Waterstone’s children’s department have seen sales double following the first week of launch, with the most popular sections being teen and gift books. Waterstone’s decided to trial children’s departments in Cambridge, Bath, Leeds and Newcastle in an attempt to increase children’s book sales from sixteen to twenty percent. The stores have allocated more space to the children’s department, moved the teenage sections outside of the children’s area, added a dedicated learning zone for children wanting to look at reference books, as well adding new furniture and other products to make the shopping experience more friendly. The new children’s department has been welcomed by book suppliers such as penguin. If the trials prove to be successful over the coming weeks then there will be plans to launch more children’s departments in more Waterstone stores.

Amazon has announced that it will be dictating the prices of its e-books and has vowed to make them the cheapest on the market. Amazon are launching a UK Kindle store in August. Amazon’s Kindle senior vice president, Steve Kessel, has predicted that Kindle book sales will surpass its paperback sales within the next twelve months. The store has taken about a year to launch because of the difficulty behind putting together a selection of over four hundred thousand titles. Amazon also reiterated that the launch of the new Kindle was not a response to the launch the Ipad. Amazon stated they are pleased with the launch of the Ipad as it means people will be able to shop online from anywhere in their home which ultimately should improve the number of online sales.

Bloomsbury have made a deal with the Sir Winston Churchill Archive Trust and the Churchill Heritage Ltd to form an electronic one million page Churchill archive. The electronic archive will detail Churchill’s life from his childhood to his life in politics, his involvement in the second world war and cold war, and it will contain Churchill’s personal notes during this periods. The archive will be somewhat of a presidential library and is due to be launched in 2012 and is thought to become an important part of historical studies from the twentieth century. It is believed the archive will be the largest of any prime minister and will be very beneficial for schools, giving them instant access to the history of Churchill at a subscription cost.

EMI Music Publishing will be continuing to work with Alicia Keys after fourteen years which means they will continue represent the singer. President of EMI Music Publishing, Jon Platt, stated the company is honoured to work with Alicia Keys as she is one of the most successful songwriters in recent years. Alicia Keys has sold more than thirty million albums since she released her first album eight years ago. Her first three albums went to number one in charts and have lead to her winning twelve Grammy awards. Alicia Keys stated that she and EMI have built up a great relationship over the years and the company have supported her throughout her career.

ShotlistMedia, who offer free magazines Shortlist and Stylist in the major cities, have launched a subscription service which enables customers to receive their magazines at home. The service is £52.00 a year and will enable users to obtain previous issues if they have missed the handouts points. ShortlistMedia stated that they have received many requests from commuters who weren’t in work on the day of the handout, and from people who don’t commute to work, to be able to obtain the magazine. The aim is to be able to deliver the magazine to any geographical area and not just limiting their audience to the city workers. The cost of the service will cover the postal and packaging costs and ShotlistMedia are not looking to make any profit from this service.

If we were all to look into our wallets now we would probably find in one of the many compartments a few 2 inches by 3 1/2 inches pieces of card with a logo and some details about us on – the business card!

But is this small piece of card showing your business and more importantly yourself in the right manner or is it a complete waste of time?

The black and white business cards are a thing of the past and now business cards have such variation as thickness, colour, design techniques, illustrations and I have even seen some that are metal. I had a good browse on the web and couldn’t find any definite information on what a good business card is.

Personally i think the business card is a really important part of a meeting as most of the time it is the first thing people make a first impression on and as we all know first impressions are very important and could be the difference between completing the deal and going home empty handed.

I think a business card should have the simple factors of clear contact details and clear outline of your business (logo and any USP about your business) whilst also offering a design that stands out from the crowd.

Couple of points to look out for don’t make it look to flash and expensive as companies may question your prices and websites offering business cards may be best for you if you only need 250 or less.

A conference in Edinburgh has discussed what the future is likely to hold for publishing in Scotland. Publishing has been hard-hit by the recession and the effects have been felt all over the UK, including Scotland.

The conference was aimed at addressing fears that funding for the publishing trade organisation Publishing Scotland would be cut amid recommendations from the Literature Working Group of Scotland. A report from the LWG also suggested Publishing Scotland should be restructured to become part of the Independent Publishers Guild.

The LWG stressed that their report was intended to spark discussion on the topic of Scottish publishing and that they are open to other suggestions regarding its future.

Authors published by Penguin have all voted on the Penguin book they admire the most and George Orwell has come out on top. Fifty authors took part in the poll, which was part of Penguin’s 75th birthday celebrations, each selecting one title from Penguin’s back catalogue.

A total of four novels chosen were written by George Orwell. Including in the selections were his famous dystopian novels 1984 and Animal Farm.

The final list can be seen at Penguin’s website, providing a small insight into the tastes of some of today’s best writers. Other novels selected included works by such literary giants as Vladimir Nabokov, Leo Tolstoy, James Joyce and John Steinbeck.

The publishing industry has been hard hit by the effects of the economic downturn and last year saw staff within the industry endure pay freezes as part of publishers’ strategies to cope with the struggle.

It looks as though 2010 will be a little easier however as some of the larger UK publishing houses have announced they will be increasing employees pay in line with inflation. HarperCollins and Penguin are among those whose strategies have eased up and Macmillan is set to announce its plans in April.

Recruitment agencies for publishers have also confirmed that the job market within the industry appears to be improving.

Publishers in the United Kingdom have another difficulty to face in the coming months and years as it appears that the lucrative business of co-editions is on the wane.

Co-editions constitute separate publications of the same edition of a piece of work. A good example of a co-edition would be a foreign language translation – a publisher in France, for instance, could publish a French book and a separate English publication could be released with an English translation of the same book.

These used to contribute to publishers’ income, but 2008 figures show that co-edition income fell a massive 29% from 2006 figures.