Category: publishing

“The Book Industry Study Group estimates that sales fell from 8.27 books per person in 2001 to 7.93 in 2006. According to the Department of Labor, American households spent an average of a hundred and sixty-three dollars on reading in 1995 and a hundred and twenty-six dollars in 2005.”

“There’s something fishy about any argument that begins from the position that poetry, which has been created and shared for millennia, depends for its flourishing on the strict application of copyright law… All the evidence of the online era suggests that getting tough on copyright infringement and trying to build legal walls in cyberspace certainly doesn’t work.”

“The letter has been signed by 545 writers including Nick Hornby, Joanna Trollope, Kate Mosse, Jackie Collins and Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. It cites official statistics which show that one in five 11-year-olds leaving primary school is unable to read to the minimum standard for that age group.”

“The Americans go for self-help books, the French buy unreadable philosophy books and the British buy books filled with trivia, which are often made up and generally aimed at being funny. Those are the stereotypes, and they’re not completely misleading.”

The giant online retailer paid a record £1.95 million for “The Tales of Beedle the Bard.” “The price is the highest achieved at auction for a modern literary manuscript, a record for a manuscript by JK Rowling and a record for a children’s book. All sale proceeds will go to The Children’s Voice, a charity set up by Rowling to help vulnerable children in Europe.”

“A handwritten, illustrated book of wizardry by Harry Potter author JK Rowling has fetched a record 1.95 million pounds ($4.54 million) at auction, almost 40 times its expected price. The Tales of Beedle the Bard had been expected to go for up to 50,000 pounds at the Sotheby’s sale.”

Bookstore sales increased for the fourth consecutive month in October, rising 8.0%, to $1.10 billion.

“Well-known writers everywhere must chortle at the modern willingness to fork out for their assorted scribbles. Only in recent times have authors managed to extract such huge sums in their lifetimes.”

“Using ‘loss-leaders,’ or selling products below cost to attract customers, is illegal. Other restrictions apply to books retailers must not offer discounts of more than 5 percent on the publisher’s recommended price. The free delivery offered by Amazon exceeded the legal limit in the case of cheaper books, the union charged.”