“Gasps of surprise” greeted yesterday’s announcement of the nominees for Canada’s Giller Prize, since many of the nominees are little-known. They are: Anthony De Sa’s debut story collection, Barnacle LoveMary Swan’s first novel, The Boys in the TreesMarina Endicott’s debut Good to a Fault (from new publisher Freehand Books)Joseph Boyden’s Through Black SpruceRawi Hage’s Cockroach National Post
International News
Amazon's UK POD Play
In April Amazon UK said they had “no plans” to bring BookSurge’s print-on-demand services to the UK, but they also hedged their bets by noting “we do not comment on future plans.” Now they have very concrete plans for a POD program, and the company says publishers who will participate include Harper UK, Cambridge University Press, Wiley, and Faber & Faber. Their ambition, according to vp of media Chris North, is “to bring hundreds of thousands of books to Amazon.co.uk’s customers that might never have otherwise been available.” The company has not disclosed their vendor for the printing, which will […]
Vodafone UK Launches Mobile Books
Vodafone UK is launching a program to provide books on cellphones starting today in association with GoSpoken.com, run by Toby Lynch and author Andy McNab. The company says they have over 2,500 books available for download. Originally designed to play as audiobooks, the site says that they are adding the ability to read titles via the phone screen as well. Charges go directly to the user’s cellphone bill with a “one-click” purchase model. Titles are expected to cost between 5 pounds and 15 pounds each. A story in the Times says GoSpoken has “signed up every leading publisher in Britain, […]
The UK's Super Thursday
For Jews this Thursday is the holiest day of the year (Yom Kippur), but for Brits it’s when 800 big holiday titles are published, “three times more than an average day.” Borders UK category manager Michael Jones coined the moniker, and the tells the Guardian, “So many of the really big books that are contenders to be in the top 10 are coming out. I can’t remember there being one day or even one week when it’s been like this. We’ve known about this day for a while so we’re prepared.”Guardian Separately, today’s WSJ focuses on three cookbooks landing Tuesday […]
People
Emma House is leaving the London Book Fair in January after six years to join the UK’s Publishers Association as their international director. House will be the first woman to hold a senior role in the organization. Chief executive Simon Juden says “her appointment gives us the opportunity to refocus the role of international director slightly, as we seek to continue the robust protection of members’ copyrights overseas and domestically, as well as explore and exploit opportunities for market development.”
Credit Crisis Hits UK Wholesalers
The international credit crisis is threatening the UK book supply chain after Woolworth’s–which owns both trade and library wholesaler Bertram’s and Entertainment UK, which supplies books to the big supermarket segment–had its credit insurance pulled following a loss of 100 million pounds in the most recent six months. (The entertainment wholesale and publishing unit earned 2.2 million pounds on flat sales of 446 million pounds in the period.) As the Independent explained last month, “trade credit insurance covers businesses against the risk of bad debt due to the insolvency or protracted default of their buyers. Earlier in the summer credit […]