Jeff Kinney

We are lucky to have a popular independent bookstore near where we live, and over the weekend my daughter got to meet one of her fave authors—Amy Ignatow, who writes and draws "The Popularity Papers" series of children's books.

If you’ve ever walked into a book signing for cartoonist Stephan Pastis, there’s a chance you could mistake it for a rock concert, only one for adolescent boys.

But don’t be mistaken. The artist’s darkly funny comic strip, Pearls Before Swine, does well among most age groups; it’d have to, after all, to be syndicated in 650 papers in an era of declining newspaper readership. But it’s his Pearls collections, more than a dozen in all, that score particularly well among the Lego and Transformer set.

We know that Barnes & Noble has the technology to process ebook transactions in its stores, and with a new holiday promotion the company announced Thursday, we’re seeing more ways that technology can work. Between December 20 and 24, customers who go to a Barnes & Noble physical store and buy an ebook from a list of 20 qualifying ebooks — including The Hobbit, Life of Pi and the entire Hunger Games trilogy – can “instant-gift” another ebook on that list for free.

James Patterson released 14 blockbuster novels last year while writing hardly a word. Whether you consider it genius or fakery, his writing franchise has made him a bogglingly wealthy man. Patterson has taken top spot in the just-released Forbes fiction rich list, with an estimated income of $US94 million ($NZ118 million) last year. He outstrips the number-two ranked Stephen King, who settled for making ends meet on a mere $US39 million ($NZ48 million).

The Indian book market grew by 45% in volume and 40% in value over the first half of 2011, with adult fiction the fastest-growing area of the market, according to Nielsen BookScan India figures as the panel marks its first full year of sales monitoring. The panel now covers about 35% of the total trade retail market and has signed up over 70% of organised book retail chains. In 2011, it measured 13 million book purchases, worth Rs 3.28bn, covering more than 286,455 different titles. Adult fiction was the fastest growing area of the market over the first half

The author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books is suing a comic book publisher he claims has infringed his copyright. Jeff Kinney and his company, Wimpy Kid Inc, claim Antarctic Press's Diary of a Zombie Kid is "substantially similiar" to his popular series. Diary of a Zombie Kid, they allege, is "intended to confuse the public into believing that defendant's books are addition to such series". The Wimpy Kid books have been a huge hit since they first appeared in 2007. The six instalments, including current edition Cabin Fever, have sold more than