She published her first book in her 40s and became the biggest selling author of the past decade in any genre – The Gruffalo alone has sold 13m copies. How did this former busker make it so big?The room where the children’s author Julia Donaldson writes – the heart of her vast picture book empire – is down a winding staircase, in the cellar of her grand white house in Steyning, West Sussex. Her desk looks out on the street at knee height. “I’m thinking of writing a book about legs,” Donaldson said, as she showed me around the house this summer. Children from the nearby school often wave in at her as they pass. Donaldson is well known in Steyning, due to her frequent signings at the local bookshop. She and her husband, Malcolm, a retired paediatrician, recently bought the local post office to save it from closure. But elsewhere she can walk the pavement without being recognised. “I got a letter the other day for Jacqueline Wilson,” Donaldson told me. “It said: ‘You’re my favourite author!’”If you are not someone who spends much time with young children, you may only be dimly aware of Donaldson’s work – although you will probably be familiar with her most famous creation, the Gruffalo. If you have children, however, you will know her as a cultural juggernaut whose influence among children is perhaps only surpassed by the works of Disney and CBeebies. Donaldson, who is 72, has written more than 210 books: chiefly picture books, but also poetry, plays, a 60-part phonics... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2020-12-17 06:00:31 UTC ]
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Interested in the business of high-quality web video? There’s a lot of good stuff from Washington Post video GM Steven Schiffman in this Beet.TV interview about the Post’s broad-strokes strategy for the business side of video. ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2014-02-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The New York Times Company said it added digital subscribers and slowed its declines in print and digital advertising revenue during the fourth quarter of 2013, a year of transition for the newspaper publisher. For all of 2013, revenue from digital ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2014-02-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Time Warner, the media company that owns HBO and the Warner Bros. film studio as well as Time Inc. for a few more months, surpassed analysts' estimates for both fourth-quarter revenue and profit in results reported on Wednesday.Excluding some items, earnings were $1.17 a share, the New... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2014-02-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Seven new rights holders have signed agreements for Kindle Worlds, Amazon's model that allows writers to publish and sell authorized stories inspired by popular worlds. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-02-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Footlights, the screen legend's unseen prequel in prose to the film Limelight, reflects his sadness at declining stardomRead an extract from Footlights by Charlie ChaplinThe only work of prose fiction ever written by Charlie Chaplin, a dark, nostalgic novella which was the root of his great... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-02-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Two Pulitzer Prize-winners and a Man Booker-shortlisted author are among the 16 people longlisted... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-01-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The new section of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park at Universal Studios is expected to represent the Diagon Alley shopping area frequented by the wizarding world in the books. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-01-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The new section of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park at Universal Studios is expected to represent the Diagon Alley shopping area frequented by the wizarding world in the books. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-01-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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After casting a wide net in its search for a chief revenue officer, Time Inc. has narrowed the field to candidates including two current executives: Jed Hartman, group publisher of news and business, and Mark Ford, exec VP-president of the sports group, according to people familiar with the... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2014-01-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Radio Times, which accounts for 60% of its publisher's profits, is undergoing a transformation to woo younger readersWhile other magazine publishers chase the digital-savvy generation of under-25s Radio Times is swimming against the tide somewhat, targeting a slightly older, thirtysomething... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A few key take-aways from DBW 2014: teens aren't reading for fun, ebook sales grow overseas, Wall Street discounts publishing and Amazon is like modern art. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-01-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The fifth installment of Digital Book World, the annual New York City conference on digital publishing, was held last week. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-01-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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After months of trying to negotiate a deal behind the scenes, Charter Communications is publishing details of its offer to buy Time Warner Cable (which split from Time Warner years ago). Despite a bid that including debt is enough to nab 20 or so ... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2014-01-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hutchinson is to publish a broad-ranging book on the ancient world by author and broadcaster... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-01-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Time Inc. CEO Joe Ripp continues to fill out his leadership ranks as he prepares to spin off the publishing company from Time Warner later this year into a public entity. Today, he named Colin Bodell as evp and chief technology officer, a newly created role at Time Inc. Bodell will be charged... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2014-01-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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If these are the end times for literature, then we must be traveling in circles, for the death of storytelling looks an awful lot like its birth. The novel itself isn’t all that old. Sure, we can find a handful of examples going back thousands of years, but you have to stretch your definition of... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2014-01-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Frequently, literary agents argue that selling the territorial rights for a book has advantages over selling world rights. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-01-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Although Time Inc. began publishing books that combined the resources of its Time and Life magazines in 1961, Time-Life Books (T-L Books) was not officially established until 1964. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-01-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In 2013, Russia overtook the UK and Brazil to become the world's third largest ebook market, trailing only China (in 2nd) and the United States (first). Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-01-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The last time The New York Times embarked on a wholesale redesign of its Web site, in 2006, the iPhone wasn't on the market. Tablets like the iPad were still years away. So the new design that The Times is unveiling Wednesday is generating mu ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2014-01-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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