This is a repost of our best of 2012 postings. Enjoy the festive season… Amazon has become a primary market for book sellers and self-published authors. Writers can promote and sell their books on the site without ever having to be published in print. It has even allowed a few writers to rise from obscurity…
There’s A Hole In My Sock Puppet | Radio Litopia’s Naked Book
There’s A Hole In My Sock Puppet Sock puppets of the world look on. This week The Naked Book interviewed puppet hunter extraordinaire the thriller writer Jeremy Duns. Duns exposed crime-writer R J Ellory last week, and he has been seeking the truth about Stephen Leather’s anonymous accounts and activities since Harrogate. But who is…
Ellory Finally Puts His Hands Up Something Other Than Puppets
Author Talk: R J Ellory – Saints of New York @ Dunedin City Library (Photo credit: Dunedin Public Libraries) The US may be enjoying its long Labour Day bank holiday this weekend over barbecues, but the controversy surrounding British author RJ Ellory writing fake reviews for his books and slating the books of fellow authors…
NovelScribe Launches Search Tool For Self-Published Authors on Amazon
NovelScribe, launched earlier this month, is an archive of direct links of books by self-published and small press authors hosted on Amazon. The idea for NovelScribe came from founder, Tracy Leach. Below, Tracy introduces us to NovelScribe and how it works. One day while trawling Amazon’s forum for tips for my own writing journey, I came…
The Future of Publishing 2020: Disruption
I’ve been preparing these articles for a while on The Future of Publishing 2020. One thing I have learned is that predicting the future based on current practices and trends is a precarious business. The publishing industry–as a community and business–is undergoing an utter sea change in methodology and ideology not seen since Gutenberg’s first…
Averill and Sirois Win Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards 2012
The general fiction and young adult fiction winners of the Amazon and Penguin Group Breakthrough Novel Awards for 2012 were announced yesterday at a ceremony held at The Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, Washington. Alan Averill won the prize in the general fiction category for his novel, The Beautiful Land, and Regina Sirois won the…
Amazon Publishing Acquires Avalon Books
Amazon Publishing has acquired romance and western publisher Avalon Books. This news may very well be the start of a long line of acquisitions for the giant retailer and publisher. From the press release: SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jun. 4, 2012– Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Avalon Books today announced that Amazon Publishing has acquired the publication rights from Avalon Books to over 3,000 backlist titles predominantly…
John Oakes of Or Books on Disintermediation
I’m currently researching a piece at the moment on control, disruption and discoverability in the publishing world, so I was certainly interested to come upon this piece by John Oakes of Or Books on Amazon and disintermediation which appeared late last week on Publishers Weekly. I’m all for large publishers embracing the digital revolution – in-house as…
Finalists Announced For Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2012
The six finalists in the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award have been announced today. The three general fiction and three young adult fiction authors and listed below with the two overall winners in each category to be announced on June 16th. Alan Averill, The Beautiful Land Download an excerpt from The Beautiful Land Read the experts’ reviews…
Amazon launches CreateSpace in Europe | The Bookseller
Amazon launches CreateSpace in Europe | The Bookseller “Amazon has launched its CreateSpace today (17th May) in Europe, which means that authors who self-publish in the UK can have their books accessed in European countries and the US. Amazon’s CreateSpace platform, which has been running in the US since 2007, will now allow self-published authors…