Some Words Are Not For Sale

"In a dramatic act of protest at this week's London Book Fair, Chinese author Ma Jian [whose novel 'Beijing Coma' is banned in his native country] smeared red paint across his face to demonstrate his anger at the choice of China as the event's 'market focus.'
     It was the latest development in the row over the British Council's collaboration with China's General Administration of Press and Publications (Gapp). Critics have attacked China's record on censorship and selection of authors invited to London. [...]
     The incarcerated Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo should have been among the authors invited, he said, calling the 180 Chinese publishers present at the fair 'the mouthpiece of the Chinese communist party.'
     In this book fair that looks so modern, so impressive, so beautiful, you will not see the ugly reality that lies behind, you will not see the Tibetan lamas who have set fire to themselves, you will not hear the voices of the writers who are persecuted in China,' said Ma. The situation was 'a dishonour to the values that make western civilisation so strong,' he added."
— Benedicte page, The Guardian
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"The collected writings of Chinese Nobel prizewinner Liu Xiaobo have been translated into English for the first time, but there will be no interviews, bookshop signings or appearances at literary festivals. The author is not even aware of the English translation, because he remains incarcerated in a Chinese jail and his wife is under house arrest.
     Liu, who won last year's Nobel peace prize, is serving an 11-year sentence that began in 2009 for 'inciting subversion of state power.' Friends have been unable to contact his wife, Liu Xia, even though she has not been charged with anything.
     The 55-year-old former professor at Beijing University has repeatedly been detained or arrested and sentenced over the years for his relentless but peaceful political activities, calling for democratic reforms, including freedom of expression, and condemning China's treatment of Tibet. He was barred from attending the Nobel ceremony, and at the funeral of his father earlier this year he was forbidden from talking to anybody."
— Dalya Alberge, The Guardian
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Hard, Soft and Unbound

From: The Upcoming

For better or worse, digital technology has permanently blurred the boundaries between the professional and the amateur. Whether it be in the gilded (and guilded) domains of accounting, law, design, or even medicine (you can now buy a cheep machine to analyze your own DNA); so why not publishing? — Michael Hale

"Attendance figures for the 2012 London Book Fair won’t be released for weeks, until the numbers are audited, but judging from the fairly strong traffic in the main hall (along with a large China contingent), it seems likely this year’s attendance will top the 24,802 who came to last year’s event. But one new exhibitor stood out at this year’s fair: Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing.
     With a booth nicely situated near the Digital Zone theatre, Amazon saw steady traffic, answering questions for potential authors, and making some of their most successful self-published authors available to talk about their experiences. 'It’s been great,' Atif Rafiq, general manager of Amazon’s KDP unit, told PW, noting steady traffic at the booth, good attendance at a one-hour session on Monday afternoon, and overflow attendance at two short presentations in the Digital Zone Theatre. It was Amazon KDP's first time at the fair, and Rafiq said Amazon KDP would also exhibit at the upcoming BookExpo America in New York in June.
     Amazon’s presence was part of a noticeable increase in the amount of programming geared toward self-publishing at this year’s fair. At the Author Lounge in Earls Court 2, roughly half of the programs focused on self-publishing, with titles like: Why Self-Publishing Is Not Only the Future but the Present; Serious Self-Publishing from Manuscript to Market; and E-Books for the Self-Published Author. Authors have always come to the London Book Fair, although not in large numbers—just 1,039 attendees of the nearly 25,000 who came to London in 2011 identified as authors. But as technology makes publication easier, and marketing more effective, that number appears poised to grow, whether to learn best practices or new skills, to potentially meet an agent, or, to find an alternate route to market, whether Amazon, or Lulu.com."
— Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly
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Books by the Pound: The London Book Fair — how do you weigh the impact of digital sales?

"The e-book era has clearly arrived, but can publishers' digital revenues grow fast enough to offset the worldwide decline in sales of physical books? About half of all books are bought on impulse—sales that result from attractive displays in inviting surroundings, which are readily accessible to the most literate, well-heeled customers (aka 'the heavy book buyer')."
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