Earlier this month, we travelled to Bristol in order to try out a new kind of reading experience – a project that intends to fully integrate the physical with the digital. Pioneering the frontiers of storytelling and gathering media attention, These Pages Fall Like Ash is an AHRC- and REACT-funded project worth investigating… 

As with every new digital development, there is a tendency to wax lyrical on its boundary-pushing, experience-enhancing, multi-layering and super-innovating qualities. And this project was no different. However, as I mentioned previously, this time it seems as if they have hit upon something with real significance – a diamond (albeit one slightly in the rough) amongst the lacklustre onslaught of uncreative ebooks. It is a part-treasure-hunt, part-interactive, location-based, cross-platform serialised story. I make no apologies for the use of hyphens: it seems entirely appropriate for this kind of mash-up media (there I go again).

This is a guest post from Laura Palmer, the extremely talented Editorial Director and co-founder of Head of Zeus.

When I tell people I work in fiction publishing, the first thing they want to know is whether I spend my working day reading novels. I wish I could say yes. But the truth is that if you work for a small Independent start-up, like I do, you spend a lot of time doing important-but-boring things (proofreading ISBNS, maximising discoverability by optimising territory metadata encoded in ISBNs) and not much time doing important-but-fun things (reading great scripts, schmoozing agents to persuade them to send you great scripts). The result: your isbns are perfect. Your chances of finding the next bestseller are not. When you are squeezing your search into snatched evenings, weekends, and morning commutes, it makes it all the more exciting when one falls into your lap.

Tom Chalmers is Managing Director at IPR License.

If I’m honest the London Book Fair almost broke me (in a good way). 60 meetings in three days whilst battling the potentially deadly man-flu virus has left me a shadow of my former self but pull myself together I will. In fact have to in order to close a number of the deals as a result of these meetings.

A typical day at the Fair would see me arriving around 8.30, grabbing a coffee, popping a couple of paracetamol then quickly reading the latest fair news before dashing off for a mountain of meetings that had been lined up beforehand. If there was time to grab a sandwich at some point during the day then that would be a bonus, with copious amounts of coffee offering a helping hand along the way.

Yesterday’s shattering news that Iain Banks has terminal cancer and, at this point, is expected to live for less than a year is difficult to write about for many reasons, not least of which is resisting the temptation to turn in some sort of living eulogy. The widely beloved author of, amongst many others, The Crow Road, The Wasp Factory, The Bridge and Complicity, and, as Iain M. Banks, the Culture series of science fiction novels, would also surely abhor any notion of soliciting prayers, or ‘sending positive thoughts’, or being subject to maudlin rending of garments, or any such thing. What follows, then, is a few muddled, scattered, still reeling reasons, from a fan, why we should put such thoughts aside and celebrate Banks while we still have him amongst us:

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about ‘publishing trends.’  I wrote this piece on new adult lit and soon after attended a panel discussion organised by Children’s Book Circle on ‘Sick-Lit’ a publishing trend identified and bemoaned by The Daily Mail in this article.

A lot of things came up in the discussion but one of the best points was made by author Anthony McGowan.  He shared how sceptical he was of trends in general as slapping a label on a group of books that have similar plots or themes deals only with concepts, not characters or writing.  Trends mean that books that are widely different can get lumped together, which isn’t what good writing is about.

This guy definitely ain’t Born to Run, but it’s all for Book Aid, a great cause.

It’s only a month to go. Gulp.

In 33 days I’ll be running the London Marathon: the culmination of a stop-start, alcohol free, 4 months of lurching from couch to 26 miles.

I’m doing this in support of Book Aid International, a fantastic charity, and one very familiar to us publishing-types. Book Aid works to increase access to books and support literacy, education and development in sub-Saharan Africa.

A massive tip of the hat to the A.V. Club for the wonderful discovery that the online store of American bookseller Barnes & Noble has an entire section entitled ‘Rap and hiphop musicians – Biography – Children’s nonfiction‘ and, by subsequent implication, that there is a burgeoning subgenre (seventy-four entries!) dedicated to ensuring the youth of today has a foundational knowledge of, say, the Roxanne Wars. No more will parents have to endure the awkward conversation that ensues when their progeny ask ‘Dad, what’s a Queen Latifah?’, able instead to hand over one of the six titles deemed suitable for kids that will answer any questions they might have about how exactly Mama Gave Birth to the Soul Children.

Andrew Turner is Vice-Chair of the Society of Young Publishers.  He is a graduate of Kingston University’s Publishing MA and works as a Marketing Executive at Nelson Croom, an award-winning E-Learning company.  Follow him on Twitter @justandy21.

One of the many, and unexpected, honours which come along with being chair of the Society of Young Publishers (SYP) is a place on the judging panel of the Kim Scott Walwyn Prize, which for me is an even bigger honour as I will be the first ever man to sit on the panel.

Lynette Owen is a leading authority on Copyright.  She is Copyright Director at Pearson Education and has a particular interest in establishing licensing business in developing and transitional countries.  She’s taught and written widely on these topics.  Lynette was awarded an OBE for services to publishing and international trade in 2009.  She was also the inaugural recipient of the Kim Scott Walwyn Prize.  Here, she reflects on what it was like to receive the award.