News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, giveaways on this and other blogs, and other cool stuff.
Just a reminder — the National Book Festival is this weekend, and the Baltimore Book Festival is next weekend, Sept. 27-29! And don’t forget that Banned Books Week is next week — Sept. 22-28, 2013.
Books & Ebooks in the News:
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| The National Book Award fiction longlist for 2013 |
- The National Book Award longlists are up! GalleyCat has links to free samples of the longlist titles in nonfiction, fiction, and young people’s fiction.
- The Man Booker Prize is going global and will soon be open to all authors writing in the English language and published in the UK, regardless of national origin.
- A professor believes he has identified the author of a slave’s novel thought to be the first novel by an African American woman.
- “Children’s and YA eBook Revenues Down Nearly 46%” in the first half of 2013. (Jason Boog, GalleyCat) But adult ebook sales were up slightly. (Publisher’s Weekly)
- James Patterson plans to donate $1 Million to independent bookstores. (CBS News press release)
- The House Judiciary Committee released 7 principles on Internet tax fairness as Internet sales tax moves closer to reality. (Publishers Weekly) Apropos of this, and following an agreement with lawmakers in my home state, Amazon began collecting taxes on sales to Virginia residents on Sept. 1. (Fredericksburg.com) I believe residents in several other states are also paying tax on Amazon sales.
- Overdrive is taking e-book lending into China. (Michael Kozlowski, Good E-Reader)
- “ABA Partners with Biblio” to give indie bookstores the opportunity to “offer used, rare, and out-of-print books on their websites.” (Publishers Weekly)
- “Twitter, YouTube, Will Promote Banned Books Week” — which is next week. (Publishers Weekly)
Worth Reading/Watching:
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| Roald Dahl |
- “Gobsmacked!” Editor Stephen Roxburgh remembers working with Roald Dahl on The Witches. (Publishers Weekly)
- Mark Grist’s “I like a girl who reads”. (Contains mild sexual slang) Full text available here. (Thanks to Dear Author for this one!)
For Writers & Bloggers:
- So You Think You Can Write: Harlequin and Wattpad announced a New Adult romance writing contest, so sharpen your pencils and rev up your keyboards and start writing!
- “How to Write a Captivating Blog Title” (Writers in the Storm blog)
Book Announcements:
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| SYFY’s Bitten series, starring Laura Vandervoort |
- SYFY is turning Kelly Armstrong’s Bitten books into a TV series.
- Alice Hoffman’s “The Dovekeepers” will be adapted for television by LightWorkers Media. The book tells the story of four women who raise doves, as they are caught up in the events of Masada. (Maryann Yin, GalleyCat)
- Comic Con adding 7 new cities in 2014: Sacramento, CA; Louisville, KY.; Minneapolis, MN; Atlanta, GA; San Antonio, TX; Richmond, VA.; and Tulsa, OK. This is awesome, since Richmond is just an hour and a half down the road from me! (Business Wire) You can see a full schedule of all Comic Cons at WizardWorld.com
Bookish Quotes:
That’s it for this week!
I’m always on the lookout for interesting articles, lists, and links for News & Notes, so please let me know if you see (or write!) anything that might be good for this feature. You can leave me a comment or send me an email — my address is on the About/Review Policy/Contact page.
Bea
Actually, SyFy is not responsible for “Bitten”. Space in Canada is developing it and SyFy will broadcast it here in the States. I was hoping they’d pick it up even though have already made changes I’m unhappy about it. Ah well, I have my books. 🙂
Have fun at the festival!
Lark @ The Bookwyrm's Hoard
Ah, thank you for the clarification! I’m sorry they’re making changes you don’t like, though. I haven’t read the books yet, so I don’t have a vested interest in it so far, but it always irks me when film/tv adaptations make unnecessary changes.
And the festival was a lot of fun! I hope to post about it soon.
kimbacaffeinate
I think I accidentally commented about The Girl Who Reads on another post or it ate it ..LOL Great post as always!
Lark @ The Bookwyrm's Hoard
No problem — I do that sometimes too! I’m glad you enjoyed it!