Category: publishing

“The lists will be compiled from weekly data from publishers, chain bookstores, independent booksellers and online retailers, among other sources.”

Las week Johanna Skibsrud won one of Canada’s biggest literary prizes, the Giller. But the book was published by a tiny regional press, and only 1000 copies are produced each week. It’s a problem when there’s instant demand for tens of thousands…

“Pour Les Nuls – the French version of the American For Dummies series – has overcome deep-seated snootiness to win millions of readers. Indeed, the French collection has proved more popular than any of the other 34 languages in which it is published.”

If the novel is struggling in this new environment, what of literary magazines? Long extinct? The opposite: literary magazines are getting popular again.

“Beginning December 1, Amazon said, publishers will be able to earn 70 percent of the retail price for each newspaper or magazine sold – a substantial increase over the 30 percent publishers reportedly previously received.”

“Laptops only slightly trump the Kindle, 35 percent to 32 percent. Coming in third was the iPhone, with 15 percent, followed by a Sony e-reader (12 percent), netbooks (10 percent) and the Barnes & Noble Nook (9 percent). Also at 9 percent was the iPad.”

Inspired by a British campaign which saw Tony Blair’s autobiography, A Journey, appearing under crime, horror and even fantasy in UK bookshops, the protest blog Waging Nonviolence is urging its supporters to “Move Bush’s Book Where It Belongs”, and post pictures of the autobiography in its new location.

“Last week, in a highly significant move whose implications will have repercussions throughout the industry, the Fleming estate announced it was licensing the ebook rights to the Bond books not to Penguin (which distributes the paperbacks) but to Ian Fleming Publications.”

From a literary point of view, Canada’s smaller publishers are flourishing. The story is not so rosy, however, if one asks about their financial outlook.

He wins the Goncourt Prize for his book “the Map and the Territory. “One of France’s best-known authors internationally, he also wrote the books Atomised and Platform. Houellebecq, 52, won a court case in 2002 against Muslim groups who accused him of insulting Islam.”