Maria Cardona runs her own digital consultancy for publishers and will be hosting our first Spanish BookMachine event. Prior to setting up Mmcardona, she worked in both trade and educational publishing, and was also part of the core London Bookfair team. Here, Maria shares some of her thoughts and tells us why you should come along to BookMachine Barcelona.

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.

An author who held a particularly special place in the hearts of those genre connoiseurs who came of age between the 70s and the dawn of the internet age, James Herbert has died aged 69, says his publisher Pan Macmillan. No cause of death was disclosed, but Herbert is reputed to have passed peacefully in bed. A perennial library checkout of fathers and older cousins, at least in this writer’s family, the novelist’s bibliography spans from his 1974 debut, The Rats, to what would prove to be his final work, 2012′s Ash.

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.

Though the combination of the two hasn’t always been well received in the past, Sony’s video gaming arm has announced its latest attempt at porting the world of Harry Potter to the Playstation: the company will partner with J. K. Rowling’s Pottermore site for a social gaming initiative on Playstation Home, the online gaming hub of the PS3. Initially, the venture will see a selection of environments known to fans of the books opened up for virtual exploration – Diagon Alley and the Hogwarts Express are two of the first to be named – and used as locations for assorted games and other interactive experiences, including such Potter universe staples as duelling, collecting trading cards, picking out an owl or other appropriately magical animal and shopping for Hogwarts essentials.

Here at BookMachine we are passionate about what we do – BookMachine is fun, interesting, great for making connections, all about collaboration, cool, all-inclusive, informative, forward-thinking, welcoming, mega, bookish, digital, international, community-focused, innovative, friendly, driven… there are endless words to describe it!

So we’d like to set you a challenge.

Charly Ford described BookMachine as “Fantastic publishing goodness. For all.” What strapline would you suggest for BookMachine, using only 5 words?

Leave them as a comment below, or tweet us @BookMachine or @charly_ford!

The best entry* will win a free pair of tickets to the party that is taking place in Oxford on 27 March.

*extra marks will be awarded for creativity!

Way back in October of 2011, we posted news of The Literature Prize, a potential rival to the Booker whose creation was implicitly a reaction to that year’s infamously ‘readable’ Booker shortlist. Spokesperson Andrew Kidd, the literary agent, suggested at the time that the prize could be up and running as soon as 2012. That estimate proved to be a little overly optimistic, as evidenced by the prize’s still not having happened (just so we’re all on the same page, it’s 2013 now), but just when everyone had forgotten it had ever been mooted, the prize has resurfaced with a new name, a sponsor and a date for its inaugural ceremony: As of March 2014, the Booker will be joined on the literary prize circuit by the Folio Prize, unexepectedly taking its title – and sponsorship – from The Folio Society.

Charly Ford is a Project Manager at Osprey Publishing and is hosting the BookMachine event in Oxford. Here, Charly shares her enthusiasm for publishing and tells us why you should come along and join the fun later this month.

It’s been a hot, awkwardly phrased minute since we last had anything worth reporting on the ol’ Fifty Shades of Grey front. Thankfully however, after three months, our long, hard, throbbing national nightmare is over with the news that Vintage is set to publish the excessively punctuated Fifty Shades of Grey: Inner Goddess (A Journal), which is either a canny piece of Fifty Shades merchandising or a spin-off of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

In the run up to BookMachine Toronto we caught up with Greg Ioannou who is a busy Publishing bod. Between all the various roles he fulfills (Publisher at Iguana Books, President of Colborne Communications and President of the Editors’ Association of Canada), he does a lot of networking. So if you’re going to the first BookMachine Toronto, Greg will be propping up the buffet bar so do say hello!