Gillian Flynn

Last year, the release of the Hollywood adaptation of Gillian Flynn's 2012 novel "Gone Girl" propelled the book onto best-seller lists in several countries around the world. Millions of people bought it, but how many of them actually read it from cover to cover? The Toronto-based e-reading platform Kobo, which delivers digital books to 23 million people in 190 countries and is a competitor to Amazon Kindle, recently released statistics for 2014 that showed the best-selling books in the company's major markets and how frequently readers finished the titles they bought.

Novelist Veronica Roth, just 26 years old, earned $17m (£10.5m) last year thanks to her dystopian young adult trilogy Divergent, making her one of the richest authors in the world, according to Forbes.

The list of the world's top-earning authors was released by Forbes on Monday. Topped by thriller writer James Patterson, it includes three names that have never appeared in the ranking before. Sixth-placed Roth, whose smash-hit stories are set in a world where people are defined and organised according to their dominant personality traits

Erotic writer Sylvia Day tops The Bookseller's first e-book ranking, the first ever e-book chart that includes publisher-supplied volume sales numbers. Entwined with You (Penguin) sold more than 200,000 digital copies in June, ahead even of its print sales; meaning that it becomes the first title to top both monthly lists having sold more digitally than in print.

Thanks to Nate over at The Digital Reader for pointing me toward Goodread’s year-end infographic summary (see below). Some cool stats on there about the most reviewed book of the year (Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn), the most popular author interviews (Michael Chabon, Lois Lowry, Junot Diaz and Anne Lamott) and growth of the site’s membership (it [...]

The post Goodreads Posts Its Year-End Stats appeared first on TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.

Books — staid and intellectual cultural artifacts that they so often are — were not all just staid or intellectual this year. Not nearly. There were, in fact, scandals, at least a few of them surrounding books and their authors and publishers, and there were times in which discussions of books and the business grew dramatic and tension-filled. Near-scandals! Other times, these conversations were simply very, very interesting, full of twists and turns, much like a good book.

Random House had its corporate Christmas party on Wednesday night in New York, and word is that Santa likes bondage. A lot.

Markus Dohle, the chief executive of Random House, promised employees — from top editors to warehouse workers — a $5,000 bonus to celebrate a profitable year. The cheering went on for minutes, according to people in attendance.

Call it 5,000 shades of green.