Week 47/20 – week ending 20 November

PA six-month figures: fiction and digital up, overall sales down Publishers Association (PA) figures for the first six months of 2020 have provided context and to some extent qualification to strong recent financial reports from Bloomsbury, Hachette, HarperCollins & Simon Schuster. While the publishers all posted rises in sales and profits, the PA has reported…

Week 46/20 – week ending 13 November

Indie bookshops respond to second lockdown Following the announcement of a second lockdown, independent bookshops had to close their physical doors again from Thursday 5 November. Thankfully, many are prepared for it, as a result of their experiences earlier in the year – and a number are also using Bookshop.org to boost sales. We talked…

Week 40/20 – week ending 2 October

Booker moves prizegiving to avoid Obama clash The 2020 Booker Prize winner announcement will now take place from the Roundhouse on Thursday 19 November, rather than on the previously announced date of 17 November. This decision has been taken to avoid a clash with the publication of Barack Obama’s memoirs, A Promised Land (Viking). Gaby…

Week 38/20 – week ending 18 September

Americans dominate Booker shortlist The shortlist for the 2020 Booker was revealed at lunchtime today, with five American or American-based authors on the six-strong list, which also features four debuts. The full shortlist is: – Diane Cook (USA) with The New Wilderness (Oneworld Publications) – Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe) with This Mournable Body (Faber & Faber)…

BITM – BBC News – “Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo [become the first authors to] share Booker Prize”

FAKE NEWS*!!! Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo have become the first authors* to jointly win the Booker Prize for Fiction. Atwood’s The Testaments and Evaristo’s novel Girl, Woman, Other earned each author an equal share of the £50,000 prize. Atwood, 79, is the oldest ever Booker winner, while Evaristo is the first black woman to…

Bookseller Briefing 36/19 – week ending 6 September

Booker Prize shortlist revealed The Booker Prize shortlist has been revealed with Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie in the running for the £50,000 prize. Atwood’s The Testaments (Chatto & Windus), which will be published on Tuesday 10th September, faces competition from fellow former winner Rushdie with Quichotte (Jonathan Cape) in the first year the prize has been sponsored by charitable…

Bookseller Briefing 30/19 – week ending 26 July

Trade figures weigh in on Booker Prize longlist as big names dominate The Booker Prize longlist has been declared “an absolute gift for bookselling” by Waterstones as retailers acknowledged the lack of surprise entries in a year that features literary heavyweights and former winners Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie. Atwood and Rushdie face competiton Goldsmiths Prize-winning author…

Bookseller Briefing 23/19 – week ending 7 June

New Booker branding as Crankstart sponsorship begins Crankstart has officially taken over as supporter of the Booker Prize, ending 18 years of sponsorship by The Man Group. The charitable foundation, run by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Sir Michael Moritz and his wife, Harriet Heyman, was announced in February as the prize’s new sponsor in a five-year deal.…

Bookseller Briefing 9/19 – week ending 1 March

  China crackdown on maps sparks major production delays A new censorship crackdown in China has led to Beijing officals checking all books being printed in the country for maps, causing delays of up to eight weeks for production teams and derailing launches for books featuring any kind of map. Chinese censors have long taken a…