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All across the planet, particularly in more computerized nations, bookstores are facing increasing challenges, from the dual competition of e-books and Amazon, or both simultaneously.

Amazon beats local bookstores on price, and beats them on digital sales completely. Most people think local bookstores don't stand a chance. Plenty have done well enough, but there's a way out of this mess anyway. We can fix bookstores so they survive for decades to come.

Print is alive and kicking. Greenwich Village's Strand Book Store reported record sales Monday - that's one for the books. The Strand says its record sales means "Bookstores are not dead." 

"Yesterday we had our best sales day in the history of 86 years at the store. So thankful for all of you," the bookstore tweeted early Christmas Eve.

In a move highlighting the increasing role that user-generated content plays in the news business, News Corporation, owner of The Wall Street Journal, announced on Friday that it had bought Storyful, a company that calls itself a "social news" agency.

Storyful, a self-described "social news" agency, sifts online content and sends authenticated reports and videos to its clients.

Storyful monitors websites like Instagram and YouTube for compelling news and video, has its journalists confirm the material's authenticity, and distributes it to clients in newsrooms around the world.

WARSAW: The Polish Chamber of Books (PIK) has drafted a bill which is set to introduce fixed prices for new book releases for 18 months after publication, with an exemption for ebooks (which have the higher VAT rate of 23%, as opposed to the 5% levied on print books). The chamber sees the proposed regulations as a remedy to the continuing decline of book sales in Poland. But some local observers accuse the chamber of hampering competition and fostering protectionism in the publishing market.

Simon & Schuster UK has recently announced the launch of a genre-specific social media and blog site, meant to entice avid readers of its New Adult and Romance titles. Called The Hot Bed and curated by an in-house team of four Simon & Schuster UK professionals, the site aims to be the source for news about S&S’s top-selling and most well-loved romance authors, as well as a blog for those authors to make appearances.

A few months ago, author Sherman Alexie wrote an open letter to fellow authors. He called on fellow authors to get out and share their love of reading, and celebrate the importance of indies to their communities and to the continued success of authors themselves. In an NPR interview, he said, "My career happened because the booksellers at independent bookstores hand-sold my book." This is true for so many literary careers; enthusiastic indie booksellers raved about a new title by an unknown author, spreading the word to their communities and to other booksellers

Even as the universe of printed matter continues to shrivel, the book - or at least some of its best-known features - is showing remarkable staying power online. The idea is apparently embedded so deeply in the collective unconsciousness that no one can bear to leave it behind.

Amazon brags that on its latest e-reader, "the pages are virtually indistinguishable from a physical book." It recently introduced the Page Flip feature, which mimics the act of skimming.

Penguin UK has teamed up with the Berlin-based ebook app developer Readmill to bolster direct ebook sales.

The app allows readers to share ebook highlights and to talk to each other while they're reading, "liking" one anothers' updates and discussing the books. People who buy ebooks from Penguin.co.uk will have the option to "send to Readmill". The arrangement sidesteps Amazon's Kindle and means that Penguin can retain more data on customers.

We spoke with publishing experts whose social media strategies have yielded loyal followings. They share 25 ways to make your social efforts more effective in 2014.

Sometimes living in Maine has unexpected advantages beyond lobster, seaside air, and friendly people, as I discovered yesterday when learning one of the newest beta sites for the Espresso Print-on-Demand system was being unveiled at a South Portland Books-a-Million store. Publerati is located in nearby Portland.