And in view of this morning's news, how about

Tim Waterstone Saves the Day?

Emma

EEK! What news?

Dee

TW's offered to buy Waterstone's from HMV on condition that they give up trying to take over Ottakars. He's tried to get it back before, but does seem to have got the money together this time, and is saying he knows how to rescue Waterstone's relationships within the trade, and HMV obviously don't. And to add to the excitement, last week the City was saying it's 75% certain that WHSmith will try to beat Waterstone's and take over Ottakars themselves rather than expand their new book-only stores from scratch.

I'd post the link, but I can only find one on the Bookseller site so far, and you have to be a subscriber to read anything more than a taster.

Emma

<Added>

Realise I've left out Ottakar's (Ottakar's's?) apostrophe though not Waterstone's's. Sorry, James!

That sounds like a move in two right directions, Emma. I’d heard WHS were interested in Ottakars and, from what I heard at AN on Saturday, that could maintain Ottakars reputation of being amenable to local authors.

Is Bookseller worth the subscription? It’s such a lot of money, and I can access Publishing News online for free. How do you think the two compare?

Dee
(sod the apostrophes

<Added>

what happened to my closing bracket, then? Huh?

Well, it is and it isn't. The Bookseller's much more up-to-date, and you can opt to be sent emails of news, which is why I heard about TW this morning. There are several new stories each day and a big archive and links to all the trade stories in the press and so on and so on and a lot more all together, whereas Publishing News seems to be updated weekly unless something really extraordinary happens. I can't say I've examined the further reaches of either, though, so I might not be being fair. But I'm also paying for a lot of stuff I don't need, I suppose. I decided to try for a year and see what I think - it's tax deductible, which eases the cost a bit.

Emma

<Added>

Found this about Waterstone's which is pretty much the same as the Bookseller version:

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=180475486&p=y8x476y9z

Hi Jon,

I had nothing to do with the title...

I only scraped into the anthology because I was brazen enough to say, 'Aren't you putting one of mine in?' to which initially they said no.

'They're all too long.'

Sarah

Well, in 4-6 weeks I will be a proud owner of Just Desserts.

I'm looking forward to tucking in! (Sorry couldn't resist it.)

Thanks for the link, Emma. I’ll have another think about The Bookseller.

Dee

Thanks Roger!

Dee, if you want something to tilt you towards it, I was browsing through the articles, and came across one about how and why publishers' PR and marketing depts target the women's glossies because... well, that's not the point really. The point actually is that it made me realise that the Bookseller does have an awful lot of stuff there apart from the current news that could be very useful to anyone promoting a book - things about how independents bookshops tick, and small publishers, and so on. The trade does talk more honestly among itself, perhaps, than their brochures and websites do to the outside world.

Emma