‘Enduring appeal’ When Egmont UK’s managing director Cally Poplak (pictured) told The Bookseller’s Children’s Conference that “old-fashioned publishing skills are as relevant and vital as ever,” she could have gone on to say that “old-fashioned” reading patterns look to be just as enduring. As #KidsConf15 was written up by my colleague, Sarah Shaffi: The children’s publisher… Read More
At BEA's IDPF Digital Book Conference: Youth Reading – Or Not
“How many of you think of your customers sitting in a chair reading a book?” Bookigee founder and CEO Kristen McLean got a goodly show of hands with that question as she opened her session on youth reading in the States at BookExpo America (BEA) on Wednesday (27th May). McLean focused on trends in young readers’ and teens’… Read More
Women in publishing — achievements and challenges
Here is an important and sensitive subject, one that can become emotionalised — for perfectly understandable reasons. As is made clear in The Bookseller’s 13th February edition, the UK publishing industry can be proud of a distinction many other businesses can’t claim: its women are in the forefront. In their lead story, Felicity Wood (pictured right) and Sarah… Read More
What Are We Rewarding In Children’s Literature? (#GuysDoRead)
Are Children’s Books ‘A Women’s Profession’? The announcement today of the shortlist for the annual Waterstones Children’s Book Prize brought an early response: While the award’s shortlists started out as reasonably gender-balanced, they have tended to favor female authors and illustrators in recent years. The 2014 shortlist caught my eye last year as there were only three… Read More
Goodreads Choice Awards: Women Authors Win Two-To-One
When 3.3 Million People Vote On Their Faves Aside from reading — we have to hope — nothing seems to entertain Goodreads more than surveying its vast self, and this is good news for the rest of us because we get some interesting insight into reading habits. The newest round of “Goodreads Choice Awards” —… Read More