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This week saw the first meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Publishing at the UK Houses of Parliament. The APPG was set up last month, largely on the instigation of Sonny Leong, who is chairman of the IPG, a body which does an excellent job of representing independent publishers in the UK (full […]

And so it ends. But what a work of genius. I can’t help but hear a rueful quality in the words of Penguin’s Chief Executive: ‘not the most read, but possibly the most written novel in history’. Basically, that’s a publisher’s worst nightmare.

Bookswim is being touted as Netflix for books (or LoveFilm if you live in the UK, like I do) – an online book loan service, membership of which provides you with a number of books for an unlimited time, and covers postage both ways. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that the site looks […]

I’ve been playing with Twitter recently (and if you’re a regular reader, feel free to join me). Initially, I thought it was annoying and intrusive – and it still is – but it’s also such a simple, open and versatile platform, that lots of interesting things can come of it. And nothing gets that much […]

Probably the presentation that got me most excited at this week’s Future of Web Apps conference was QuotationsBook, launched at the conference by QB founder, Amit Kothari to, it must be said, a fairly muted reception – this was a pretty flashy audience who expect a lot of innovation and slickness. QuotationsBook is a neat […]

The above image is from the Future of Web Apps conference which happened in London last week – unlike the Print Is Dead blog, however, I was there, and I know that Richard Moross of Moo‘s next slide was “Oh no, it isn’t.” Moo’s presentation was entitled “How we turn virtual stuff on the web […]

I wrote about Adobe’s Digital Editions, its Adobe Reader-lite for ebook fans, a while back, but until today I hadn’t tried out Microsoft Reader – and what a pig it is. Admittedly, it’s designed primarily for PDAs (hence the Cleartype technology), but for the flagship eReader product from the largest software company on the planet, […]

A week in, and the Million Penguins project has been pretty interesting. Penguin’s publicity nous has got them vast amounts of coverage and vast numbers of authors very quickly, although it hasn’t exactly made for a better story – reading it is difficult, and the mishmash of styles and story arcs makes for something approaching […]

This morning, Penguin announced the launch of A Million Penguins, a wikinovel project in association with De Montfort University. Students from De Montfort’s MA in creative writing form the basis of the projected community of writers, which will edit and expand upon the short first chapter provided over a period of six weeks. (I think […]