The Independent reports:
For the first time since April, a new title has replaced Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo at the top of Amazon's list of best-selling Kindle e-books. For the week ending August 29, Suzanne Collins's Mockingjay, the final title in her trilogy The Hunger Games, is the top-selling e-book among Kindle users.
PW Launches Select - a listing of self-published titles
In launching its new listing service, Select, Publishers Weekly (US) writes:
The rise in self-publishing, DIY, subsidy or vanity publishing--whichever term you prefer--is probably one of the most significant changes in the publishing industry in recent years. Since Publishers Weekly was founded in 1872, the magazine has strived to cover the entire publishing industry and this new supplement is simply our latest effort to fulfill our historic mandate. Over the last 20 years, self-publishing has produced an explosion of new authors and new books. Nearly 800,000 books were produced in the U.S. last year and were characterized by Bowker as "nontraditional"; much of this was self-published and POD.
The fee to be included in the "inaugural listing" will be $149, with no guarantee of a review. The new supplement will be released quarterly, with the first one in PW's year-end issue in December.
In the meantime, new authors can suggest their titles for inclusion in ACHUKA's own self-published selection: http://www.achuka.co.uk/indie.php [currently for free!]
from a Guardian report:
Ahead of the massive spending cuts to be set out by the coalition government in October, McKearney is hopeful the scheme will survive. "This project is so important for children, and for libraries: the number of books issued as a result of the SRC now represents 20% of the total books issued every year.
"The scheme has built up really strong momentum. Although we're a tiny team - just one director and a few part-time staff - we have a huge impact on children. With all the talk of a 'big society', this is a very interesting model of how you can support local innovation through national charity co-ordination," she adds.
Miranda McKearney (director of the Reading Challenge) believes that schools and parents shouldn't be left alone to support children's reading. "It should be whole community effort. Through the SRC, libraries encourage children to become enthusiastic readers when schools aren't in action. They add value to a child's reading growth in a unique way that combines so beautifully with what schools are doing." And, McKearney adds with a nod to the fears of library cuts, "long may it continue."
Wall Street Journal / Speakeasy
Recommended link
extract:
But you're not anti-technology. You're constantly updating your Curious Pages blog, which highlights fun children's books you enjoy. Yes, that was an antidote of mine to all of those overly earnest "guardian" blogs out there that state what children should be reading. I thought, those weren't the books that I enjoyed reading when I was a kid, so I decided to just blog about odd books I loved. As for the other stuff, I don't Twitter and I'm not on Facebook, but I'm dying to get an iPad. And I love all my other stuff -- my iPod and iPhone. But i don't Twitter because there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day.
Sally Morris reviewed three titles yesterday:
WHISPER MY NAME by Jane Eagland
"The Victorian fascination with spiritualism is at the heart of this atmospheric, dramatic novel led by a suitably feisty heroine."
THE 10PM QUESTION by Kate De Goldi
"A highly original, poignant and funny story that should appeal to adults as well as teens."
DEAD MAN'S COVE by Lauren St John
"Orphans, Cornwall, detectives and dogs - this simply ticks all the right boxes. The first in a warmly-awaited series."
a study suggests that the savage portrayal of headteachers in children's literature possesses a grain of truth and may even be helpful when it comes to training teachers who aspire to lead schools...
In a study to be presented to the British Educational Research Association's annual conference at Warwick University today, Thomson says the books' willingness to encourage children to think about power may help to make the stories more truthful than many adult discussions about school leadership. The books encouraged children to take responsibility and overturn unreasonable social conventions. The stories also acted as cautionary tales, warning that children who made the wrong choices must learn to be responsible.
Guardian First Book Award - the longlist
Fiction
Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt (Fig Tree)
Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman (Sceptre)
Things We Didn't See Coming by Steven Amsterdam (Harvill)
Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto by Maile Chapman (Cape)
Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed (HarperCollins)
Non-fiction
Bomber County: The Lost Airmen of World War Two by Daniel Swift (Hamish Hamilton)
Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz (Portobello)
Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by Alexandra Harris (Thames & Hudson)
Curfewed Night: A Frontline Memoir of Life, Love and War in Kashmir by Basharat Peer (HarperCollins)
Poetry
The Floating Man by Katharine Towers (Picador)
Claire Armitstead (chair) will be joined on the judging panel by the artistic director of the ICA, Ekow Eshun, the author Adam Foulds, the biographer Richard Holmes, the actor Diana Quick, the Guardian's deputy editor, Kath Viner, and Stuart Broom from Waterstone's, who will represent the views of five reading groups hosted in Waterstone's bookshops around the country.
The shortlist for this year's prize will be announced in late October, with the winner revealed at the beginning of December.
There are going to be two significant new sections on ACHUKA.
A selection of the most interesting new adult titles, focusing on Art, Photography and Poetry.
And a section in which we will be helping small independents and self-publishing authors and artists to promote their work.
I shall welcome suggestions and recommendations for both the new sections.
For a preview of the redesigned entrypage go to:
http://www.achuka.co.uk/index2new.php
The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
reviewed by Patrick Ness
Almost fatally, Zafón never properly defines The Prince of Mist's powers - an omnipotent and all-powerful villain is paradoxically less threatening than one who has to operate within rules - and the book's climax, in particular, doesn't bear a lot of scrutiny.
There's also a startlingly old-fashioned approach to the prose. The opening line - "Max would never forget that faraway summer when, almost by chance, he discovered magic" - is so musty, you want to wipe it with a damp cloth, and the nostalgia is always just on the wrong side of stodgy to ever feel quite timeless. Besides, who would this nostalgia be for? Children aren't necessarily going to care for pastiches of wartime children's literature. They're more likely to wonder if there really were home movie cameras back then portable enough for a seven-year-old to use (I'm guessing probably not).
Once The Prince of Mist gets moving, though, Zafón's real strength shines through: chills. There are some genuinely, deliciously scary sequences that will thrill young readers, particularly if they, like me, have a thing about clowns. And by "thing about", I mean "terrified hatred of". The unevenness here is probably that of a first-time novelist finding his feet, but there are treats enough for an enjoyable read. PATRICK NESS
http://nosycrow.com/blog/we-ve-sorted-sales-and-distribution
Nosy Cropw announced earlier this week that they have appointed Bounce! Sales and Marketing as their UK and export sales agency. Bounce! will start selling Nosy Crow books immediately, in time for the publication of the first batch of titles in January 2011.
Bounce! is a specialist children's agency who sell books for several children's book publishers, including Templar and Piccadilly Press.
Grantham Book Services (GBS) has been selected as Nosy Crow's distributor.
Laure Atkins writes:
Children's literature has always courted controversy, from eighteenth-century
debates concerning the dangers of fairy tales to publications of the last fifty
years--such as Falling (1995) by Anne Provoost or Doing It
(2003) by Melvin Burgess--that further challenge notions of what is suitable
reading material for young readers. Nor can children's authors stand aside from
the conflicts and political debates of their age, since these will resonate at
some level in all writing for the next generation. This conference will address
controversial subject matter in children's fiction; the fictional coverage of
national and international conflicts, and question any lingering assumptions
that children's literature is, or should be, apolitical.
The conference will include keynote presentations by well-known writers,
publishers and academics. Proposals are welcomed for workshop sessions (lasting
about 20 minutes) on the following or other relevant issues/areas from any
period in the history of international children's literature:
We welcome contributions from interested academics and others researchers in
any of these areas. Brief accounts of the papers that are presented at the
conference will be published in the Spring 2011 issue of IBBYLink, the
journal of British IBBY.
The deadline for proposals is 31st August 2010. Please email a
200-word abstract (for a 20-minute paper), along with a short biography and
affiliation to Laura Atkins: L.Atkins@roehampton.ac.uk
Beijing International Book Fair - Digitization
Sales of ebooks and digital products flew dramatically last year, hitting some 80 billion RMB ($11.8 billion) in 2009 - up from 50 billion RMB ($7.35 billion USD) in 2008. It still represents less than 10% of the overall book market, which is valued at just over a trillion RMB ($150 billion USD).
E-readers in particular have become a hot product. As reported here last month, Shanda Literature Group -- the country's largest digital publisher -- released heir first dedicated e-reader, the Bambook.
In May, China Mobile -- the world's largest cell phone carrier -- announced that it was building China's largest online digital bookstore. The company plans to offer its subscribers 3G wireless access to online publications including digital books, comics, newspapers and magazines -- some 60,000 titles in all -- and hopes to attract some 200 million users over the next five years.
Earlier, in April, China Publishing Group -- the country's largest traditional publisher -- and Shanghai Century Publishing Group also released their own e-readers.
To get a sense of the pace of growth, consider just one ereader manufacturer: Hanwang. In 2009, Hanwang reported total sales of 270,000 e-readers; this year, the company nearly matched the number in sales in the first quarter alone and expects total units to surpass a million by the end of the year.
Digitization is pushing publishing into "a new historical period" and offering "unprecedented opportunities, according to Sun Shoushan, deputy director of China's General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), who made the remarks earlier this year
Floris Books press release....
Scottish publisher Floris Books yesterday revealed that Aberdeenshire author Caroline Clough is the
winner of their annual Scottish children's fiction prize, the Kelpies Prize. The announcement was
made at a packed ceremony at the Edinburgh International Book Festival attended by representatives
from all aspects of Scotland's lively literary scene.
The Edinburgh-based publisher re-launched the Kelpies Prize in 2004 with support from the Scottish
Arts Council, now part of Creative Scotland, to encourage and reward Scottish writing for children.
Caroline received a cheque for £2,000 on the night (see attached photograph). Her book will become
the latest release in the Kelpies range published on 21st October 2010.
Scottish children's author Gill Arbuthnott, whose debut novel was published by Floris Books,
presented the award. In her speech Gill gave her advice to would-be authors, whose greatest
challenge, she has found, is not having ideas but actually writing. She advised that sometimes the
only option is to "feed the kids pot noodles, lock them in a cupboard and never do any housework."
A shocked Caroline said that she was "thrilled to bits" about winning the prize. She also revealed
that she had almost missed out on submitting an entry to the prize as she only became aware of
the award's existence shortly before the deadline. The judges were very impressed to hear that
Caroline was so determined to submit an entry that she wrote her novel in just ten days.
Originally from Yorkshire, Caroline has lived in Aberdeenshire for nearly 30 years. As well as writing,
she also directs and produces short films. Red Fever will be her first published novel.
"We had several excellent entries this year", commented Sally Martin, Commissioning Editor for
Floris Books. "But Red Fever stood out for its originality, atmospheric writing, and its vivid depiction
of life on the Aberdeenshire coast in a post-apocalyptic world. We are thrilled to be publishing Red
Fever and to welcome Caroline Clough as a new author to the Kelpies list."
The other shortlisted authors were Elizabeth Spalton, author of Operation Bonobo which is set in
Dumfries and Galloway, and Ritske Rensma, author of The Angel Ashariel, who flew in from his
home in the Netherlands to attend the ceremony.
Kelpies Prize 2011
Manuscripts are now invited for submission to the Kelpies Prize 2011. They must be set wholly, or
mainly, in Scotland and be suitable for children aged 8 to 12. They may not have been previously
commercially published, although the author may have been. The judges are looking primarily for
a cracking story with strong characters, believable dialogue and a compelling atmosphere. The
deadline is 28 February 2011. For full rules and guidelines, see www.florisbooks.co.uk/kelpiesprize
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