Breaking news on authors, publishers, and book-related topics

1st National Readathon Day coming Jan 24 2015

Nov 12 2014: The National Book Foundation, GoodReads, Mashable and Penguin Random House are creating National Readathon Day, Participating readers are asked to read a book for four straight hours between 12-4 p.m. on Saturday, January 24, to raise funds to support the National Book ...

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Amazon buys .book and .buy

Nov 12 2014: Amazon has won the right to sell domain names ending in .book after beating off competition from eight other companies including Google. It is understood to have paid up to $10m (£6.3m) at a private auction, just days after biuomg $4.6m (£2.9m) for .buy.

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Sherlock Holmes in public domain - at last!

Nov 04 2014: The Supreme Court have declined to hear an appeal by the Doyle estate hoping to overturn a U.S. district court decision that ruled that copyrights had expired on all Sherlock novels and stories published before 1923, but not on the final 10 stories published after that....

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Mass market paperback sales down, but far from out

Nov 03 2014: When sales of e-books in the USA doubled in 2011 compared with 2010, many in the publishing industry predicted the quick demise of mass market paperbacks*. The predictions looked to be on track when the format sold half as much in 2013 as in 2010. But in 2014 there are ...

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Mark your calendars for Small Business Saturday and Indies First Day - November 29, just after Thanksgiving.

Oct 30 2014: Mark your calendars for Small Business Saturday and Indies First Day - November 29, just after Thanksgiving. Many authors will be volunteering at their favorite independent bookstores. Contact your local store for details or check out the map that has been started at ...

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Amazon sales rose 20% in 3rd qtr but lost $544m

Oct 24 2014: Amazon's release of its third quarter financial results Thursday afternoon gave analysts and investors lots to think about as the giant e-tailer posted a large quarterly loss, forecast the possibility of a loss for the fourth quarter and had slowing growth in its media ...

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National Book Awards Shortlist for Nonfiction Announced

Oct 15 2014: The National Book Awards have announced their nonfiction shortlist consisting of five titles:

Roz Chast, Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (Bloomsbury)
Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan ...

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National Book Award Fiction Shortlist Announced

Oct 15 2014: The National Book Awards have announced their fiction shortlist

• Rabih Alameddine, An Unnecessary Woman (Grove Press/ Grove/Atlantic)
• Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See (Scribner/ Simon & Schuster)
• Phil Klay, ...

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