Editorial by Chad W. Post ROCHESTER, NEW YORK: For years, people have speculated that the number of literary works in translation being published in the United States has been in decline. I say “speculate,” because the publishing industry — which is notoriously poor at market research and data gathering — didn’t really keep track of how many translations were being …
UK’s Book Depository takes Global Ambitions to US
By Edward Nawotka “In the UK, retailers have been very introverted. That’s what we’re trying to change by working with international customers,” says Kieron Smith, managing director of BookDepository.co.uk, an online bookseller best known for its free shipping to more than 90 countries around the world. “More than half of our customers are overseas and it’s fascinating to watch the …
Bookselling in a Pacific Island Paradise
By Andrew Wilkins NUKU’ALOFA. TONGA: With an economy based on farming, fishing and some tourism, there’s not a huge demand for consumer books in Tonga, although the country has the highest literacy rate in the Pacific (over 98%) and a good primary and secondary education system. Still, it’s enough to support a handful of small publishers and a bookstore chain …
Web Police Attributor Courts US, German Publishers
By Karen Holt CALIFORNIA: Web tracking and analysis service Attributor is poised to make big inroads into the English and German speaking book markets, pitching its services to publishers on both sides of the Atlantic that are looking for a systematic way to crack down on online piracy. Attributor works by scanning billions of Web pages to find unauthorized use …
Who Controls African Literature?
Editorial by Tolu Ogunlesi LAGOS: The literary world is once again shining a spotlight on Africa. There are new prizes: the South Africa-based PEN Studzinski Literary Award for short stories, and the Penguin Prize for African Writing, a pan-African prize covering both fiction and non-fiction genres. There’s a new book series, the “Penguin African Writers Series,” which will include not …
Indonesian Publisher’s Sales Spike Post Terrorism, Credit the Long Tail
By Edward Nawotka JAKARTA: “These bombings have been very disturbing,” says Mark Hanusz, owner and publisher of Equinox Publishing in Jakarta, Indonesia. “Four years ago, when the Australian Embassy was bombed, it didn’t affect me so much, but this time it has impacted me much more personally. Of the people injured in the Marriott Hotel, I knew four of them …
Austria’s Blackbetty Tackles Arabic Ebooks for Phones
by Chip Rossetti VIENNA: For Jörg Hotter, CEO of Blackbetty Mobilemedia GmbH, a Viennese company that creates the software to make texts readable on mobile phones, the future of publishing looks small. Specifically, he says, it will be the small screens on the 800 varieties of mobile devices currently on the market worldwide that will be the next step in …
Frank McCourt and the Texas Kid: What I Learned About Private Planes, Irish Accents, and Fame
By Erin L. Cox Sunday marked the passing of Pulitzer Prize-winning memoirist Frank McCourt. Best known for his internationally bestselling memoir about his poor, Irish childhood, Angela’s Ashes, Frank was also a beloved New York City schoolteacher, playwright, and a fantastic storyteller. What I worry about is that people will think of Frank only as the poor boy from Limerick, …
Top US/UK Trade Talk: Hachette UK up 3.7%; U. Chicago pubs E-books
By Edward Nawotka In the UK, the Bookseller revealed that Hachette was now leading all other publishers in sales in the UK, largely based on the immense interest in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight novels. Its sales grew 3.7% and was the only one of the “Big Four” UK publishers — Hachette, Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins — not to have a …
German Buch News: Libreka Adds DRM, Bilandia Adds Video
By Siobhan O’Leary Libreka.de, the online book search database run by the Marketing- und Verlagsservice des Buchhandels, a subsidiary of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, has begun offering DRM as an option for ebooks sold on the site. The site started selling ebooks nearly four months ago; but without DRM, writes the Buchreport, large publishers shied away. Since the …