The Stranger’s Child leads the way in Booker sales

04.08.11 | Philip Stone - The Bookseller

Man Booker Prize bookies favourite Alan Hollinghurst is proving the most popular of the longlisted titles among the book buying public.
The British novelist’s The Stranger’s Child (Picador) was comfortably the bestselling Booker longlistee in the week the longlist was announced (ending 30th July), selling 2,143 copies across all print editions. Sebastian Barry’s On Canaan’s Side (Faber) and Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English (Bloomsbury) were the only other titles nominated for the £50,000 prize to sell more than 500 copies last week.
The total, combined sales of all 13 nominees last week was 5,216 copies, up 111% (2,747 copies) on the previous week, but down 45% (4,306) on last year’s longlistees in the comparative week.
Being selected on the longlist had the biggest effect on the sales of Yvette Edwards’ A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld), Alison Pick’s Far to Go (Headline Review) and Jane Rogers’ The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone). The latter sold just one copy at UK booksellers in the week before the longlist was announced, but sold 164 copies last week, a proportional sales boost of 16,300%.

However, sales of the longlistees remain far behind the bestselling hardback fiction books in the UK. Katie Price’s The Comeback Girl (Century) and Tess Gerritsen’s The Silent Girl (Bantam Press) both outsold the entire longlist combined last week, while Sophie Kinsella’s Mini Shopaholic (Black Swan) was the bestselling paperback novel in the UK last week, selling 37,523 copies

Amazon Battles States Over Sales Tax

By STU WOO - Wall Street Journal.

SEATTLE—Amazon.com Inc., the world's largest online retailer, hasn't charged sales tax in most states since its founding in 1994. And it has taken some extreme measures to keep it that way.
Among them: Staff traveling around the U.S. have been required to first consult a company map that shades each state red, yellow or green, said three people who have worked for the retailer. These people said they needed permission from managers or company lawyers before entering "red" states because a worker's actions might trigger laws that force Amazon to collect taxes in those states.

Amazon's latest efforts mark a new chapter in a long-running battle over national vs. state sales taxes, a critical part of its business model. WSJ's Stu Woo reports.

Such steps to avoid local levies allow Amazon  to undercut in-state retailers by the amount they must add in sales tax, which can exceed 8%.

A close examination of Amazon's corporate practices, based on interviews with more than a dozen former employees and people who have done business with the Seattle company, as well as a review of corporate documents, indicates that the company believes its sales-tax policy is critical to its performance.
Credit Suisse recently estimated that if Amazon were forced to collect sales taxes in all states, it would lose as much as $653 million in sales this year, or 1.4% out of an estimated $45.5 billion in revenue.
Amazon says it doesn't win orders by nixing sales taxes. Spokeswoman Mary Osako said the company focuses on "low prices, vast selection and fast delivery," adding that Amazon earns more than half its revenue in jurisdictions, including many overseas, where it collects sales tax or the local equivalent. Ms. Osako cited a July report from William Blair & Co. that said if Amazon added sales tax it would still be priced lower than other major retailers on nearly half of the products the report surveyed.

Like many online retailers, Amazon says it is obliged to add state and local sales taxes only on purchases from residents of states where Amazon has physical retail operations. But it also has defined retailing narrowly as selling, so related operations such as warehouses don't put it on the hook to charge tax, company representatives have said.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904772304576468753564916130.html#ixzz1U4vQdw6U

Footnote:

The Bookman has just read this story at Frankfurt Airport and thought it may be of special interest to NZ and Australian booksellers. Here of course Amazon are not obliged to collect gst which places NZ retailers at a huge disadvantage. Enough! Put them on an equal footing.

WRITERS ON MONDAYS AT TE PAPA - A REMINDER

On Page and Stage

Albert Belz is this year’s Writer in Residence at Victoria University. He has been a fulltime playwright and screenwriter since 2001. He won the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award in 2006. In 2008 his play Te Karakia, based on the 1981 Springbok tour, was presented at the Wellington International Festival of the Arts. 

Briar Grace Smith was Writer in Residence at Victoria University in 2003.  In 2000 she received an Arts Foundation Laureate Award. Two of her award winning plays, ‘Purapurawhetu’ and ‘When Sun and Moon Collide’ have been published by Huia Publishers. She wrote the screen play for the feature film ‘The Strength of Water’ which was shown at international festivals in 2009. 

Maraea Rakuraku will chair this session.

Writers on Mondays is presented with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and additional support from Circa Theatre and City Gallery Wellington.

These sessions are open to the public and free of charge.

Date:         Monday 8 August

Time:         12.15-1.15pm

Venue:       Te Papa Marae, 4^th Floor, Te Papa (please note that no food may be taken into Te Papa Marae).

The case for raunchy teen lit

Salon - Thursday, Jul 28, 2011 16:40 ET

A study warns parents about sex in YA novels, but these books can educate -- and spark a passion for reading

By Tracy Clark-Flory - Salon

I started out with classics like Nancy Drew and "The Boxcar Children," but at some point in my fledgling reading career I became less interested in fictional young detectives than in solving some mysteries for myself -- namely about sex and romance. Raunchy young adult novels were just the thing to satisfy my curiosity, cement my passion for books and, of course, titillate with descriptions of, oh my God, open-mouthed tongue kissing.

Not everyone shares my gratitude toward the sexy subset of the genre, though. A recent study published in the Journal of Sex Research warned that more than half of popular YA titles include some sexual content, defined as everything from kissing to intercourse. Researchers also noted that 94 percent of sex scenes involved "non-married partners, and over a third of those were non-committal." It's worth noting that the study was conducted by Brigham Young University, which is, ahem, run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The dubious source aside, this is far from the first time concern has been raised over the prevalence of sex in teen reads, which is unfortunate.
Today I would hardly defend the particular visions of sexuality in the books I devoured as an adolescent. Christopher Pike, for instance, liked killing off characters shortly after they lost their virginity. But I was oblivious to the moralistic and outdated messages hidden in some of these stories. By the time I cracked open these edgy books I had already developed my ideas about what it meant to be a boy or girl and what to expect from relationships. I just wanted to know more about what it was like to go on a date, kiss a boy or even to have sex, which seemed then like a scary and mysterious thing (and, who am I kidding, it still does).
Rest at Salon.

Fourth Stieg Larsson novel rumours dismissed

Stieg Larsson and Eva Gabrielsson were together for 32 years

Claims that Swedish author Stieg Larsson wrote a fourth novel are wide of the mark, his partner has revealed.

The Millennium trilogy writer died before books including The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo were published.
Eva Gabrielsson told BBC Radio 4's Woman Hour that there was "not much truth" in reports that he left another novel on a laptop.
She said while he had written some new pages, there was not enough to shape another novel.
"There's the beginning of a fourth novel," she explained.
"I would estimate it to be about 200 pages, given what I saw in late August during our last vacation, and given what I knew of Stieg's workload in his last two months."
The trilogy has sold 27m copies, and reports of a potential fourth book in the series had excited fans.
But Gabrielsson said: "It probably doesn't hang together. Stieg was a spontaneous writer, he could write scenes and not knit them together until later on - he just liked the scene. You can't call it a novel."
Larsson died of a heart attack aged 50 in 2004. Despite being together for 32 years, Gabrielsson was not entitled to anything from his estate under Swedish law, as they were not married and there was no valid will.
She has been locked in a legal battle for a number of years with his father and brother, who inherited Larsson's estate.

But she explained why she felt a right to have control over his literacy legacy.

"Lots of the thoughts and ideas that went into Millennium weren't Stieg's but were mine. So I do have a grip on what's in there," she said.
"Some things are purely mine in that book, some things are his and some things are ideas and things we developed together.
"The descriptions of Stockholm, the locations, that's taken straight from a manuscript I was working on."She said there were many more examples, but that was one she could substantiate in writing..

BBC

Booker Notoriety Sparks Rights Run at Cinderella Indies

Publishing Perspectives

Since hitting the longlist of the Booker Prize, indie publishers Seren Books, Sandstone Press and Oneworld are seeing global interest in their titles as never before.
Last week the Man Booker Prize judging committee surprised many observers by including numerous independent publishing houses on the 13-strong longlist for this year’s prize. The list included a trio of titles from smaller, lesser-known presses including Patrick McGuinness’ The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books), Jane Rogers’ The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press) and Yvvette Edwards’ A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld).
Those lucky publishers with rushed reprints, foreign rights inquiries, global coverage. 


READ MORE >>

Julie Biuso appointed as an Ambassador for Le Cordon Bleu

Le Cordon Bleu New Zealand has announced that renowned food writer Julie Biuso has been appointed as an Ambassador for Le Cordon Bleu New Zealand Institute.

“Julie will be one of the important faces of Le Cordon Bleu New Zealand and will play a significant role in promoting the Institute. As well as providing a link between the courses offered and the career pathways available for students, Julie will be involved in promotional events to demonstrate the value of learning the ‘Kiwi way’,” said Institute Director, Cath Hopkin.

Some of the upcoming events Julie will add her contribution to include the Chocolate Festival (Wellington on a Plate) and a culinary match as part of the Rugby World Cup.

“While we have thousands of international alumni, I felt it was important to demonstrate the pathways available to students when they graduate by showcasing our Kiwi culinary ambassadors who are outstanding achievers in their field. Julie is Le Cordon Bleu alumni, but this isn’t a pre-requisite for the role. It is her dedication to continuous learning and her stellar record of achievements across a range of career options with food writing, teaching and cookbook producing,” said Ms Hopkin.

“I trained at Le Cordon Bleu London in 1976 and again in 1981 under the tutelage of the school’s founder Muriel Downes to train as a Cordon Bleu teacher,” said Julie, “and this training has been the backbone of everything I have achieved, from creating and writing menus and wine matches for Air New Zealand, to cooking for Pavarotti, judging films for Slow Food and developing food products for international markets.”

Julie has since written 14 books, many of which have won top national and international awards, and has had a career in the media with contributions to prestigious magazines and newspapers, plus appearances on numerous television and radio shows. She is well known as a cooking teacher, participating in national and international events, and runs cooking classes from her home in Auckland.

Robert Oliver (Shanghai) and Josh Emett (UK) have also been appointed to the role.

The Le Cordon Bleu Institute will be located in the heart of Wellington City. It is due to open May 2012 and will offer the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu certificates and diplomas in Cuisine and Patisserie as well as two Le Cordon Bleu degree programs – the Bachelor of Culinary Arts and Business, and the Bachelor of Hospitality Management.

Le Cordon Bleu has 40 schools in 20 countries worldwide and caters to a wide variety of international students in each of them. Monsieur Andre Cointreau, President of Le Cordon Bleu International, has encouraged the development of great diversity within Le Cordon Bleu's culinary education programs, and celebrates local cuisines by combining them with the best of innovation with the artistry of French gastronomic tradition.

High hopes for low decile schools

Next week high school students will return to their old primary and intermediate schools to dispel some of the myths around what to expect when making the jump to secondary school.

The Duffy Books in Homes School Leader assemblies allow schools to invite two senior high school students to speak about what to expect at high school, what they hope to achieve afterwards and how a love of books and reading can make all the difference to children’s futures.

Duffy Books in Homes regularly sends well-known role models to visit its 541 schools but having speakers closer to their own age helps to show children that the next step in their education doesn’t have to be a daunting one.

Many of these senior students are past pupils of the schools they visit.  Some still have brothers and sisters still at their old school and they also enjoy the chance to reconnect with their old teachers.

Each Duffy school is given four books and two certificates to present to the School Leaders after their assembly.  This year’s School Leaders will be able to choose from Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Potiki by Patricia Grace, Sons for the Return Home by Albert Wendt, and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Duffy Books in Homes General Manager, Linda Vagana, is a strong believer in the initiative, “High school students are as much role models and leaders to our Duffy kids as New Zealand sports stars and personalities.  It’s a great opportunity for our kids to hear and share the aspirations of young people and leaders of their own community,” she said.

Since the official launch in 1995 with 80 schools, 16,000 students and 14 sponsors, the Duffy Books in Homes programme has grown to encompass 541 schools, around 100,000 students and more than 200 sponsors in 2011.  More than seven million books have been distributed to children in low-decile schools since its inception and the programme now distributes more than 600,000 books annually.

2011/2012 NZSA Beatson Fellowship.

Applications are now being called for the 2011/2012 NZSA Beatson Fellowship.

 The annual Fellowship is generously donated by Peter and Dianne Beatson and will provide the successful applicant with $7,000 and the option of one month’s residency in the Beatsons’ holiday house at Foxton Beach.

The award is open to writers of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama who are members of the New Zealand Society of Authors. It is envisaged that the award will be given to a mid-career or senior writer and preference will be given to applicants with a substantial literary track record of publications. For the purposes of this award, a mid-career writer is defined as having published or performed a minimum of three stand-alone works. Senior writers will have a more significant publishing history.

The closing date for applications is 30 September, and results will be announced on 12 November. Each year applications are sent to a selection panel chosen by one of the NZSA branches, and in 2011 the panel will be from the Top of the South branch.

Last year’s recipient was novelist and dramatist Carl Nixon who was awarded the Fellowship to work on a short story collection, based on the members of one family, called The Rip. Previous recipients of the Fellowship include Glenn Colquhoun, Jo Randerson and Paddy Richardson.

For an application form, email programmes@nzauthors.org.nz or visit our website: www.authors.org.nz

REDGroup plan to offer 3 cents in dollar

By Jamie Gray - NZ Herald

5:30 AM Tuesday Aug 2, 2011

Ferrier Hodgson, the administrators of Whitcoulls' previous owners, REDgroup Retail, have proposed that its unsecured New Zealand creditors be paid out at 3c in the dollar.
The proposal, or deed of company arrangement (DOCA), will be put to creditors at a so-called "'watershed" meeting set down for Thursday.
"Based on our investigations, we do not believe that any dividend would be payable to unsecured creditors in any of the companies should they be placed in liquidation," said Ryan Eagle, administrator and Ferrier Hodgson partner.
"As a result of this analysis we recommend to creditors that the proposal for a DOCA be supported," he said.
REDGroup went into voluntary administration in March, owing New Zealand unsecured creditors $21.5 million.
The watershed meeting follows the administrators' recent sale of the Whitcoulls and Borders businesses to the James Pascoe Group, and the sale of the Bennetts bookstores and 10 Whitcoulls bookstores located in New Zealand airports.
Full story.

Marjorie Scardino: one-third of Pearson's revenue is digital

Owner of Financial Times and Penguin expects one-third of its £5.8bn revenues to come via digital channels this year

• Mark Sweney
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 1 August 2011 17.29 BST

Marjorie Scardino: 'The ad market is less and less of interest to us. It is more about content revenues.' Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

Dame Marjorie Scardino has said that Pearson, the owner of the Financial Times and book publisher Penguin, now considers itself to be well on the way to being a digital business – with one-third of its £5.8bn revenues expected to come via digital channels this year.

Scardino, the chief executive of Pearson, said that she was not concerned about the impact of the increasing shift away from the traditional print-based operations of its newspaper, book and educational operations.

"We are becoming a digital business," she said. "A third of everything we sell this year will be digital".

The company is forecast to make about £5.8bn in revenues this year, according to a forecast by Citigroup's equity research department, with Pearson predicting that 33%, almost £2bn, will come from digital channels. Last year 29% of Pearson's revenues came from digital channels.

Scardino pointed out that digital subscriptions to FT.com were soaring, up 34% year on year in the first six months to 230,000, with 15% now coming from mobile devices.

She said that the surge in uptake had in large part been fuelled by the rise of tablets, and Apple's iPad in particular, which was driving the transition of the Financial Times business.
Full story.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows makes $1bn

1 August 2011  BBC News

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has passed the $1bn (£609m) mark at the worldwide box office, distributor Warner Bros has said.

Deathly Hallows has now taken $318.5m in the US

The final instalment in the eight-part boy wizard series is the first to reach the milestone.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone had the previous best global takings with $974.8m (£593m) in 2001.
The 2009 epic Avatar holds the current record for the biggest worldwide box office haul with $2.8bn (£1.7bn).
Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is expected to pass Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides soon, which is this year's top grossing movie so far at $1.03bn (£626m).
The Harry Potter film took $21.9m (£13.3m) at the North American box office over the weekend, climbing to a domestic total of $318.5m (£194m).
It has now topped the franchise's previous best in the US and Canada of $317.6m (£193.6m) for Philosopher's Stone.
But taking into account today's higher admission prices, Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has not yet caught up to Philosopher's Stone in terms of actual tickets sold.

New Sony devices about to launch

02.08.11 | Graeme Neill - The Bookseller

Sony has listed its e-book readers as out of stock on its website, raising speculation it could be on the verge of launching a new digital device.

Last week, a filing was made at the United States Federal Communications Commission for a new device called the T1. The device is expected to have a memory card slot, Wi-Fi connectivity and a headphone jack. September is usually the date when Sony brings new e-book readers to market, launching its current generation of devices, a Touch and Pocket reader, in September 2010. It also launched its first e-book reader through Waterstone's in September 2007.
In April, Sony announced it was readying two tablet devices for launch this autumn, codenamed the S1 and S2.

News from Bridget Williams Books

Bridget Williams is delighted to announce Tom Rennie’s appointment as associate publisher at Bridget Williams Books (BWB). Returning from the UK in late 2010, Tom has been developing BWB’s digital publishing programme. 

With a postgraduate degree in publishing from Oxford Brookes University, he brings to his new role five years experience at Cengage Learning in London, as both editor and publisher. His years with BWB began in fact years ago, as an intern and editorial assistant. Tom will be taking forward the digital publishing programme, as well as managing a number of titles and backlist sales – with a particular focus on the New Zealand Pregnancy Book. Bridget Williams says: ‘Tom’s knowledge of the digital world is invaluable, as is his sharp insight into New Zealand history and current issues – which lie at the heart of BWB’s publishing.’

Archivist seeks 1 of every book written

MARCUS WOHLSEN

Stuff.co.nz 02/08/2011

Image - Getty

A HUGE TASK: Brewster Kahle is expanding his effort to safeguard and share knowledge by trying to preserve a physical copy of every book ever published.

Tucked away in a small warehouse on a dead-end street, an Internet pioneer is building a bunker to protect an endangered species: the printed word.

Brewster Kahle, 50, founded the nonprofit Internet Archive in 1996 to save a copy of every Web page ever posted.
Now the MIT-trained computer scientist and entrepreneur is expanding his effort to safeguard and share knowledge by trying to preserve a physical copy of every book ever published.
"There is always going to be a role for books," said Kahle as he perched on the edge of a shipping container soon to be tricked out as a climate-controlled storage unit. Each container can hold about 40,000 volumes, the size of a branch library. "We want to see books live forever."
So far, Kahle has gathered about 500,000 books. He thinks the warehouse itself is large enough to hold about 1 million titles, each one given a barcode that identifies the cardboard box, pallet and shipping container in which it resides.
That's far fewer than the nearly 130 million different books Google engineers involved in that company's book scanning project estimate to exist worldwide. But Kahle says the ease with which they've acquired the first half-million donated texts makes him optimistic about reaching what he sees as a realistic goal of 10 million books, the equivalent of a major university library.
Full story at stuff.co.nz

TUESDAY POEM

Tuesday Poem this week has at its hub The Wild Bees by Irish poet John Griffin. This week's editor, NZ poet Zireaux, introduces the poem with a rip roaring call to poets to use a richer and more varied vocabulary as John Griffin has. Here's a taste:

O peddlers of minimalism, hucksters of haiku, I request you keep your smokey spiritualism away from the hive. Can you not hear the growing clamor of the i-Clones, the Fad-Pads, the X-Cubes and MeTubes, the Factor Xs, the Super 3-D Cinema-Plexes? Why should we submit to the blog-fog, the vapors of vacancy (stay calm, my voice!), when language can reach -- or better, ride, fly, however improbably, like Dante's Beatrice (Dante being the CGI animator of his day), to the place where Ra drops honey from the sun, on the powerful, jewel-encrusted Griffin-wings of language? 

How to resist that? And after you've read Griffin and Zireaux, try the posts by other poets in the Tuesday Poem sidebar - they include English poets fighting over the image of a woman in a field with gloves on (Belinda Holyer's blog), a poem on an entymologist and a poem by Sarah Jane Barnett called Greece that beautifully traces the movement of horses. And there's much much more.... Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Frost... 

UNITY BOOKS & VUP INVITE YOU

UNITY BOOKS & VUP INVITE YOU TO HELP US RELAUNCH NIGEL COX'S JUNGLE ROCK BLUES

Nigel Cox's book, the one we can't name because of its swinging through the jungle namesake, is being relaunched as JUNGLE ROCK BLUES & instead of doing this in our tiny store we've decided to do this instead: A 'True Stories Out Loud' event where the following authors & contemporaries of Nigel's: Susanna Andrew / Elizabeth Knox Fergus Barrowman / Chris Bourke Brian Boyd / Heidi Shira Tannenbaum Damien Wilkins / David Larson & Bill Manhire will each tell a 10 minute,unscripted, true story on the theme of:     WRITING YOUR HEART OUT    Monday the 29th August, @ The Basement (Lower Greys Ave, Auckland CBD - www.basementspace.co.nz) Doors open at 6pm for a 6.30pm start There will be a fully stocked bar & the book will be available to purchase. This is a FREE event. There are limited seats so please RSVP to truestoriesoutloud@gmail.com with the subject heading NIGEL COX and we'll send you a confirmation that you will need to print out or show us at the door on your smart phone. Yes, I realise how wanky that sounds but it saves you a seat nonetheless.

2011 TAKAHĒ Poetry Competition

The Takahē Collective

2011 TAKAHĒ Poetry Competition

Closing Date: 30 September 2011      Results will be posted out in December 2011

Judged by Sue Wootton - Poet and short story writer

First Prize   $250

Second Prize $100

Two Runners up will receive one year’s subscription to Takahē.

Conditions of Entry:

 1.      Each entry must be the original work of the person submitting it; entries must not have been previously published, or broadcast, and must not be submitted elsewhere for any competition, or for publication in any form, until after the announcement of the results of this competition.

2.          Maximum length for each poem submitted is 50 lines.

3.          Entrants may submit as many previously unpublished poems as they wish, but each poem must be named separately on the entry form (photocopies or down-loads acceptable). Additional entry forms may be downloaded from:  http://takahe.org.nz

4          Each poem must be accompanied by a $NZ 5  entry fee, and a stamped,

addressed envelope for a copy of the judge’s report/results. Overseas entrants can either send an International Reply Coupon with their addressed envelope, or add

$NZ 2.50 to their total entry fee for handling and postage. Overseas entrants are asked to email admin@takahe.org.nz for advice on payment. A single SAE or substitute will suffice for multiple entries.

5.       The entrant’s name or nom de plume must not appear on the manuscript.

6.       All entries should be typed on A4 paper.

7.       Worldwide copyright of entries will remain with the author.

8.       All entries received will be considered for publication in Takahē.

9.       The judge’s decision will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.

10.        In the event of the competition being cancelled all monies will be refunded.

11.        No entries will be returned.    

 Entrants can download a poetry competition entry form by visiting: http://www.takahe.org..nz/competition72.php

Truth and Tales

At last, after  the earthquakes and then the snow, the Press Christchurch Writers Festival presents the second in a series of one-off literary sessions. In Truth and Tales one of our finest writers talks to well-known broadcaster Ruth Todd about The Larnachs, which draws on historical references to present a tale of intrigue, morality, judgement and scandal.    

       Owen Marshall’s subtle and compelling new novel   has its origins in the family history of James Mudie Lanarch, the politician and self-made man who built the famous 'castle' on Otago Peninsula. Set in the socially restrictive world of late nineteenth-century Dunedin and Wellington, the story springs vividly to life as Marshall traces the love between Constance, Larnach’s third wife, and his younger son, Dougie, and the slow disintegration of the domineering yet vulnerable figure of Larnach himself. 

Owen Marshall is an award-winning novelist, short-story writer and poet, who has written or edited over twenty books to date. In 2002 the University of Canterbury awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters, and in 2005 appointed him an adjunct professor.

Sunday 7 August, 1.00pm, The Cashmere Club , 50 Colombo St

Tickets $15

To book:  www.dashtickets.co.nz 

Door sales will be available on the day.

For all bookings and more information contact:

Marianne Hargreaves

Tel: 03 940 8575

Mobile: 027 2298741

Email: admin@chchwritersfest.co.nz                 www.chchwritersfest.co.nz

DFC comic rises as The Phoenix

01.08.11 | Caroline Horn - The Bookseller 

The former DFC comic is being revived as The Phoenix, under an independent company backed by an anonymous investor.
The comic was launched by Random House in May 2008 but closed a year later. The Phoenix will launch in January 2012. Editor Ben Sharpe, who previously edited the DFC, said it will be aimed at boys and girls aged eight to 11. As well as around four regular comic strips, the magazine will include stand-alone stories, puzzles and activities.
Authors and illustrators involved in the relaunch include Faz Choudhury, Daniel Hartwell, Neill Cameron and The Etherington Brothers. They will each retain the copyright to their work.
The 32-page, full-colour comic will be mailed to subscribers weekly and the company said it hopes it will be available to buy through independents. Marketing manager Ross Fraser said: "We want to create a community feel for everyone involved in the comic and we hope that the indies will get on board."
The comic will have a cover price of £2.99, although the subscription rate has not yet been confirmed. It will be targeted at individual readers as well as schools and libraries.
The company in charge of The Phoenix is David Fickling Comics although Fickling himself, the publisher and comic's founder, will be independent of the project. Fickling said: "We need this comic in our culture, for children to see and read and get excited about. It's wonderful to see it back."
While the life of the DFC was cut short by the recession, The Phoenix has backing for at least three years and aims to build around 10,000 subscribers.

How Fear of Disruption Stalled Japan’s E-book Development

With just 30,000 e-book titles, Japan’s publishers have been reluctant to support e-books out of fear losing revenue and challenging their own distribution monopoly.

The number of Japanese language e-book titles has not grown significantly over the last year. According to an article in the SankeiBiz newspaper, there are still just 30,000 e-book titles available in Japan.
Why such a small number — especially when Japan is so often at the vanguard of technological innovation? Simply put, publishers continue to remain reluctant to convert their books into digital formats due to cost, as well as their own ongoing fears about digitization.


Photo - E-books at the Tokyo International Book Fair
READ MORE >>

Court Ruling Says Marvel Holds Rights, Not an Artist

 July 28, 2011 - By MICHAEL CIEPLY, New York Times LOS ANGELES

In a major victory for Marvel Entertainment and its parent, the Walt Disney Company, a federal judge in New York granted them summary judgment in their legal dispute with the heirs to the comic book artist Jack Kirby, while denying the Kirbys request for judgment against Disney and Marvel.A Marvel cover from 1966 that the comic book artist Jack Kirby worked on.

The ruling, by Judge Colleen McMahon of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, declares comics and characters created by Mr. Kirby — who helped give birth to the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk and the X-Men, all of which now underlie valuable movie series — were works for hire under the Copyright Act of 1909, and cannot be reclaimed by the Kirby family.
In 2009, Mr. Kirby’s heirs sent Marvel and Disney 45 notices of a plan to reclaim copyrights in a series of Marvel comics that were published from 1958 to 1963. The comics included issues of “The Amazing Spider-Man,” “The Avengers,” “Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos,” and others. In her ruling on Thursday, however, Judge McMahon said the notices “did not operate to convey any federally protected copyrights.”

Full story at New York Times.      

Dee Murch R.I.P.

The local publishing community has lost a much-loved and passionate advocate with the passing of Dee Murch on Friday evening after an 11-month battle with cancer.

Dee was a talented book designer, editor, a trustee of the Going West Books and Writers Festival, early team member of New Zealand Book Month and an active volunteer and regular presence at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival and numerous other literary events.

She had worked in both a permanent and freelance capacity for New Holland Publishers for over seven years and her dedication was evident by the fact that she was still determinedly finishing off her last projects from bed in her final weeks.

Dee slipped away peacefully at her West Coast home, leaving husband Curt, daughter Elyia, mother Lyn and dog Sash. The lasting effect she had on so many, and their admiration for her courageous and gracious approach to her illness, has been illustrated by the flood of messages from friends and colleagues around the world to a Facebook support page set up by her family to help loved ones track her progress.

Dee’s life will be celebrated with a ceremony out West on Wednesday 3 August.

 Belinda Cooke
Managing Director
New Holland Publishers (NZ) Ltd

How To be A Woman by Caitln Moran - review by Nicky Pellegrino

While I consider myself a feminist, usually I’d run a mile from books on the subject suspecting they’re all dreary, disapproving rants. But then my UK-based Facebook friends started talking about How To be A Woman by Caitln Moran (Ebury Press, $37.99). And since it’s been a stayer in the Amazon top ten, I had to check it out.

All I can say is Moran is some sort of genius. She’s managed to redefine feminism both thoughtfully and hilariously, producing a book that women will actually want to read on a topic we all thought we’d heard enough about. Also if there were prizes for the quirkiest use of slang words to describe a vagina it would definitely win one.

Moran is a well-known newspaper columnist in the UK and her style is confessional and confronting so letting her loose on an entire book about feminism was bound to be provocative. What she’s come up with is part memoir, part polemic and one of the funniest things I’ve read in ages.

It opens in 1988 as Moran turns 13. The eldest of eight kids growing up in a cramped council house, she’s far from ready for what happens next – body hair, periods, stretch marks, boobs, a sudden fascination with the naughty passages in books.

As she takes us along on her journey to womanhood, Moran shares a whole lot of her opinions too, verbalising stuff women tend to think but rarely get round to saying, and doing it so much better than most of us would. From female fantasies to the tyranny of waxing, childbirth to abortion, Botox to designer handbags, she is gobby, stroppy, shockingly honest, wonderfully wise and armed with a fund of great one-liners.

Take the long and very funny section on the trend for the Brazilian and the sudden unacceptability of a natural pelt pubic hair. “I am aware that my views on waxing run contrary to current thinking,” Moran tells us. “As far as public hair is concerned, I am like someone in a pub, tearfully recalling how exciting it was to go into Woolworths and buy the new Adam Ant single on seven inch vinyl. I am ‘vagina retro’.”

While it’s all outrageously good fun there were times to be honest when I wanted a little less feminist diatribe and a little more Caitlin, to hear what her pithy sister Caz might have to say on any given subject, know more about her family, her dating disasters and how on earth she managed to score a job on one of Britain’s coolest music papers at the age of 16. Somehow Moran manages to be incredibly upfront about her personal life and yet still left me wanting more.

I’m also not convinced I buy into her theory that what women want and need is to be treated like one of The Guys or that sexism is just another form of bad manners.

But I love how she writes about the important  – and the less important – stuff in a way that’s barstool chatty, making it utterly approachable and easy to read. This is a book that needed to be written. Share it with your book club, give it to your teenage daughter…or son for that matter. In fact, any man who complains of not having a clue what goes on in women’s heads should be presented with his own copy.

I finished How To Be A Woman wondering if there was any way I could possibly make Caitlin Moran be my friend. I’m working on this. 


Footnote:
Nicky Pellegrino is a succcesful Auckland-based author of popular fiction, The Italian Wedding was published in May 2009, Recipe for Life was published in April, 2010, while her latestThe Villa Girls, was published in April this year.

She is also the Books Editor of the Herald on Sunday where the above review was first published on 31 July, 2011

Pottermore Beta Arrives With Access Contest: Find The Magic Quill

JK Rowling is giving Harry Potter fans a sneak peak of the Pottermore website which will go live in October. The “Magic Quill Contest” which runs from July 31st through August 6th will give select users access to the site ahead of schedule.
The contest is simple to participate in, throughout each day a trivia question will be posted on the Pottermore site, users who solve the question can add it to the end of the quill.pottermore.com url for example quill.pottermore.com/RonWeasley, once you access that URL you must find the magical quill which is hidden on the quill section of the site, simply find the quill and you’ll be taken to the beta registration page.
It’s still unclear how many beta users the site will accept, however with more than 500 million Harry Potter books sold worldwide if there is a limited number of beta registrations available you’ll want to hurry up and find the magical quill as soon as possible

Trollope new chair of Orange Prize

01.08.11 | Charlotte Williams - The Bookseller

The Orange Prize for Fiction has appointed author Joanna Trollope as its chair of judges for 2012, only the second time a full-time novelist has chaired the prize.
Kate Mosse, author and co-founder and honorary director of the prize, was chair of the panel in 1996, its inaugural year. The full panel for 2012, made up of five women, will be announced in the autumn, with the £30,000 prize awarded to a female writer of fiction.
Trollope, whose novels include The Rector's Wife and Daughters in Law (both Transworld), said of her appointment: "This is such an impressive prize. I have long been a fan of Kate Mosse, and I have admiringly watched the Orange Prize grow into an award of real stature. It has produced winners of true distinction and originality and I love the fact that it is generously and properly open to the world. I was so pleased to be invited to chair next year's prize, and much look forward to working with the judges over the coming winter. It will be exciting-the Orange Prize always produces rewarding surprises."
Mosse said: "We are delighted that Joanna Trollope has agreed to chair the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction. Not only is she one of the UK's most admired and best-loved novelists, she is also one of the most generous in terms both of the support she gives fellow writers and the time she devotes to the promotion of reading."