Around the Bookish World : News Week-in-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post and we have a humdinger of an edition this week. With news of the editor leaving Dorchester who are struggling, Barnes and Noble refusing to stock any books being published by amazon and a slew fest of news on books and new series on the horizon!

First up, the major news this week broke that Chris Keesler who was the only remaining editor at Dorchester has left the struggling publisher. Dorchester has also reportedly failed to pay royalties and other payments to past authors and in some cases caught selling copies of books whose rights have been reverted to the author. I think this is pretty sad because Dorchester was behind a few of my favourite authors and books and I got a funny feeling that it wont exist for long according to what I am hearing about the publisher. But I would also be …

Around the Bookish World : News Week-in-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post and it is much quieter compared to the last few weeks. We have news of another digital imprint launching but this time in the UK, and GRR Martin answers some questions and an author asking bloggers to sign a contract for copyright of their reviews. And for anyone asking yes there was an author meltdown but it wasn’t a YA author this time but a romance author over a negative review at Dear Author!

But first up, blogger Insane Hussein posted about a blogger friend who received a pretty wtfery email about a publisher/author asking reviewers to sign a contract which they will own their reviews. Yes, their reviews and also the form of distribution, the contract also stipulates the length and the grading system and the fact that if the reviewer doesn’t review the book, they will have to email them back. If I …

Review: Kiss of Frost by Jennifer Estep

 Format read : Ebook arc provided by the author
Length: 354 pages
Publisher:  Kensington
Release date:  November 29th 2011
Formats available: Kindle ebook, Print book.
Purchase info : Goodreads, Author’s Website, Amazon, Book Depository US, Book Depository UK

Book Blurb:

Logan Quinn was try­ing to kill me. My Spar­tan class­mate relent­lessly pur­sued me, swing­ing his sword at me over and over again, the shin­ing sil­ver blade inch­ing closer to my throat every time. A smile tugged up his lips, and his ice-blue eyes prac­ti­cally glowed with the thrill of battle…Im Gwen Frost, a second-year warrior-in-training at Mythos Acad­emy, and I have no idea how I’m going to sur­vive the rest of the semes­ter. One day, I’m get­ting schooled in sword­play by the guy who broke my heart—the drop-dead gor­geous Logan who slays me every time. Then, an invis­i­ble archer in the Library of Antiq­ui­ties decides to use …

Around the Bookish World : News Week-in-Review

  Welcome to this week’s post and it is definitely one that is jammed packed with more author meltdowns; The internet went quiet and dark for awhile (in some parts) and Apple acting pretty much asstastic again and of course the books to watch out for.

Part 83229227374748292393 of the author meltdowns saga which.is.not.going.away. (THIS is the year for full on meltdowns methinks!) and this week we had pretty much a big doozy from several YA authors again and to break the theme – an editor ragging on a reviewer for a fantasy book review. The first incident involved authors Kiera Cass and Elena Roth discussing PUBLICLY on twitter on how to skew negative reviews on Goodreads – it looks like this was inspired due to Wendy Darling’s review on the social reading site which was a DNF.

Part 8342028293044584399039393939482920204 of the meltdown trend happened at a fantasy book review of Prince …

Around the Bookish World : News Week-in-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post and we have full instalment of fun links and news as well as the books to look out for the coming months!

First up, Amazon has announced that they created an ipad store which will allow readers to buy Kindle books as well browse their store and it is a way to bypass the no buy links which Apple has dictated with their new terms last year.

More Amazon news, an interesting report stated that publishers who allowed Kindle lending programme found sales of their books jump at to 26% – this has surprised Amazon who is promoting this as a huge success.

That ugly thing called Plagiarism has reared its head again and I think I mentioned in a previous post that Amazon is going to be the place where authors will find their stolen work being published by pirates as well plagiarists- it …

Around the Bookish World : News Week-in-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post and for the first week of the New Year it has certainly been eventful with another YA author and reviewer meltdown of epic proportions and with news that Barnes and Noble is thinking of spinning off their Nook side of their business. We also have excerpts and covers of books to watch out for!

I thought since last year’s whole YA Mafia brohaha would be the last of this type of thing for awhile – but a Goodreads reviewer, Kira faced the wrath of the agent of author Julie Cross and some YA authors because of her negative review on Tempest. However Julie Cross reacted gracefully to this and responded beautifully to this mess but the fallout on this review caused authors such as Dan Krokos to create a hashtag to bash Goodreads.

However this wasn’t the last of the fuckery – oh no. It …

Around the Bookish World : News Week-in-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post and I hope everyone had a great Christmas break and that y’all have a great upcoming New Years from everyone from Book Lovers Inc.

We have some great links to freebies and offers and some interesting tidbits to celebrate the New Year!

Amazon has reported that in the month of December that they have been selling over a million Kindles per week, with the Fire as the number one bestseller, closely followed by the Touch and the Kindle. Christmas day also heralded a huge jump in sales of Kindle books with the ‘biggest day’ of books being sold, with two of the top selling ebooks as self published ones.

HarperCollins also reported a bumper sales day during Christmas with over 100,000 titles being sold internationally, (this figure does not count US sales) – The best selling ebook was Game of Thrones by GRR Martin whose …

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

Welcome to this week’s news post and we have global anti-trust investigations, the results of the bad sex awards for fiction, authors behaving badly again and more books to watch out!

First up a few weeks ago, I reported that the Office of Fair Trading is going to investigate Agency pricing in the UK. Well it looks like that that the EU and US authorities will also be investigating as well. The investigations will focus whether the Big six publishers joined forces with Apple to collude upon pricing. The publishers have stated adamantly that they are innocent but it will be very interesting to see how these investigations will pan out and if it is proven true it will be one very expensive decision.

The winner for the Bad Sex Awards in Literary Fiction and the dubious honour goes to David Guterson who wrote this gem about the art of love-making. …