Jonathan Ball Publishers acquires Icon Books
thebookseller.com – Wednesday April 1, 2020
Jonathan Ball Publishers has bought indie Icon Books, in a move that will see representatives from both companies form the management team.
JBP, a subsidiary of South African media conglomerate Media 24, purchased the company for an undisclosed sum, with plans to phase in an expansion process in the future, and retain all staff.
JBP will assume management on 1st April, with c.e.o. Eugene Ashton becoming chairman of Icon Books. Icon managing director Philip Cotterell will be the c.e.o. under the new ownership arrangements.
Covid-19 and the impact on small publishers
artshub.com.au – Tuesday March 31, 2020
In the midst of government rescue packages, payments to big business and payments to those in jobs now lost, the small publishing industry is invisible.
On 22 March, the government met with some arts practitioners and people in music, theatre and other performance arts. Writers and publishers don't seem to have been there.
Small publishers take big risks and often publish writers at the beginning of their career or writers whose work lies on the margin. Then some of these writers win major awards or the cultural curve catches up to their ideas and their work is picked up in the mainstream.
Are you a new or emerging writer from a working-class background?
irishtimes.com – Monday March 23, 2020
Are you a new or emerging writer from a working class background? Would you like to be published alongside an Impac Award-winner, a Booker Prize-winner, two Sunday Times Short Story Award-winners, a senator, playwrights and poets? What about a professional development programme with the help of leading publishers and the Irish Writers Centre.
Well, now is your chance. Next spring, The 32: An Anthology of Working Class Voices will be published in Ireland and the UK. It will include 16 well-known contributors and 16 new and emerging writers. We are launching the search for those new writers today in The Irish Times.
Winchester Poetry Festival launches best new writing competition
hampshirechronicle.co.uk – Sunday March 15, 2020
AN ANNUAL poetry competition celebrating the best in new writing for 2020 has been launched.
The Winchester Poetry Prize is organised by the Winchester Poetry Festival and is open to poets from around the world.
This year’s entries will be judged by Andrew McMillan, whose first collection, physical, was the only poetry collection to ever win The Guardian First Book Award and was the Poet in Residence at Basingstoke Discovery Centre in 2012. He is also a senior lecturer in the Manchester Writing School.
Agents Highlight Leading Christian Publishing Trends
publishersweekly.com – Wednesday March 11, 2020
The religion publishing category is as strong as ever, interviews with several with literary agents found. Among the favorable trends they pointed to are a growing interest by publishers in the beliefs and behaviors of younger generations as well as an increase in the types of self-help books being released.
According to Kathryn Helmers, managing partner at Creative Trust Literary Group, readers are keen to move beyond books based on traditional thinking about the Christian faith—proper beliefs, a Bible-based worldview, and didactic teachings. Instead, readers are looking for “an ethos that values experience over knowledge, authenticity over authority,” she says.
London Book Fair award winners revealed
thebookseller.com – Wednesday March 11, 2020
The winners of the London Book Fair Awards 2020 have been revealed with the LBF International Excellence Awards, CAMEOs and UK Book Blog Awards all taking place online with the prizes posted to winners after the event was cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The winners of the London Book Fair’s International Excellence Awards, in association with the Publishers Association, have been announced, with Europe and Asia leading the way with five and four winners respectively.
Shortlisted in three categories, Karadi Tales (India) took home the Audiobook Publisher of the Year. The judges congratulated it on its “firm commercial focus on their future web-based strategy, and continued dedication to both educating and entertaining young people in India.” Maadi Public Library in Egypt was crowned Library of the Year, with judges praising the library’s “sheer energy, diversity and vibrancy”.
Educational publishing merger raises competition concerns
gov.uk – Wednesday March 11, 2020
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is concerned that the loss of competition brought about by the proposed merger could result in university textbooks costing more.
McGraw-Hill and Cengage are two leading publishers, producing textbooks and associated materials, for higher education students.
Coronavirus in the UK: an unlikely ally for aspiring novelists
inews.co.uk – Sunday March 8, 2020
You don’t come to the Arts pages of a newspaper to read about coronavirus. This should be a World Health Organisation-free zone, the last place you expect to find updates on Government action plans. We do ballet here. I understand all that but, please, bear with me, because I think I have some good news. Or at least the glint of a silver lining.
Earlier this week, the London Book Fair was cancelled (don’t worry, that’s not the good bit) amid concerns that thousands of publishers and literary agents flying in from all over the world to shake hands and breathe on each other might not be very sensible right now.
Abrams Artists Agency Rebrands as A3 Artists Agency
variety.com – Tuesday March 3, 2020
Abrams Artists Agency, a prominent talent and literary agency, has officially rebranded as A3 Artists Agency.
The name change, announced over the weekend at the company’s annual retreat, comes 18 months after Robert Attermann, Brian Cho, and Adam Bold acquired the agency,
“When we purchased the agency in 2018, we set out to be the premium brand we now are,” Bold said. “We said we’d have diversity, and we do. We’re not only promising to be something different; we are something different. We’ve hired top-tier agents from diverse backgrounds, we were the first agency to launch a digital studio, and we recently expanded internationally with an office in the UK.”
Crime Story 2020: Innovative crime writing festival turns spotlight on contemporary crime
newsroom.northumbria.ac.uk – Saturday February 29, 2020
A series of events for crime fiction fans will take place at Alphabetti Theatre, Newcastle this spring, bringing together people from the two very different worlds of fact and fiction.
Across the three events, celebrated writers AA Dhand, Oliver Harris, Jessica Moor, Judith O’Reilly and Mim Skinner will be paired with experts who will offer unique insight into how contemporary issues are dealt with in real life.
Experts taking part in Crime Story include three Northumbria University academics - Dr Nicci MacLeod, a forensic linguist, who has written on women in the criminal justice system; Professor Mike Rowe, a criminologist who specialises in policing culture and reforms; and Professor Lars Holmquist, an internationally-leading researcher in human-computer interaction.
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