 2013

This week has yielded some rather unexpected figures from both sides of the Atlantic relating to ebook sales. In the States it looks as if ebook sales are in decline, whereas in the UK there's also a tempering in projections of ebook growth.  Read more

Google triumphs

18 November 2013

After eight years of litigation over Google's scanning of more than 20 million books in libraries, Judge Denny Chin has come down in their favour:  Read more

Bestselling trends

11 November 2013

A recent investigation by USA Today into their bestseller lists of the last thirty years throws an interesting light on changes in bestsellerdom and background changes in the way in which books are bought and sold.  Read more

A setback for Amazon?

4 November 2013

Last week's news of the departure of Larry Kirshbaum, the respected and successful publisher turned agent who Amazon hired to head up their trade publishing venture, was greeted with a certain amount of glee amongst all those who are fearful of the giant online retailer. But what does it really mean?  Read more

A great shortlist for the T S Eliot Prize

28 October 2013

The shortlist for the 2013 T S Eliot Prize for Poetry is an interesting and diverse one.  Read more

A week of prizes

21 October 2013

This has been a week full of prize announcements, with Alice Munro being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and Eleanor Catton winning the Booker.  Read more

'It's incredibly bullish out there'

14 October 2013

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. seems to have been a great success this year, amidst signs that publishers have been having a better time than in recent years and are more actively buying and publishing. Amongst the reasons for this are an improved outlook in Europe and the fact that for many publishers ebooks are making a solid and cost-effective contribution.  Read more