Latest News from The Bookseller

Amazon's dominance 'damages' progress Amazon's position in the market is damaging progress in the book trade, according to the president of the Booksellers Association, Tim Walker. Speaking on a panel about publishing and technology at the Nielsen BookInsights conference yesterday (25th March), Walker said that Amazon's dominance of the e-book market was having a negative impact on bookselling.

Waterstones appoints new e-commerce director Waterstones is to appoint Hobbycraft's Ed Armitage to head up its e-commerce operation. Armitage, currently head of multichannel at craft and gift retailer Hobbycraft, will take up his position as Waterstones E-Commerce Director from May. Armitage replaces Colm McCrory, former head of e-commerce and digital at Waterstones, who left the retailer last month after working on the relaunch of the Waterstones website, which went live in February.

Martyn Goff dies Martyn Goff, who served as administrator of the Booker Prize Foundation for more than three decades and “helped shape the prize into the literary force it is today”, has died. Goff died yesterday (25th March) aged 91 after a long period of ill health, said the Booker Prize Foundation. He served as administrator of the prize from 1970 to 2006, gaining the nickname Mr Booker, and was succeeded by Ion Trewin. Jonathan Taylor, chair of the Booker Prize Foundation, said: “Martyn was a wonderful advocate and administrator of the prize for so many years.

PRH reshuffles strategy, commercial and consumer roles Penguin Random House UK has created and expanded a number of roles in its strategy, commercial and consumer and digital teams, ahead of the departure of commercial director Nigel Waters. Waters, who has been at PRH UK for 21 years, is to leave the business at Easter.

Olympian Chris Hoy pens children’s series Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy is writing a children’s series about a boy and his bike with author Joanna Nadin. The Flying Fergus series is about eight-year-old Fergus, who desperately wants a bike for his ninth birthday. The bike he wants is too expensive so he inherits his Dad’s old rusty bike instead. However, when he takes it to the park he discovers there may be more to that bike than meets the eye. The series will be illustrated and is aimed at readers aged 5-8.

Booksellers praise new Harper Lee cover The cover for Harper Lee’s forthcoming novel is “striking”, and will stand out on shelves, booksellers have said.

London to host 2016 IPA Congress Next year's International Publishers Congress will be held in London, it was announced on the closing day of the Bangkok event today (26th March).

Median author advance under £6,600 The median advance for traditionally published authors is “well under £6,600”, according to early findings of a survey into authors’ attitudes towards their publisher. The survey also found that bigger publishers pay more.

New 'faster' copyright portal launches The Publishers Association has launched a new bespoke Copyright Infringement Portal which will ensure publishers “are better able to protect their works in the face of a huge amount of content being made available illegally on websites”.  The new service, which replaces the previous portal that ran for five years, has been developed specifically for The PA and is faster, searches more websites than previously and is more user-friendly.

Best Marketing Campaign award to James Patterson is Missing Marketing campaigns for books by James Patterson, David O’Doherty and Chris Judge, and Helen Walsh were named as the winners of the Best Marketing Campaign of the Year Awards today (25th March). The Book Marketing Society (BMS), which is now part of Nielsen Book, gave its annual awards at the end of Nielsen’s BookInsights Conference. Best Adult Marketing Campaign was awarded to Cornerstone’s James Patterson is Missing, by Gina Luck, Rebecca Ikin, Alex Young and Chloe Healy.

Online book shopping overtakes in-store for first time Print book sales showed "continuing resilience" in 2014, with overall spending on print and digital titles increasing across the year. Meanwhile, online book buying overtook in-store book buying for the first time last year. In 2014, sales of print and e-books stood at £2.2bn, up 4% from the previous year. The data was revealed today (25th March) at Nielsen Book's annual conference, BookInsights.

H is for Hawk shortlisted for Thwaites Wainwright Prize Helen Macdonald’s award-winning H if for Hawk (Vintage) is one of six books on the shortlist for this year’s Thwaites Wainwright Prize. The prize, which showcases the best books in UK nature and travel writing, includes two books from Penguin Random House’s Vintage division on this year’s shortlist, one from PRH’s Transworld, and one each from independent publishers Granta and Faber & Faber.