Around the Bookish World : News Week-in-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post! Things are pretty quiet on the book front to the run up to Christmas but we has some cool links and news, including the long awaited trailer for The Hobbit!

The author of  the highly successful series by Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, is suing Antarctic Press because they are publishing a similarly named series called Diary of a Zombie Kid. Jeff Kinney claims that Diary of a Zombie Kid has a similar premise to his own series and that it will cause confusion with fans because they will assume it is affiliated with his own books. Both books share similar titles and covers. Antarctic Press has declined to comment about the lawsuit.

Pan Macmillan will be bundling some of their most popular authors’ ebook series, including Ken Follet’s Thundering Good Thrillers, Sue Grafton’s alphabet series and Alyson Noel’s Immortal series. There will also be a …

Around the Bookish World : News Week-in-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post and it has been a bit quiet in the world of books and publishing but there is news of more YA books being adapted to movies, the Nook may finally arrive across the big pond to the UK.

First up, Barnes and Noble have announced that the Nook will soon be available in the UK, in the near future and will be part of on an ongoing international roll-out for their ereading devices. However, it is not made clear on who they would be joining forces with to distribute the Nook in the UK. WH Smiths already has teamed up with the Kobo and Waterstones will be unveiling their own dedicated device in the next year. But it does look that the ereading market is going to heat up even further.

This might be good news on the VAT front for European Kindle readers. Luxembourg …

Around the Bookish World : News Week-in-Review

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving last week and as you can see we have moved to WordPress and with a new look!

The major news this week, has to be the death of Anne McCaffery who died earlier last week. I LOVED her Pern and Hive series books, and I am totally gutted by this news but she has left a great legacy of books, which I highly recommend you check out because they are truly wonderful!

WH Smiths has announced that they will be offering the Kobo Colour tablet, which will be offered at £169.99. I think this will capture an audience who may be wavering on getting an ereading device but will check this out because it is a cheaper alternative to the ipad and similar tablets. I think this will give an edge on the Kindle Fire which isn’t available in the UK at the moment.

This …

Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post and it has been pretty quiet in the publishing news front, but we do have some exciting links and trailers such as the full Hunger Games trailer that actually looks good!
A few weeks ago I reported that Amazon had launched a lending library amongst its Prime customers for the Kindle. Well it looks like that the Authors Guild is unhappy with this new development because of the issue of royalties and a breach of contract of sales. However none of the Big Six publishers are involved with this scheme and the smaller and independent publisher’s have refused to join the Author’s Guild complaints about boycotting this venture. I think this is disagreement is going to run and run, but I do hope there will be a resolution to this.
Genre Publisher, Angry Robot is …

Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post! This week we have more news and development from Kobo, Authors hiding their real gender and covers galore!

A Japanese company called Rakuten, has purchased the Canadian based Indigo’s Kobo in a deal worth $315 million. Rakuten is behind a few e-ventures and companies,including an ebook store and it looks like buying into Kobo is a way to shore up and expand more into ebooks and publishing. It also looks like with a huge backing from Rakuten, Kobo will be able to expand and compete more fully with other ebook devices like the Kindle.

Another case of plagiarism has reared its ugly head. Thriller writer, QR Markham, was caught plagiarising from a variety of novels including the James Bond series, with his new book Assassin of Secrets. The book has been removed …

Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post! I hope everyone had a great Halloween! This week brings news major developments with Amazon announcing a lending library to Prime customers and leaked details of the upcoming Nook Tablet as well as upcoming books/covers and tidbits in the world of books!

The news that has made waves over the past few days is the announcement from Amazon about a lending library which will consist currently of 5000 books, some by bestselling popular authors to Prime customers. The lending is restricted to the hard devices like the Kindle and customers wont be to use this feature with desktop or phone apps and that only one book may be borrowed a month at a time. I think this is pretty savvy of Amazon and I suspect it is to help take away the wind off …

Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post and we have some goodies with upcoming clips and teaser posters from Breaking Dawn and The Hunger Games. There is also some interesting developments with Kobo who is entering the realm of publishing – they are definitely notching several arrows to compete with Amazon lately.

But first up, Kobo has announced they will be moving into publishing, it is not clear if it is just offering authors a way to self publish their work, but according to this news article it seems they will be looking into editing books and distributing them via their site. I think this is a pretty savvy move on their part.

I posted news that there was a delay that Amazon’s aquisition of The Book Depository has been delayed, well it looks like it has gotten the …

Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post and we have a pretty much packed post! The Booker awards finalist, more Amazon news and a new announcement from Kobo who will be releasing a coloured tablet. Plus our picks of upcoming books!

Well, for me the big announcement has to be from Kobo who will be launching a new wifi only tablet, and I have to say it might have pipped Amazon’s Fire tablet to the post if they are offering an open Android platform. It has similar specs to the Amazon Fire tablet, but also consists of an SD slot which can hold up to 32 gigs. An 8 gig memory and most importantly has the same price point of the Fire which is $199. It is up for preorder and is available for the US and Canada. I suspect it …

Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post and it has been pretty eventful with the sad passing of Steve Jobs from Apple, Google opening up their book store in the UK and more YA adaptions to come.

However the big news leading this week is the death of Steve Jobs who was a influential and innovative figure in the world of computing and media. He stepped down as CEO of Apple a few weeks ago and has been battling Pancreatic Cancer for the past few years. His death will be a huge loss to the industry that he was part of.

Google has launched its ebook store in the UK. Google has also announced that it is planing on launching Canadian and Australian sites very soon and Europe to closely to follow. They claim they have hundreds of thousands of books …

Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

This week’s news post is going to be mainly dedicated to the huge announcement by Amazon this week with their new Kindle devices and the long rumoured new tablet, although we also have new covers and book news too!

My twitter feed was alight on Wednesday during Amazon’s news conference about their new devices and tablet and I have to say that the new Kindles look really pretty and Kindle Fire tablet is a great entry to the market.
Amazon unveiled three devices –

The first one was the Kindle Basic Wifi which costs $109 without the special ads and $79 with the ads screensavers. Although it has a smaller memory compared to the Keyboard Kindle (renamed Kindle 3) and battery – it is much lighter and and smaller compared to the Keyboard Kindle. For more …