The economic downturn has caused Americans to reduce the number of books they are buying and to buy less expensive books when they make a purchase, according to data released Tuesday from Bowker's PubTrack Consumer service.

We don't get the 'Afro Picks!' cover. It's not hip, cute, or appealing," said one tweet. Another tweet: "It seems like a big mistake," while another read, "what exactly is the rationale behind the Afro-picks cover?" "This is a ridiculous

The scramble for survival in the New York publishing world provoked by the rise of the ebook has become so ruthless it makes the Wild West look like a Swiss finishing school.

It's official: Shortcovers, the Indigo-owned e-book service launched less than a year ago, has a new name. At midnight last night, the company was rechristened Kobo (an anagram of "book"), and along with a redesigned website and mobile app, introduced

Book publishers are increasingly embracing digital books, and not just on Amazon's Kindle. Today, John Wiley and Sons, Barnes and Noble imprint Sterling Publishing, Chronicle Books, and the University of Chicago Press announced they will join a total of 150

Do you pay the milkman by cheque? Slip a surprise cheque in a Christmas card to a grandson or granddaughter? Or maybe you simply don't trust direct debits when dealing with gas and electricity companies?

Random House chairman Markus Dohle may have sent this letter to agents in the spirit of collaboration, but that isn't how the Authors Guild is seeing it. In a message sent to its members this morning, the Guild said it

Borders UK is to shut all its stores on December 22 unless a buyer for the business is found.

One in three Britons are leaving their Christmas shopping much later than they intended, and planning to spend less this festive season than in 2008, according to the latest wave of GfK NOP's annual Christmas Spending survey.