Category: publishing

“Films won and books lost. That’s the story of the 20th century – the story of where the stories went,” Toby Litt observes. An emphasis on strong plot and the rejection of fiction’s digressive powers seems to be the order of the day. We just don’t do longueurs anymore.

“While the upper-classes remain perennially interesting to publishers and readers alike, is it affluent middle-class or working-class characters who are being squeezed out of literary fiction?”

“Independents in Australia are healthier than anywhere else in the world. There is definitely a rejuvenation and things are looking bright. We see e-books as a really good opportunity to expand our business and just another format that complements the hardback, the paperback and the audio book.”

“The book, which is palm-sized and still leather-bound in its original cover, is believed to have been buried with St Cuthbert on Lindisfarne in 698, before the saint and his tome were later reburied in what would become Durham cathedral. The St Cuthbert Gospel has been on loan to the British Library since 1979.”

“The heavily corrected manuscript from Austen’s uncompleted novel The Watsons, written in about 1804, fetched £993,250 at Sotheby’s to a round of applause. It had been expected to reach £200,000-£300,000.”

“A £9m appeal has been launched by the British Library to buy the oldest intact book in Europe, a palm-sized leather-bound copy of the gospels buried 1,300 years ago in the coffin of Saint Cuthbert.”

Book Barge founder Sarah Henshaw: “I hoped that by creating a unique retail space, customers would realise how independent bookshops can offer a far more pleasurable shopping experience than they’re likely to find online” or in a chain store. (The Barge is currently on a six-month tour of England’s canals.)

It “temporarily upended the conventional wisdom in the book business that devoted readers of genre fiction — whether romance, sci-fi or fantasy — have begun to prefer reading in e-book format over print. According to first-day sales collected by Random House, more than 170,000 print copies and 110,000 e-book copies sold on Tuesday, the largest opening for a Random House book in 2011.”

“Independent booksellers around the country said it quickly emerged as their biggest book of the summer, selling rapidly despite its doorstopper appearance (1,016 pages) and hefty price ($35 undiscounted).”

“It’s an argument between reason and emotion, between your brain and your gut. Amazon has no intellectually sound arguments against collecting taxes from residents – by all ethical and civic standards, its position is unsound. Instead, Amazon is counting on our emotions prevailing – on loyal, tax-savvy customers like me lashing out at our price-hiking legislators.”