The current pandemic has affected just about everyone. Authors are experiencing a difficult plight as people are too distracted and as events get canceled. In addition to this, many bookstores are not even allowing browsing, while Amazon has de-prioritized many books. The fact is that the world of publishing moves very fast. If authors do…
Troubador Publishing Roll out the Festival Bookshop
For self-publishing authors, it’s the selling of their books that often proves to be hardest. Many self-publishing companies offer simple print ‘on demand’ distribution through online retailers; a few others offer distribution through ‘bricks and mortar’ retailers. But selling books to readers in a market that is increasingly competitive and dominated by the major publishers…
Damning with Quaint Praise: The Five-Star Descent of Book Criticism into a Children’s Sports Day for Adults – Henry Coburn | Guest Post
Understatement is British. It is ours inherently. It is our nature to describe abject misery as ‘a little bit of a bother’. We can denounce Tony Blair as ‘a tad disingenuous’, Susan Boyle as ‘no oil painting’, and damn eternally someone we despise as ‘not exactly charming’. Ironic litotes is our Excalibur. That is why…
London Book Fair 2017: Quantum17 Voices [Video]
Here are some short videos of attendees and speakers sharing their thoughts on the publishing industry at today’s Quantum Conference, part of this year’s London Book Fair. The Quantum programme was refined for 2017 with a renewed focus on consumers, audiences, partnerships, actionable insights and inspiration.
Pearson Steps up Moves to Sell its Stake in Penguin Random House
Pearson has said in a press communication today that operational profits will be below initial expectations for 2016 and it will not now achieve its target of £800 million in 2018. Pearson reported that North American higher education market sales in 2016 were worse than forecast, with a poor fourth quarter and a revenue drop of 30% compared with the last quarter of 2015. The press release reveals…
Reading and Writing for Pleasure: April | Douglas Burcham
Douglas continues his writing and reading for pleasure series with thoughts for April on writing matters in the news, work in progress, reading and publishing. Several years ago, I watched a TV programme showing Sir Terry Pratchett at work in front of a number of computer monitor screens. Then a little later, the news…