The European and International Booksellers Federation this week upped it lobbying efforts around the threat posed to its members by Amazon (and Apple) in the way they have developed the e-book market.

I'm delighted that LA-based Pixar story consultant Bobette Buster has agreed to speak at the FutureBook Innovation Workshop on 30th May. More here.

Pottermore picked up the Digital Strategy of the Year award at The Bookseller Industry Awards, beating an incredibly strong shortlist that included Orion's SF Gateway, Nosy Crow, Kobo, Random House, Harlequin, Penguin and Bloomsbury. I thought it was worth reflecting on the award and why Pottermore won it.

No doubt the big news this week for the digerati, the surprise decision by Tim O'Reilly to 'shutter' the Tools of Change conference and cull the community.

The recent news that publishing is growing despite the introduction of digital seems to have lifted the spirits of many in the industry. Why is this such a shock? The only thing the introduction of digital has reinforced has been the fact that people love reading and are prepared to take on more convenient ways to do this via eBooks and online shopping. The cold chill that should be sweeping through James Daunt, Alexander Mamut and book shop owners everywhere is ‘if publishing is flourishing, why are bookshops struggling?’.

In my last blog I listed a number of truths and untruths about self-publishing vs traditional publishing, so I thought I would continue in this vein to tackle some other subjects on which I believe that authors require greater clarity. 

With those words Tim O’Reilly CEO of O'Reilly Media brought the curtain down on seven years of Tools of Change with the shock announcement of the end of both the TOC conferences and the TOC blog.

The BBC reports today that the WorldWideWeb (W3) is 20 years old, a moment that will be marked by the recreation of the first ever web page by Cern.

I finally did it; wrote a book. Better yet I got it published. After 44 years, 9 months and 28 days on this planet I achieved pretty much the only goal I can ever remember having had. If you believe the growing number of 5-star reviews on Amazon it’s pretty good too (although admittedly one of those is by my mother). But these days it’s not enough just to be a good writer with the drive to make your dream happen. As I tell my multimedia journalism students all the time, you have to be able to sell yourself too. 

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in the summer of 2012, leading American novelist Scott Turow voiced his frustration at the publishing industry’s failure to study its customer base. He recalled saying to one of his publishers: “I’ve been publishing with you for a long time and you still don’t know who buys my books” and receiving the reply, “Well, nobody in publishing knows that.”