Category: publishing

“Pope Benedict XVI’s new book sold more than 50,000 copies on its first day on sale Monday – the pontiff’s 80th birthday – said the Italian publisher Rizzoli, which has decided on another printing. Rizzoli said yesterday the new edition would bring the printing to 420,000 copies. The 448-page book was published in German, Italian and Polish. An English-language edition is due on May 15 and translations are planned for 16 other languages.”

“What gets read should not be determined solely by the size of publishers’ promotion budgets or the muscle of bookshop chains. Literary awards are a vital, and equalising, means of alerting readers to rewarding books.”

“Dickens World is a theme park based on the Victorian answer to Mickey Mouse. Opening in Kent at the end of next month, it’s a day out for the family that brings to life the 15 novels by Charles Dickens; actually make that 13 – they haven’t managed to squeeze in Barnaby Rudge or Bleak House. Never mind that the books tackle child exploitation, poverty, murder and domestic violence; the indoor attraction is based on designs by the creator of Santa World in Sweden so the emphasis is firmly on fun, fun, fun.”

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has, for the past 16 weeks, looked to be the invincible champion of the bestseller lists, despite being more than three months away from publication. But the wizardy whippersnapper hadn’t reckoned on the return of an even more popular author: JRR Tolkien has come back from beyond the grave to seize the throne of Amazon’s book charts.”

A neighborhood bookstore on Chicago’s far north side is on the verge of giving up the ghost after nearly 20 years in business. “As walk-in sales have declined, the store has expanded its services by providing textbooks required for local college courses and by supplying books for sale at academic and other conferences on such topics as adoption, infertility and women’s studies. They’ve also buttressed their bottom line with bulk sales to libraries, schools and corporations.” But in the end, it may not be enough.

Among the Pulitzer prizewinners announced this week are no fewer than three books published by Alfred A. Knopf. “This is the fourth time that Knopf has achieved a Pulitzer trifecta. It last did so in 1996, [and before that] in 1988 and 1991.”

“You might be forgiven for thinking that the London Book Fair is about books and authors — and of course in a sense it is. It is just that few books and even fewer authors are seen here. Rather, with the public excluded from the fair’s site, the hangarlike spaces of Earls Court One in west London, thousands of book editors, agents and scouts are able to indulge in their favorite pastime: schmoozing.”

“Best-selling Canadian author Yann Martel, worried about Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s apparent lack of interest in the arts, sent him a book on Monday and said he would continue doing so once a fortnight.”

“Kiran Desai and Anne Tyler were among six finalists tapped for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction, the U.K.’s annual literary award for women, whose winner will take home 30,000 pounds ($59,700) and a bronze statuette known as ‘the Bessie.’ “

“This year’s shortlist is made up of Rebecca Carter, who is an editor at large at Random House, Susanna Lob, the head of marketing, reference and online publishing at Oxford University Press, and Annette Thomas, the managing director of Nature Publishing Group.”