News from the Book Publishing World

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News from the Book Publishing world. Click the headlines to read the full articles.
 
I had an interesting experience recently, one that emblemizes the continuing turf-war indie writers can get unwittingly caught up in amongst factions of the publishing world: those many have attempted to engage with little or no success (trad...
There is a vicious rumor circulating that modern business speakers are facing more and more expectation to be funny. David Nihill may well have started this rumor with is new book Do You Talk Funny, 7 Comedy Habits to Become a Better (and Funnier) ...
 Amazon has a new tool for its Kindle Direct Publishing authors, via a new KDP EDU wing of the same aimed at educators and academic institutions. It’s called the Kindle Textbook Creator, and it lets authors prepare electronic textbooks for...
Image courtesy Flickr user Edison German Public libraries can often go under-appreciated in the days of Netflix, Spotify and Kindle. But that doesn't mean they should go unnoticed. As many public libraries grapple with how to stay relevant in the d...
I love magazines, which is why I am alarmed and dismayed by the fact that they're doomed. How do I know? I've read about it, of course. In magazines. Not only that, but I process the incoming periodicals at the library where I work, which means I...
Every January millions of people make resolutions to improve themselves in some way. Whether it's to eat healthier, volunteer more often or learn a new language many of these people give up after only a few months for various reasons, mostly because ...
Ancient papyrus scrolls charred in the same volcanic eruption that wiped out the city of Pompeii are a step closer to revealing their secrets thanks to a cutting-edge application of X-rays. The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD also leveled the nea...
Here’s a question I’ve been asked a number of times: What’s the average income from self-publishing a book?My answer isn’t necessarily a terribly helpful one. It truly depends one what you mean by average — do you mean t...
How many books have you been “meaning to read”? Personally I’ve avoided contact with the third of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels since Christmas (I know it’ll be all-consuming) and am ashamed to admit I don’t even own a copy of War an...
By Julianna Haubner for Off the Shelf For many, the question "What's your favorite book?" elicits feelings of terror, dread, and exhaustion. Racking your brain for that semi-impressive title that will show you pay attention, that you're intellectual...
For writers of the imagination, what we fear the most is a disruption, a blockage, a sudden dam that changes the course of the river of creativity. Back in the late sixties and early seventies when technological innovation began to creep into the ...
If you waited out this year's holiday shopping season to pick-up a new notebook or hybrid 2-in-1 device, you're about to be handsomely rewarded for your patience it appears. I've been spending some quality time with Dell's impressive new XPS 13 Ultra...
A leading private school offers revision help by publishing free online textbooks to cover an entire exam course.
If you love to read and, like so many Americans, have downloaded an ebook onto a tablet or Amazon Kindle, you'll be heartened to hear that the news out of New York's publishing industry is good for readers of fiction and nonfiction alike. I took a ...
For the past few months, our distributor (Ingram) has been encouraging She Writes Press to price our e-books above $9.99. Because we are distributed by Ingram, we will not be penalized by Amazon for pricing above this price point, and publishers expe...
We all complain about social media because it takes so much time, but there is nothing we can do about it. It's the way the world has changed and we have to adapt. We can adapt enthusiastically because social media gives authors an unprecedented oppo...
Let me preface this article by saying that this isn't a new trend, it's been building for a while, but changes in the industry are forcing this even more. What changes, you say? Well, Amazon for one thing. And no, this isn't an article about how Amaz...
On New Year's Day, I sat on the floor of a thrift store near Wells, Maine, leafing through the yellowing pages of an Alice Notley narrative poem. I silently read each stanza, startled by the way its strange staccato rhythm entered me, and thought: ...
The American philosopher Richard Rorty once wrote that academe's obsession with theory creates a 'shibboleth' in the university system, sheltering and confining its debates and polemics from the public sphere. Rorty made this accusation back in the m...
I didn't know quitting was an option. I imagine that sounds a little like a derivation of one of those motivational-slash-inspirational mantras that someone with a title like "life coach" shouts at an unreasonable volume, or possibly the beginning o...
Two leading African newspapers apologise for publishing Charlie Hebdo's cover depicting Prophet Muhammad, after an outcry from Muslim readers.
Originally published on AbeBooks A bibliophile cannot walk past a bookshop without slowing their step. We will linger at the window, gazing through the glass at stacks of books we have not yet read. We hover, telling ourselves we must read the pile ...
As a writing coach and publisher, I'm not supposed to take sides when it comes to genres. I work on all kinds of books--novels, how-to books, essay collections, anthologies, and even poetry collections; but memoir is my true love, and for me the most...
The US secretary of state is to meet his Iranian counterpart in Geneva in a bid to revive stalled talks over Iran's nuclear programme.
"Whatever a university looks like today, it seems certain that the universities of 2030 will look very different."Nature, 16 October, 2014 "Change is on the horizon, and the obstacles to innovation in higher education will be overcome one way or ano...
New figures from Nielsen BookScan show continuing decline since 2009 as more and more readers migrate to ebooksPrint sales of adult fiction have declined by over £150m since 2009, new figures show, as ebooks take an increasingly large bite out ...
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi is the birthplace of William Faulkner, Richard Wright and recent U.S. poet laureate Natasha Trethewey. However, some lawmakers say they want to look beyond the secular literary world and designate the Bible as the ...
 Macmillan, one of the “Big Five” book publishers in the United States, is making its titles available on subscription e-book services Oyster and Scribd, starting today. The news isn’t exactly a surprise, since Macmillan CEO Jo...
By Regan McMahon, Common Sense Media book editor We all want to find entertaining reads for our kids and tweens, but unfortunately, even some of the best stories reinforce body and gender stereotypes. Girl characters are judged by how pretty they ar...
Note: Some of these coloring books are especially adult. You have been warned. Coloring is not just for kids. We've established that. The act of coloring "incorporates the areas of the cerebral cortex involved in vision and fine motor skills," psych...
When we think of “hacks,” many of us think of tricks to make a task quicker and easier than we’d previously believed possible. And of course, people have been trying to “hack” reading for decades, whether through speed-reading courses or ap...
A new app for iPad lets you share your annotations of texts with friends and colleagues. Are ebooks finally catching up with the rest of the online world?I had a frustrating experience over Christmas: an online film rental service took my money,...
Waterstones and Foyles are reporting the rare example of a groundbreaking technology being supplanted by its predecessorRumours of the death of the book have been exaggerated, it seems. Sales of ebooks, the supposed nemesis of the traditional tome, h...
In the lead-up to CES 2015 this year, we were briefed on Intel's forthcoming family of 5th Generation Core Series processors that are based on their 14nm Broadwell architecture. For many consumers, except for tech geeks and power users, a processor l...
 Early last year, LinkedIn opened up its publishing platform to all members, initially arriving for a selection of English-language speakers on the network. Previously, access to the blogging platform had been limited to a small, editorially se...
Readers of this blog will be aware of the macro trends we see as we move into 2015; mobile first, identified and measurable distribution channels and the need to change behaviours both internally and externally in order to execute. Detailing out thes...
Joni Evans has been in the publishing industry for over four decades, representing bestselling authors during her time at the William Morris Agency and serving as President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster and Publisher at Random House. Today, she i...
There was a day when most of the consumer PC designs were driven by corporate PC designs. This was in the day of WordPerfect, Harvard Graphics and Lotus 1-2-3. A lot has changed since then and for the most part, it has been consumer PC design driving...
This is a re-post from Forbes Managing Editor Bruce Upbin. Please click here to access the original on Bruce's blog. We’re two months away from publishing our annual Midas List of tech’s 100 top venture investors, the definitive ranking of risk-...
With the public promiscuously hopping from one format to another, reports of the e-reader’s death look distinctly prematureWe have barely stumbled into 2015 and already some commentators are calling time on the ebook. The analysis was provoked by W...
The best novels are immersive -- either their plots compel readers to turn page after page, or their ideas buzz wildly in our minds. But novels necessarily don't inundate all of our senses. Unlike most other artistic mediums, much of the sensory legw...
What if I told you that you could simply and easily revive an old or older book and start making sales on it again? Would you be game? Most of us who have been writing for a while are sitting on a lot of content and a lot of older books that are ta...
Broke and beleaguered college students sick of being gouged when buying textbooks need only to head on over to this Reddit AMA to learn about OccupytheBookstore.com, a new Chrome plug-in that "overlays competitive market prices for textbooks directly...
Across the globe, 126 million youth are illiterate, but a new app could significantly reduce that dire figure. While millions of children are not enrolled in school, getting them through the door of a classroom isn’t enough to get them reading be...
It's common knowledge that tabloid magazines tend to objectify and sexualize women more than men. However, this double standard becomes even more apparent when you put six months of images side by side. In the video "The Experiment," writer Kate Ha...
In the unlikely event that your well of reading recommendation resources has run dry, we've gathered together to-read lists from a handful of esteemed literary magazine editors. Below, the editors of Narrative Magazine, A Public Space, AGNI and The S...
In case you haven’t noticed, skills-based volunteering is fast becoming a popular way for companies and their employees to give back.  So popular that it’s the fastest growing trend in corporate employee engagement.  According to CECP’s 2014 ...
Welcome to my annual publishing industry predictions for the year ahead. This year I share 12 predictions. Before I speculate about what 2015 holds for authors, publishers and readers, let's reflect for a moment about how self publishing has transf...

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