David Nicholls

Author David Nicholls‘s keynote speech at the London Book Fair Digital Minds Conference appears to have been garnering quite a bit of ridicule, as well as attention, for his claim that showrooming is just a “genteel form of shoplifting.” And far be it from me to hold back. So here’s an equally infantile but just […]

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Giving the keynote speech at the London Book Fair's Digital Minds conference on Monday, the bestselling writer spoke of the six months he has spent touring with his latest novel Us, published last autumn. During the publicity tour he noticed the closure of stores in New York and London, singling out the loss of Exmouth Market's Clerkenwell Tales for particular regret. "I felt an all too familiar sadness, usually accompanied by guilt because while you're sorry the shop has gone, you're also vaguely aware that you hadn't bought anything there for a while,"

Sales of ebook novels quadrupled last year, almost making up for the sharp decline in sales of old-fashioned physical books, new figures from the book industry show.

In a sign of how Britons reading habits are changing, the Publishers Association said that sales of electronic novels hit £70 million in 2011, up from just £16 million in 2010.

The sales increase of £54 million almost entirely made up for the £57 million decline in sales of traditional paperback novels.