England

Let's start with a number: 37 million.

That's not page views or a figure about student debt. It's the number of subscribers to the PewDiePie YouTube channel.

PewDiePie is Felix Kjellberg, a video gamer with a legion of fans he calls "bros." He's the latest in a series of YouTube stars who have decided to publish a book.

"This Book Loves You" is a collection of aphorisms, bits of wisdom-slash-jokes, paired with photos and other visuals. It's coming out in October simultaneously in the U.K., Germany, Norway, Sweden and France and

What Elizabethan Book Pirates in the 1500s Can Teach Us About Piracy Today (Vox) Back then, piracy was rampant—and for a simple reason. After the invention of the printing press in 1440, many countries restricted which printers could print which books. In England, Queen Elizabeth I gave certain printers a monopoly over key books like […]

The post Today’s Links: Elizabethan-era book piracy vs. today’s. New Google keyboard version. $178 Windows convertible tablet appeared first on TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.

Britain – or more accurately, England – is not a great place for freedom of speech, or freedom of any kind, right now. You have UK Home Secretary Theresa May pushing to pre-emptively censor British broadcasting in cases of “extremism.” You have similar logic being spouted by Prime Minister David Cameron in moves to target […]

The post English courts gag child abuse victims appeared first on TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.

Publishers who spent much of the past year in search of the next Fifty Shades of Grey are now seeking to exploit another literary phenomenon: the British public's seemingly unfettered desire for nature writing.

In the past couple of years the genre has moved towards the publishing world's centre ground thanks to several blockbuster books that have enjoyed critical and commercial success. Now it seems not a week goes by without another major new title hitting the shelves, backed by a major marketing campaign.

Although just about every publisher has headaches dealing with Amazon, very few could deny that Amazon is their most profitable account, if they take sales volume, returns, and the cost of servicing into consideration. This fact is almost never acknowledged and therefore qualifies as one of the industry's dirty little secrets. Because they've consolidated the book-buying audience online and deliver to it with extraordinary efficiency, Amazon must feel totally justified in clawing back margin; it wasn't their idea to be every publisher's most profitable account! 

As North American university presses struggle with identity, and seek to redefine their place in the publishing ecosystem, I felt that it would be worth exploring the activities, and outlook of the AUC Press through the eyes of its Director, Nigel Fletcher Jones. What can we learn from this publisher, who has ambition, optimism, and a recent track record of significant growth?