Thursday, May 28, 2015

Latest news from The Bookseller

Narrowly denied the top spot in the previous week’s charts, David Nicholls has bounced back to claim pole position in UK Official Top 50 with his seventh overall number one.
Booksellers have welcomed the news that Amazon is to start booking sales made to customers in the UK through its UK branch instead of through Luxembourg, though some say they remain "cautious" about the development.
The online retailer brought its new arrangements, which means it will be taxed by HMRC, into force on 1st May.
The Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction is seeking a new sponsor, following the conclusion of an "open-ended" arrangement with an anonymous donor which has funded the prize for the past three years. 
Prior to that, the prize, which was set up in 1999, was supported by the BBC. The winner's announcement and dinner in 2015 will be hosted by the Blavatnik Family Foundation, headed by US philanthropist Len Blavatnik.
Hesperus
Hachette Book Group in the US and Hesperus Press have begun arbitration proceedings to resolve the dispute involving royalties for Hesperus' English-language edition of Jonas Jonasson's The 100-Year-Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared. The two parties are understood to be waiting for an arbitrator to be appointed, as well as a date for the hearing.
The High Court has granted an application by the Publishers Association (PA) to block access to seven websites which have been infringing copyright.
The application, made under 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, means that the UK's main internet service providers (ISPs) - BT, Virgin Media, Sky, TalkTalk and EE – will be required to block customer access to the seven sites.
Michael Neil
Former W H Smith books director Michael Neil will cover the maternity leave of Dubray Books' managing director Maria Dickenson.
Neil, who left W H Smith last month, will be the Irish independent bookshop chain¹s acting managing director from the beginning of August.
Studio 28
Studio 28, the digital-publishing arm of Curtis Brown Literary & Talent Agency, is to publish its first original title.
The Swiss Spy by Alex Gerlis will be published as an e-book on Monday 1st June.
Studio 28 officially launched in March this year, and will publish in the UK and other territories. It will seek rights from authors already on the agency’s books or work on “rediscovering and reinventing literary gems from 100 years of the agency’s backlist”.


Tanith Lee
British science fiction, horror and fantasy writer Tanith Lee has died at the age of 67.
Caroline Raphael
BBC Radio 4’s former commissioning editor Caroline Raphael is to join Penguin Random House UK.
Raphael will take on the role of editorial director, audio, reporting to audio publisher Videl Bar-Kar. She will lead Penguin Random House UK’s audio editorial and production team and help grow its digital and physical audio list.
Raphael will “help shape and deliver an ambitious audio growth strategy for Penguin Random House UK’s eight publishing companies, working with authors, performance and production talent to commission and publish tomorrow’s bestsellers”.
The Chinese book market represents an opportunity for UK publishers and writers, but there are still "considerable hurdles to overcome", according to new research from Nesta and The Literary Platform.
In two reports published today (27th May), the research lays out the scope of opportunities to reach a growing Chinese market, particularly through the use of social media, such as Douban, a social media platform, publisher and retailer.
Philip Larkin
The Times Literary Supplement has named Hull poet Frank Redpath’s "In and Out" as its Poem of the Week, after originally claiming it was an unpublished poem by Philip Larkin.
"In and Out" was published on the TLS website on May 22nd, accompanied by a long essay on the Larkin "discovery". But after it was pointed out to the TLS that the poem was by Redpath and had been published in an anthology to which Larkin contributed a forward, the TLS took the article down.
Becca Fitzpatrick
Simon and Schuster Children’s UK will this autumn co-publish the sixth novel by Becca Fitzpatrick with S&S US.
Dangerous Lies is about a teenage girl called Stella Gordon who becomes a key witness in a murder trial and has to go into witness protection. She struggles to keep her identity secret while she finds herself drawn to a new love interest.
Fitzpatrick is the author of several YA novels, including the Hush, Hush series, and her books have sold more than 300,000 copies in the UK, according to Nielsen BookScan.
Matt Richell
Hachette Australia has launched a prize for emerging writers in memory of its former c.e.o. Matt Richell, who died suddenly in July 2014.
The Richell Prize for Emerging Writers, has been launched with the Richell family, is in partnership with the Guardian Australia and The Emerging Writers’ Festival (EWF), which began today (26th May). The prize will be awarded annually.

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