Friday, 20 June 2014
An audiobook initiative that allows people to record their own audiobook clips and be rated for their performance online has won the UK publishing industry’s FutureBook Hack Prize, reports the...

Thursday, 19 June 2014
Amazon has launched a smartphone called The Fire Phone that has an inbuilt Kindle app and an app that recognises physical products that are available to buy on the Amazon store, reports...

Wednesday, 18 June 2014
Hachette UK is merging its sales teams at Little, Brown and Orion; and at Hodder & Stoughton, Headline, Hachette Children’s Books and Quercus, reports the Bookseller. Sales director at Orion, Dallas...

Wednesday, 18 June 2014
Ebook subscription service Oyster has launched an Oyster for Android app, making the service available on Android devices, Kindle Fire and Nook HD, reports Publishers Weekly. The service, which currently offers subscribers access...

Tuesday, 17 June 2014
UK book trade publication the Bookseller has announced its ‘annual run-down of the best and brightest’ book industry professionals. The list features a number of people with ‘completely new jobs...

Tuesday, 17 June 2014
British author Robert Harris has won the £25,000 (A$45,167) Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction for An Officer and a Spy (Arrow), reports the Bookseller. The judges described An Officer...

Monday, 16 June 2014
In the UK, the market share for self-published books grew by 79% in 2013, according to Nielsen statistics, reports the Guardian. UK consumers bought 18 million self-published books last year...

Monday, 16 June 2014
In the UK, organisers of the trade-wide ‘books are my bag’ (BAMB) campaign are aiming to send an author to every bookshop in the UK for the campaign’s launch, reports...

Friday, 13 June 2014
Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vásquez has won 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his novel The Sound of Things Falling (Bloomsbury), translated from the original Spanish. The €100,000 (A$144,000) award,...

Friday, 13 June 2014
In the US, the Library of Congress has named Charles Wright as the country’s next Poet Laureate, reports The New York Times. Wright, a retired professor at the University of...

Friday, 13 June 2014
Amazon has a 78% market share of Hachette’s ebooks list in the UK and a 60% share of its ebooks list in the US, an Investor Day presentation by Hachette...

Thursday, 12 June 2014
In the US, nine independent bookstores will run a Chicago Independent Bookstore Day on 12 July, following the success of the California Bookstore Day on 3 May, reports Publishers Weekly. The bookstores are offering free...

Wednesday, 11 June 2014
In the US, Laurence Copel, youth outreach librarian and founder of the Lower Ninth Ward Street Library in New Orleans, has won the inaugural Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians...

Wednesday, 11 June 2014
A crowdfunding platform for books that allows both readers and authors to profit from book sales has launched in Spain and the US, reports Publishing Perspectives. The Pentian platform allows...

Tuesday, 10 June 2014
UK bookseller Foyles has opened its new flagship London store on Charing Cross Road, reports the Bookseller. The four-storey store, which has been described as a ‘bookshop of the future’, can...

Tuesday, 10 June 2014
The Hachette Book Group in the US has announced it will lay off 30 people from its 950 staff, reports the Bookseller. In a statement, the publisher said the ‘difficult...

Thursday, 5 June 2014
In the UK, a new report has found that ebooks will overtake print books as the preferred option for reading novels by 2018, reports the Bookseller. According to the report by accounting organisation PwC, the UK ebook...

Tuesday, 3 June 2014
In the UK, the shortlists for the 2014 Forward Prizes for poetry have been announced. The books shortlisted for the £10,000 (A$18,115) prize for Best Collection are: Faithful and Virtuous...

Monday, 2 June 2014
US-based start-up Next Big Book has won the inaugural Book Expo Startup Challenge at Book Expo America, reports Digital Book World. One of 18 start-ups that competed for the $10,000...

Friday, 30 May 2014
US publication Kirkus Reviews has created three new annual literary prizes, reports the New York Times. The US$50,000 (A$53,685) prizes will be awarded in fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ categories....

Friday, 30 May 2014
Hachette US has responded to Amazon’s statement about the companies’ dispute over sales terms, reports Digital Book World. The publisher has criticised Amazon for considering ‘books to be like any...

Thursday, 29 May 2014
The Frankfurt Book Fair has relaunched its magazine with ‘a shortened name and a fresh layout’. The Frankfurt Quarterly, previously known as the Frankfurt Academy Quarterly, examines a ‘single focal topic’...

Wednesday, 28 May 2014
UK-based, Swedish-owned Bonnier Publishing has launched a US children’s imprint called little bee books, reports Publishers Weekly. Distributed by Simon & Schuster in the US and Canada, the imprint targets readers aged...

Tuesday, 27 May 2014
Kobo has announced that it will begin featuring book reviews ‘in the near future’. ‘Customers will be able to write reviews and choose star ratings for your titles and post...