Publishing News
Amazon panned for alleged UK tax evasion
British MPs are ready to haul Amazon back to parliament to answer new questions about its tax status.
A Guardian investigation's findings suggest the online retailer is pushing the tax rulebook to its limits to minimise its tax bill.
Amazon's UK subsidiary paid £2.4m in corporate taxes last year, the online retailer's accounts show, despite making sales of £4.3bn.
Swann hits out at rivals during Smiths departure
The outgoing chief executive of UK bookseller W.H. Smith has delivered a swipe at rivals as she steps down from her post.
Kate Swann is widely credited with turning around an ailing business, leaving as shares hit record highs. In a final presentation, she hit out at rival retailers who have demanded retrospective discounts from suppliers.
It was revealed last month that John Lewis had written to suppliers demanding a discount of up to 10%, while similar letters were sent by Laura Ashley, Debenhams and Accessorize Monsoon.
Apple agreed to censor books in China
Just after Apple CEO Tim Cook apologised to China for selling customers short on their warranties, it has emerged that Cupertino has had to remove books banned by the country's government from the iTunes store.
The Financial Times said there were ten works on iTunes the Chinese government found controversial, three of which were by Chinese writer Wang Lixiong. Hao Peiqiang, an app developer, spilled the beans.
Wang's books are largely banned in China for the author's political activism.
Writer used book to get back at love rival
French smut scribe Christine Angot has been accused by her lover's ex-partner of "pillaging her private life' for a novel, to such an extent that the woman attempted suicide.
Angot’s novels of "autofiction" - a genre in which one's own life is used as a basis for a tale in which fact and fiction are mixed without distinction - have seen her recount real or imagined incest with her father and torrid sex sessions with her rapper ex-boyfriend in a lift, mixed with musings about whether to have coffee.
Ebook publishers learned nothing from browser wars
What had seemed like ‘money for nothing’ to publishers now looks more like fools’ gold. Short sighted digital strategies have left digital executives worried that far from looking bright, the future looks very cloudy indeed.
Prison urged in publishing scam
A US publisher charged with fraud in connection with books that were never produced pleaded no contest Monday in Vermont Superior Court in Bennington.
Peter Campbell-Copp, 63, conned authors out of more than $200,000 Bennington County Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Christina Rainville said.
‘We will be asking for jail, but have not decided how long,’ she said.
Readers can't tell Dickens from Bulwer-Lytton
A new study reveals that readers can’t tell the difference between the works of Charles Dickens and Edward Bulwer-Lytton, often called 'the worst writer in history'.
In a study by University of California academic Mikhail Simkin, more than 9,000 people worldwide were presented with a dozen passages from the novels of the two Victorian authors.
They were asked to identify which came from the pen of Dickens and which were the works of his less-feted contemporary. Under half guessed right.
Old Etonian gay sex romp ignored by toffs' school
Eton head Tony Little is unlikely to celebrate the success of the latest novelist to graduate from its hallowed halls.
The public school takes pride in celebrating the 19 prime ministers, princes and writers such as Ian Fleming and George Orwell it has educated, but Little is unlikely to wish to draw attention to a book by ex-pupil Edmund Marlowe.
eReader sales crash - publishers worried
After spectacular growth in the last few years, the eBook reader market looks to be crashing.
