Just one week before Borders filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Powell's Books in Portland, Ore., laid off 31 employees, or 7% of its workforce, a move that followed downsizing the staff through attrition in 2010. While the situation at Powell's is not dire, unlike that of the nation's... Continue reading >> [ Source: Publishers Weekly | 2011-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
Nearly 40% of Russia's book sales in 2009 came from independent bookstores. Bookshop chains contributed around 20%, and only 8% were transacted online. The dependence on bricks-and-mortar outlets remains unassailable even though bookstores outside of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and some other major... Continue reading >> [ Source: Publishers Weekly | 2011-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Mon, 04/04/2011 - 15:00 Biteback has bought the memoir of former Northern Ireland secretary of state and anti-apartheid campaigner Peter Hain. Managing director Iain Dale bought UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Guam and South Africa) from... Continue reading >> [ Source: The Bookseller | 2011-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
Algonquin Books held the first in its new Algonquin Book Club Author Interviews March 21 at Miami's independent bookseller Books & Books, where local author Edwidge Danticat and local favorite Julia Alvarez sat down to talk about Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies. The sold-out event... Continue reading >> [ Source: Publishers Weekly | 2011-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
Written By: Bookseller Staff Publication Date: Mon, 04/04/2011 - 09:00 Amazon has emerged as the surprise underbidder on a multi-million dollar auction for a self-published author, the first time the retailer is believed to have bid on frontlist. read more Continue reading >> [ Source: The Bookseller | 2011-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
The current crop of Russian publishers is collectively on the young side, many of them born shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Then, teething problems were many and the growth path rocky at times. But today these publishers produce nearly 120,000 new titles per year,... Continue reading >> [ Source: Publishers Weekly | 2011-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
Translations account for about 12% of all titles published in Russia in 2010. Here, as in other corners of the world, American and British blockbusters are translated and almost guaranteed top slots on the bestseller list. Names like J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Agatha Christie,... Continue reading >> [ Source: Publishers Weekly | 2011-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
Talk about transformation. In a span of 20 years, the Russian book market has made a 180-degree shift, from state-owned publishing and distribution to privately held (except for a few exceptions) and increasingly client driven. Every component of its book market was created overnight, after... Continue reading >> [ Source: Publishers Weekly | 2011-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
Several years ago, when I was not a bookstore employee but merely a regular customer, I wrote up BookCourt, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, for the Village Voice's Best of New York. My entry posited, though I had no evidence to support it, that single people claimed the bookstore was good... Continue reading >> [ Source: Slate | 2011-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Fri, 01/04/2011 - 10:32 Canongate has signed a book it describes as a "fearlessly modern coming of age novel" from a 19-year-old début author. Senior editor Francis Bickmore bought world rights in a pre-emptive deal from Jon Elek at A P Watt.... Continue reading >> [ Source: The Bookseller | 2011-04-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
Written By: Bookseller Staff Publication Date: Fri, 01/04/2011 - 11:26 Aitken Alexander is reporting strong interest in Grace McLeen's The Land of Decoration, sold last month to Chatto in the UK, Holt in the United States, HarperCollins in Canada and into 10 languages to date. It is about a... Continue reading >> [ Source: The Bookseller | 2011-04-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Fri, 01/04/2011 - 08:25 Bloomsbury has acquired world rights, following a "heated" five-way auction, to A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgari by debut novelist Suzanne Joinson. Editorial director Helen Garnons-Williams bought the novel in a... Continue reading >> [ Source: The Bookseller | 2011-04-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Fri, 01/04/2011 - 14:45 An upbeat Bologna Book Fair this week saw a strong US presence and a notable upturn from the past two cautious years, with publishers willing to buy, albeit selectively. read more Continue reading >> [ Source: The Bookseller | 2011-04-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
Publication Date: Fri, 01/04/2011 - 08:35 Judy Finnigan, one half of publishing phenomenon Richard and Judy, is to publish her long-rumoured first novel with Sphere. Catherine Burke, Sphere editorial director, signed world rights to two titles from Luigi Bonomi. read more Continue reading >> [ Source: The Bookseller | 2011-04-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
Zite, the app that gathers content according to a users interests and behaviors to form a personalized web magazine, has run into legal issues abound from major publishers such as Washington Post, Associated Press, Getty Images, Time and Dow Jones. Continue reading >> [ Source: Folio Magazine | 2011-04-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
Publication Date: Fri, 01/04/2011 - 11:14 Six titles spanning imperial Japan to 19th-century Jamaica have been shortlisted for the second Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction, worth £25,000. Andrea Levy's The Long Song (Headline Review) and Tom McCarthy's C (Jonathan Cape) both shortlisted... Continue reading >> [ Source: The Bookseller | 2011-04-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
The number of "promo pages"-advertorial and other pages labeled as advertising or promotion but produced to resemble editorial and often carrying tags such as "Must-haves" and "Essentials"-grew 9 percent in MPA member magazines in 2010, according to ad tracker MagazineRadar. Continue reading >> [ Source: Folio Magazine | 2011-04-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Fri, 01/04/2011 - 10:33 Tonto Books has bought rights to the frank memoir of former Inspiral Carpets frontman Tom Hingley. Tonto publisher Stu Wheatman bought world rights direct from Hingley to the aptly-titled Carpet Burns. The title will be... Continue reading >> [ Source: The Bookseller | 2011-04-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
As you may have heard, the cookbook sensation of the season, if not the decade, is Modernist Cuisine, a six-volume magnum opus on contemporary cooking principles that will set you back roughly $500. Self-published by Nathan Myhrvoldthe genius founder of Microsoft's research division,... Continue reading >> [ Source: Slate | 2011-04-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
Written By: Philip Jones and Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Fri, 01/04/2011 - 08:50 Literary agent Sonia Land has warned book publishers they will lose control over authors digital backlists unless they improve their royalty offer. Land this week announced her decision to publish 100 of... Continue reading >> [ Source: The Bookseller | 2011-04-01 00:00:00 UTC ]