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The book world is once again in a state of high dudgeon over the "thuggish" behavior of Amazon, which has begun slow-walking customer orders for books published by Hachette (James Patterson, Malcolm Gladwell, a.k.a. J.K. Rowling) in an effort to win more favorable terms in its next contract with the publisher. In a series of breathless commentaries, Amazon has been likened to Vladimir Putin, Tony Soprano and Darth Vader, and accused of pursuing a "scorched-earth capitalism" designed to drive all publishers and competing booksellers out of business

Target wants to help host your book club - online. As the retailer works to build a more competitive e-commerce experience, it's partnering with a startup e-book subscription service called Librify to give customers an online platform for buying, sharing, and discussing their favorite books.

Blurb, the independent publishing platform, historically known for highly illustrated print and ebooks, today announced support for "reflowable" fiction/non-fiction titles for Amazon's Kindle platform, as well as the ability for Blurb authors to sell these books in Amazon's Kindle store.

As Penguin Random House launches a social network for book recommendations - seen by some as welcome support for independent booksellers - we take a look at reading recommendations on the web. What are the best platforms for social reading? Which, if any, are you using and what are your tips for sharing your reads online?

Mills and Boon, the Harlequin-owned book publisher best known for its saucy women's fiction, is embarking on a new chapter in storytelling, with the launch of digital series The Chatsfield.

The series is not just an eBook, or an eBook with hyperlinks or video added. Harlequin has taken traditional storytelling and turned it on its head, creating non-linear stories in bite-sized chunks that are designed to be told in real-time.

We're swimming in a sea of numbers. Sales data, subscriber trends, website analytics, etc., are just a few of the indicators we can touch on a daily basis. The key is to figure out which numbers to pay close attention to and which can be ignored.

SmackFiction's aim is to increase reading activity and improve discovery of books with a mobile app. Publishers told us that the hardest markets to reach were Young Adults and New Adults, because their traditional promotional activities completely missed this group. We ran a series of focus groups with 15-25 year olds to find out how we could motivate this group to download an app and then keep using it. The readers told us they would like to find good books to read, and were frustrated that it was so hard to find them.

It is the world's most definitive work on the most global language, but the Oxford English Dictionary may be disappearing from bookshelves forever. Publishers fear the next edition will never appear in print form because its vast size means only an online version will be feasible, and affordable, for scholars.

I have been at the London Book Fair for approximately eight minutes when I officially decide that I am not meant to be at the London Book Fair.

Don't worry: I haven't snuck in or anything. Well, it is a little iffy - at the entrance, I manage to bypass some sort of elaborate form-filling-out process when they ask for my press card and I say, almost by way of a challenge, "I'm American?" as though Americans do not have press cards. 

Penguin Random House announced the launch of social retail platform "My Independent Bookshop" yesterday. The website, now in beta, allows users to compile their 12 favorite titles to create a virtual bookshop. Authors can participate as well and set up shop with their most recent works. The recommendation engine is linked to major social channels such as Facebook, Google+, and Twitter, allowing bookshop creators to share their favorite works with their friends and family.