Print book sales declined in 2017 – Some very interesting numbers and trends here. More than 51 million print books sold (more than $1B Canadian), with the highest sales in YA/Juvenile (40%) and non-fiction (32%). Interestingly, though, two of the top five bestsellers of 2017 were both backlist titles – The ... more >
Samhain tells its authors that the doors will stay open: Chris Brashear informed Samhain authors that expense cutting strategies are keeping the publisher afloat, and they hope to re-open submissions (internally at first) by fall. They’ve also enlisted a PR service to market and promote their titles, so hopefully they ... more >
Ta-Nehisi Coates Wins National Book Award – The least surprising, but nevertheless moving, win of the night was Ta-Nehisi Coates for his non-fiction work, Between the World and Me. Adam Johnson won the award for Fiction, Neal Shusterman for Young People’s Literature, Robin Coste Lewis for Poetry, James Patterson won the Literarian Award, and Don DeLillo won ... more >
Instead of a big article, here’s a couple of tech news that I thought I’d highlight. The Snapchat Scare (or if you aren’t paying for a product, you are the product). Snapchat updated it’s privacy policy a couple of days ago. The new policy informs you that they are tracking ... more >
Book banned after Christian complaint -New Zealand now has its first banned book in more than 20 years, Ted Dawe’s Into the River, which was named Book of the Year in 2013 at the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. The ban is particularly troubling because the main character in ... more >
How to Write a ‘Big Book’ -I’m still trying to figure out if this blog post by Lev Raphael is a joke. The subject – ‘how to write a big book’ – is also its central argument: to write a ‘big book’ in traditional publishing you have to write a ... more >