The Guardian's Blog, page 123

Bookshop memories: your pictures and stories

When we asked you to share anecdotes and photos of your favourite independent bookshops, the stories poured in. From romance surrounded by Shakespeare to an encounter with a falconry-loving policeman, here is a selection of your bookshop memories

See all the contributions and add your own on GuardianWitness

In a context of disputes among publishers over the digital market, uncertainty around the future of the print book, the meteoric rise of self-publishing and the legendary Foyles' move to a new building in London, we asked you to share your most cherished memories from independent bookshops. With an optimistic mindset and lots of love for the smell of paper, here is a selection of our favourites.

Minibooks, Hay on Wye by JuslibolLord

The minibooks, beautiful decoration and still masterpieces of literature. I purchased way too many of them.

Cotteridge in Birmingham was the unlikely setting of an amazing second-hand bookshop located on the top floors of a detached house that had become a glorious junk shop. My grandfather used to take me and the Dalmatian on a long bus ride to get there. I would be abandoned to peruse ancient medical texts, faded Penguin paperbacks, dishevelled Dickens tomes and bound volumes of Victorian periodicals. I'm unsure of what effect it had on the dog but all this turned a curious 1950s seven year old into a dedicated reader. I have never forgotten Treasure Trove with its random sofas, stuffed polar bear, glass cases of plaster pike, and room after room of unsorted books...

Over the summer of 1976 I worked at Lucas's in Altincham not just a bookshop, but a bookseller in the fullest sense of the word, its premises on Ashley Road crammed with workers offering a full book supply service to libraries, schools etc. Norman and Irene Lucas had established the business just after the Second World War, and ran it until the 1990s. After a few years under new ownership as an art supply shop, it closed in 2005.

The Kings English Bookstore in Salt Lake City, Utah was just down the street from my house growing up. It was there that I gained a deeper understanding of the birds and the bees. I was a curious ten year old when I discovered the book Where Did I Come From by Peter Mayle and Arthur Robins tucked on a shelf. I returned to the book store regularly, sneaked into a quiet corner and studied the fascinating material. Not once did the kind, open-minded women working there embarrass me by asking what I was doing. But my mom, a King's English regular, did come home with the book one day. Coincidence? I dont think so. The book prompted an open, honest conversation. Thanks to the women at Kings English in 1980. They handled that particular situation perfectly.

One of the most beautiful second hand book stores in the world, in fact I think it's one of the biggest too, we spend so much time up there just enjoying the ambience, reading, being surrounded by books from every genre, it's the most magical place and it smells of books, a very special smell.

George's bookshop on the Christmas Steps in Bristol was a gem. The shelves had long been filled and books were stacked all over the floor, only George knew where anything was. He had a wonderfully socialist policy whereby he would buy back any book you bought for half what you paid. I remember him wearing a brown warehouse coat and, as he was extremely shortsighted, he would hold a book up to one side of his face almost like he was listening to it.

My parents ran a bookshop in Jersey for over 30 years this is a photo of the last and greatest incarnation it was on three floors, served coffee, allowed smoking and had a garden on the ground floor.

In the mid-70s I was on holiday in Orkney and we were queueing, late morning, in a Kirkwall bookstore/newsagent waiting for the daily papers to arrive from the flight bringing them north from the mainland. We browsed the bookstands while we waited, eventually got our paper and ambled back down the street to the car. It was only when we got back to our rented cottage that I realised I'd slipped a paperback under my arm while we waited and then forgotten to pay for it! We were coming home the next day so had no time to go back and pay. (It was 'Voss' by Patrick White, a gruelling story of early Australian exploration.)

My favourite bookstore cafe. Amongst the Shakespeare volumes in the upstairs second hand section is where my boyfriend and I had one of our first kisses.

I don't remember my very first visit to a bookstore, but I remember how I'd get excited when we finally passed the bookstore on Saturday morning shopping trips to the mall. I'd disappear in between the shelves. My favourite spot was always sitting flat on the ground, looking for something interesting in the bottom row of whichever aisle I ended up in. I used to think that I'm lucky because I'm small and comfortable on the ground and that I got to see books that the grownup didn't. I still look at in the bottom shelf when I visit bookstores today, and when the store isn't busy, I might even sit there for a while, hoping to discover something amazing.

My six year old bibliophile boy, Sebastian, discovers a copy of my book in Foyles, the only non-online bookshop in the world to stock it.

I was in Central London to meet my Mum before she moved to Crete. We met up at a Waterstones and bought each other a book as a goodbye present. I chose The Stand by Stephen King for her and picked up Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks for myself. When I got home and looked at my book I realised that I'd picked up a signed copy just sitting on the shelf with all the regular editions. You don't get that with a Kindle Voucher.

For a similar experience in book-browsing and piled up books mixed with art.

Often spent a good part of a Saturday (Sundays, the bookshops would be shut) browsing through Foyles, the nearby Collets, and Dillons a little further away. Foyles' second hand department was not matched by others.

I recall doing a short essay on how to check fraud, based on what I saw at Foyles (one of the shop assistants gave you a slip, which you took to the counter, paid and got it stamped, and collected the book after showing the stamped receipt don't really know whether it worked, but seemed novel at the time).

Good independent bookshops are alive and well. Let's not talk about them in the past tense. This one is in Berlin - Saint Georges Bookshop in Prenzlauer Berg run by a Brit, Paul Gurner. A great selection of English books, old and new and a nice place to simply hang... and yes, it is thriving!

I once asked a copper the way to Foyles from St Martin's Lane. He not only gave me concise directions but also told me precisely where in the shop to find the falconry books I was looking for!

I was walking in stanbul's Beyoglu area with my friend and I came across this small and cute bookstore called "Kirmizi kedi (red cat)", one of those places you would wish to see surviving the digital era.

There used to be a lovely bookshop on the hill in St Albans. I hear it has now gone (the bookshop - St Albans is still there as far as I know). A lovely, welcoming shop with a delightful cat, who jumped on my lap as I knelt down to stroke him. Cats and bookshops seem to go so well together.

Took this at my daughter's first visit to our incredibly fantastic local bookstore, Recycled Books, almost 2 years ago. She's just shy of 2 years old here, wandering through the children's books. One day she'll discover the vinyl section and then we'll never see her again.

In my teens, with no money to buy, I spent an hour each Saturday afternoon reading Hemingway and Fitzgerald leaning against the well-stocked shelves. Sore feet, but happy days.

This is the bibliotherapy room in Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights, where I went for a lovely couple of hours to talk books, drink tea and eat cake! A gorgeous shop I could disappear in for days. 3 floors of pure heaven for a book lover!

My paternal grandfather lived in Newport, Gwent. He fancied himself as a bit of a poet, though I have to say we weren't overenthusiastic about his efforts. Nonetheless, a copy of his Gwent poetry circle's magazine turned up in the bookshop opposite Christ Church, North Shields (where my husband was organist) - years later. To my astonishment, it contained a poem by Grandpa. How it travelled from Newport to Tyneside remains a mystery, but I felt it my duty to buy this piece of family history!

This seemed fun. Now this is the last time I was in the old Foyles. Memories... I have left so much time and money in this store.

According to the NOP World Culture Score Index, India boasts the most voracious readers of any other country in the world.

When cash-strapped college students in Delhi need textbooks, they flock to Nai Sarak. This one street in between Chawri Bazaar and Chandni Chowk boasts dozens of independent bookstores. Some of them are so tiny that there is barely room for the clerks to maneuver. But ask them for any book, and they can scan through their mental inventory and (if they have it) deliver it into you hands within a minute.

I used to get the 93 bus with pocket money especially to go to Copperfield and for a long while didn't get beyond the black, orange, and green spines of the Penguins stacked high in the doorway. Perfectly managed chaos inside, I remember every book I bought there (too many). Bookshops like these become an intimate part of a person's reading history.

Over 100,000 books and one of the last remaining second hand bookshops in Sydney, Australia.

Years ago I lived around the corner from this great bookshop. I worked as a freelance film journalist at the time and when I wasnt up in London I would go to the bookshop in the mornings, peruse the latest additions and then make my way to its cafe upstairs which was set out amongst even more books. Id buy a coffee and a croissant and sit in the window looking out over St Georges Road and just write. It was a wonderfully atmospheric place to do so and very inspiring. This was during the early days of my novel, which Im proud to say was published a few weeks ago now. So, Kemptown Bookshop will always be fondly remembered for having been a part of my novels creative history.

This is Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon, USA. It is the world's largest used book store. It is amazing! It is a whole city block with several floors of books. Unlike ordinary bookstores, Powell's has a huge selection of every book imaginable. I took my retired English teacher father there and he went crazy. It also has a cafe and a selection of antique computers. It is an absolute paradise for bibliophiles!

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Flowers for Algernon's sad, sweet genius

Daniel Keyes, who has died aged 86, leaves behind him a science-fiction masterpiece of poignant brilliance

Daniel Keyes obituary

Sad news, this morning: the author Daniel Keyes has died, aged 86, his US publisher Tor has announced.

Keyes wrote other books too, but I and millions of others, knew him for one in particular: Flowers for Algernon. It's the story of Charlie Gordon, a cleaner who has an IQ of 68, but who "reely wantd to lern I wantid it more even then pepul who are smarter even then me all my life I wantid to be smart and not dumb".

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Quiz: Can you identify these classic crime novels by their covers?

You proved up to the challenge of spotting science fiction book covers. But how much can you help us with these enquiries?

Take the SF novels quiz
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Working-class fiction has been written out of publishing

Everyone is the poorer for publishers' widespread assumption that nobody wants to read about this part of society

I have spent the last 25 years selling and then publishing books, so I read with interest Melvyn Bragg's recent comments on working-class characters in fiction being stereotyped and cliched. "All this 'it's grim oop north' sort of stuff. Well, it was a joke once, but we've got to the stage where the working class has been turned into a cliche and it deserves a lot better."

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Rereading Stephen King, chapter 29: Needful Things

His first book written after conquering his own addictions, this is a compelling story of how far people will go to satisfy their appetites

If there's one thing that Stephen King understands above all others above spider demons and psychic communication lines and psychopathic fans it's addiction. He's shown that again and again, with characters demonstrating that what they need isn't always the same as what they want. In The Shining, Jack wants to write, to look after his family; he needs the drink that he's trying to escape from. In Misery, Annie's wants her basic desires turn nasty when they become needs (as, frankly, do Paul's). It's a recurring theme. So when King calls a novel Needful Things, you know he's not entering the territory of desire with anything resembling a soft touch.

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Rambling, offensive and unbeatable: beam me up, old-school sci-fi

Now that science fiction is respectable, it's lost almost all of the conceptual craziness and dubious sexual politics that made it both fanboy bait and of genuine interest

Science-fiction writing used to be the preserve of spotty teenagers and cranks. It was a small, incestuous subculture, regarded by most people with amusement and disdain. Both were sometimes deserved. The culture was plagued by a misogyny so intense it sometimes crossed the line into psychosis. There were many talented authors, but also an abundance of shameless hacks. The quality of the writing varied wildly not only between writers, but in the works of an individual writer often within a single book. Several eminent authors prided themselves on being able to write a novel in a couple of weeks. Samuel R Delany, Gene Wolfe and Michael Moorcock have all written both unreadable garbage and books regarded as literature even by non-geeks.

In that wild west era, plots could go anywhere or nowhere. A typical plot development, in Philip K Dick's Clans of the Alphane Moon, has a hero crushed by divorce and failure, contemplating suicide in his crappy apartment. At the last moment, he's interrupted by his neighbour, a telepathic slime mould. Having rudely flowed under the door, it says, "I couldn't help overhearing " Then it offers the man a job and says it will find him a replacement wife. Off it goes, and soon a teenage girl arrives at the door. She is completely content to be fixed up with a much-older suicidal loser by an alien slime mould. Her breasts are exhaustively described.

Now I feel my special hands, my tender hands I always carry hidden now they come swelling out, come pushing toward my head! What? What?
My secret hands begin to knead and roll the stuff that's dripping from my jaws.
Ah, that arouses you too, my redling, doesn't it?

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Tips, links and suggestions: What are you reading this week?

Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them

Welcome to this week's blog. Here's a roundup of your comments and photos from last week.

Two of you were delighted by a week of catch-up reading:

Recently read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time and its brilliance is overshadowing everything else. Other fiction seems obvious, trite and bland, it's a bit like watching Midsomer Murders after Wallander. So now I'm reading Vincent Van Gogh's letters and crying a lot, also Stephen King's On Writing.

Finally getting round to Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways. Evocative, atmospheric, beautifully written, extraordinarily well informed with range of references.

Hypnotic writing, surely something of a contemporary classic.

out of these three, Jung, Bryson and Mr King...I have chosen to read Mr Mercedes because this is the one I cannot save and must read now.

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By Madeleineann

10 June 2014, 10:10

I used to abandon two or three books a year. This year, Ive abandoned two or three a week. Either Im getting worse at picking them or Im getting pickier.

I'm still reading - as slowly as I possibly can Taddeusz Rózewitcz's painfully well-written book Mother departs. It's not a family memoir, nor a collection of poems, nor a suitcase filled with photos and small objects that all contain past lives & loves & regrets and it is more or less all of that. I have no way of describing this book really but it is one of the most impressive books I've read in quite a long time. TR (and his family) lived through most of the horrors last century dealt out in Europe and he wears the scars but his writing however harsh he is on himself and however disillusioned he gets about mankind's ability to learn from experience has a lightness of touch that is at times almost unearthly.

I'm glad I didn't notice the small letters on the bottom of the ebook cover, calling it "fantasy and historical" because I'm not a fan of fantasy, but I don't think it's fantasy so much as mysticism involving Arabian (especially Syrian) immigrants and Polish Orthodox Jews about a jinni and a golem, respectively. It's almost as if Wecker picked up a spirit from Isaac Bashevis Singer. (Isaac B. Singer, Polish Jewish writer, was living in my neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan at the time of his death, and there's a street, W.86 St. off Broadway, with the name "Isaac B. Singer Way" on the street sign above the Street number; the street where he lived. I will always delight in remembering a radio news reader, announcing his death, "Isaac Bashevis, the singer died...")

A quartet of books, by Brazilian author Clarice Lispector, published by New Directions.

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By Dylanwolf

10 June 2014, 11:23

As a male Irish adoptee and father of two boys, this is a killer to read but strangely comforting. After holding in the pain of parts one and two, I stopped in fear of part three. I know how my adult life went off the rails. I dreaded it, but in true adoptee style, I grabbed some Scotch and had a good cry, then forged ahead. Part three was just as difficult to read as the first half, but for very different reasons. Structurally, I love the interjections by the author at the end of each part reminds one that it is a biography, and it really did happen. I think I'm ready to face reading the final act!

Got a handful of little recipe books that cover the Civil War. They have little anecdotes on how the people "made-do" with whatever was at hand, letters from soldiers to their families, ingredient substitutions for well-loved dishes in times of the war.

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By rolypolyladybug

14 June 2014, 0:48

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Has digital publishing changed everything? as it happened

The digital publishing boom of the last few years has changed the book business for ever, or has it? As a three-day conference began to debate 'literary values in a digital age', we reported the views of editors, activists, writers, doubters and digital pioneers

Here is our live coverage as it happened. The conference continues through the weekend and you can follow it on Twitter through #TLC14. Here is the programme

2.46pm BST

Hello, Claire here. We're going to wrap up this live blog now, though the conference continues through the weekend and you can keep up with it on twitter through #TLC14.

Highlights will include bloggers Dovegreyreader and Readysteadybook talking with writer and critic Sam Leith and Paul Blezard on Saturday at 2.35pm. You can read Readysteadybook's (aka Mark Thwaite) pre-conference provocation about the disappointments of literary blogging here.

2.29pm BST

General debate around the relationship between writers and publishers. Out of 300 published books, we hope one will sell, says Pringle jokingly or not?

Accruing experience as a writer going through publishing relationships - better defining what you need from them @RebeccaAbrams2 #TLC14

@alexandrapring: Sales of Khaled Husseini's new book were 50% in Ebook but for others it's very small. In US ebooks have plateaued. #TLC14

2.17pm BST

"Self-publishing allows people to progress artistically. It removes the frustration of constantly sending work out and wondering if it's being read. It allows you to move on", says Baverstock. She then clarifies that she believes it can be useful to print out only a few copies of early manuscripts as a test, before actually self-publishing en masse.

2.14pm BST

From the floor: aspiring writers would have no problems with gatekeepers if they could get through the gate #TLC14. Is it harder than ever?

Abrams: "The gate is getting narrower and narrower. How do you find the gatekeepers?"

2.05pm BST

Baverstock: "Publishers have a range of writing talent, but decisions are made depending on how promotable a work is."

Pringle says this is a sweeping generalisation: "Quality is the beginning, middle and end of why we publish a book. You can't expect all your colleagues or the world to love the book as much as you do. Personal taste has a lot to do with it... But promotability is an added bonus, not the defining factor."

2.01pm BST

Squires asks: the advantage of self-publishing is that the gate is always open, but what are the Virtues of the gatekeeping process?

Baverstock shares her thoughts as a reader: Books are so cheap that my time matters more than my money.

1.56pm BST

Baverstock says the industry, en-masse, is very author unfriendly. She explains that she experimented at the London Book Fair with different badges. The one that caused most averted eyes was "author".

Rebecca Abrams: One thing authors do exchange is awful publicist stories. Seldom a satisfying relationship. #TLC14

1.50pm BST

Baverstock on social media: "Twitter is quite a writerly media it's all about writers trying to shape sentences".

In self-publishing meetings, she says, there is a sharing that is very unusual among traditional authors. "A very common thing amongst authors is jealousy. Self-published authors get an energy from other people's achievements that is quite admirable."

1.42pm BST

Alison Baverstock says:

When well done, the role of the publisher is absolutely invisible and that leads to authors severely underestimating the skill of the publisher." She mentions phrases like: "All you do is press a few buttons." The self-publishing revolution, in that sense, "has helped authors understand how hard editing and publishing is, and how it works."

RT @ReadHead89: Publishing done well is invisible says @alisonbav. Be careful not to equate invisibility w lack of hard work + skill #TLC14

Self-publishing often does not mean no editor. @alisonbav research shows large proportion of writers working with editor. #TLC14

1.36pm BST

Alexandra Pringle, who has worked for Bloombury for 15 years, says:

"Editors put in so much more than 9 to 5. You are investing your emotions, imagination, creativity. Also, you have to look after your authors, but your company as well. You have this push and this pull sometimes you can't be as frank as you want to be with your author."

Pringle: Agent can have continuity because only needs to have loyalty to author, but publisher has to have loyalty to company as well #TLC14

Rebecca Abrams with @alisonbav @AlexandraPring & Claire Squires fab, warm talk about author-pub relationship #TLC14 pic.twitter.com/84L21ykGv1

1.27pm BST

We start the session with some great passages about the figure of the publisher:

Afternoon #TLC14 Claire Squires reading vintage advice from The Business of Publishing by Charles Campbell: "The publisher is a busy man".

'I'm a thwarted monogamist' @RebeccaAbrams2 (4 editors for one novel) #TLC14.

"Pick an old editor & they retire. Pick a young one & they're busy hopping between publishers advancing their career" Rebecca Abrams #TLC14

1.21pm BST

TLC director Rebbecca Swift introduces what the panel will tackle:

"In the self-publishing environment, where you're without the agent or publisher, where does that leave the writer, and is that relationship missed? Not just its practical advantages but also its emotional and personal components. If you don't have an editorial relationship challenging you to be your best, are you being you best? And how do you know if you are?"

1.18pm BST

We're back and ready to attend the 'Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall' panel. We'll hear from Claire Squires (Professor of Publishing, Stirling University), will explore the author-publisher relationship, with Alexandra Pringle (Bloombury), Alison Baverstock(Publishing, Kingston University), and Rebecca Abrams (award winning author and journalist), who are going to debate how the digital revolution has, arguably, given more power back to the author, who now has the choice to "go it alone".

12.16pm BST

An audience member asks the speakers to reply, in one sentence, to these two questions: what are they most excited about and what are they most scared about.

12.04pm BST

There has been an interesting debate about literary fiction and how to measure it.

So literary fiction doesn't sell so well via self-publishing right now. But are those authors trying hard enough in that space? #TLC14

'The important thing about poetry publishing is to lose as little money as possible'TS Eliot dragged into the literary fiction debate #TLC14

12.03pm BST

A member of the audience asks: is there any room for artistry, or is it all about commercial fiction? Page says artistry and creativity are implicit in any publishing: "without them, we have no books anyway".

11.48am BST

And here is Cory Doctorow's keynote speech in full.

11.46am BST

Here's our news piece detailing the data presented by Nielsen this morning: Self-publishing boom lifts sales by 79% in a year

11.41am BST

A couple of great moments have just happened.

Page: "Editors in big companies are driving a Harley, but it's not theirs. We're more in the Vespa territory. But it's our Vespa."

#TLC14 FYI. indie authors sell by language not territory. 140+ countries available through Kobo, Amazon KDP, iBooks, Nook

11.38am BST

We raise this question about new formats from DanHolloway:

A question for the lovely Diego - it seems to me that what is truly revolutionary about writing in the digital age is the exploration of different formats, much of which happens on social sites like tumblr or facilitating sites like New Hive or sharing sites like Scribd. Self-publishing platforms like Kobo, Nook, Smashwords or KDP at the moment do a good job of bringing writers who are wedded to traditional formats to new readers but I'm struggling to see what they are doing to keep up with this new wave of writers taking literature in different directions, so it seems as though they have an interest in wedding themselves to a very traditional notion of what a book is. How do you at Kobo see yourselves tapping into the likes of gifs, memes and interactive e-chapbooks? What are you doing to keep abreast of the way writing itself is changing?

Content experiment is costly. The environment isn't yet liberated enough to distribute alternative format content widely @stephenpub #TLC14

11.27am BST

We bring up one of the issues we've encountered around the Guardian Self-published book of the month: writers spending so much time in self-promotion that they're left with not that much time for writing and often, the best writers aren't the best marketers, and vice versa. How does a really good writer break through?

Marano says: The best promotion is your writing. "This is, again, about flexibility: what is success? We always think of big numbers, but self-publishing has a big backbone of good writers."

11.15am BST

Diego Marano, of Kobo Writing Life, is speaking:

"What has happened, in one word, is technology". There used to be all kinds of gatekeepers, he says but now, "as an author the creator and owner of your copy you can get in touch with customers". The key word for Marano is flexibilty: "Publishers want to keep doing things the way they've always done them. But that isn't possible any longer. It's not all about paper versus ebook; there are many reading possibilities."

11.10am BST

Faber began 1925, Page says: "Faber was a brewer, but his wife hated the smell of beer". It turns out that he was also a poet, and he decided to explore that, creating a community of writers and artists. "Publishers are service businesses, really", he adds. The challenge now, in front of self-publishing, is to make books that people desire as objects.

"The music and the books industry have both been caught in a misunderstanding: that people bought the object for its intrinsic material value. But the object itself doesn't have much value without the reading." Now, you get to make the objects more beautiful, which is something publishers are exploring, he explains. "Publishing in the last 20 years has become all about trade but that has been broken by the internet."

11.03am BST

James Gill, of United Agents, says the last 12 months can be characterised by a "narrowing" of the market, the channels, the types of books, ambitions and expectations. "We have been asked to buy into a narrative of 'big publishing'. The game hasn't changed. Let's get back to basics," he said.

Now over to Stephen Page, CEO of Faber & Faber, who wrote this piece on the subject for the Guardian a couple of years ago.

10.55am BST

Here's a very informative summary from Nielsen

All you need to know about UK eBook sales, in only one slide, thanks to @Nielsen and @TLCUK !! #TLC14 pic.twitter.com/9tDy1AkWn0

10.47am BST

How do readers discover self-published books amid the ever-growing tide of titles? Mainly through browsing online, as well as following previously-read authors.

#TLC14 price & blurb critical for discovery for selfpub books. But fast growing is series. Write for the long term! pic.twitter.com/CxmXJxiDhj

10.41am BST

Breaking down the data, print sales fell by 10%, ebooks grew by 20% and purchases of books by self-published authors rose by a significant 79% last year:

Steve Bohme, Nielsen Book: In 2013 sale of printed books fell by 10% but ebooks rose by 20% and self-published books by 79% #TL14

#TLC14 spread of genre sales in books incl self published from Nielsen pic.twitter.com/Vu9NvGuPZN

10.33am BST

The first numbers are in: 323 million books were bought in the UK in 2013 (for which a total of 2185 million pounds were spent). Overall, consumer sales have remained flat (without counting Fifty Shades of Grey), says Steve Bohme from Nielsen Book.

Audible gasps when Steve Bohme says 323m books bought in UK in 2013 #TLC14. Not a shrinking market then

UK book consumer sales have remained flat over the last year. Print down by 10%. EBooks up by 20% #TLC14 pic.twitter.com/HcgEDsUzC5

10.31am BST

Now over to an industry snapshot from Nielsen Book, who will present data on e-books and self-publishing extracted from their survey.

10.29am BST

Doctorow has just finished his keynote we will post the audio of the full speech later in the day. His talk was full of fascinating insights into the digital publishing industry and advice for writers and artists.

Remember to untick the DRM box when you #selfpublish Most platforms have it defaulted. @doctorow warns indies (My books have no DRM) #TLC14

10.25am BST

yeaster asked about France cracking down on territorial rights:

It is vastly going to improve the standard of writing, Whatever is published and dumped in a bookshop will not sell anymore. Bookstores are beginning to end. Tomorrow many publishing companies too will disappear. Readers will make more informed choices through ebooks. A book they like they may also buy in print or in audio. People are reading more words per day than ever, due to social media and other reasons. So readership too will improve with writing.
France is making efforts to dissuade digital books to protect the publishing industry. It is another French folly. Literary world is going beyond of the control of the mafia called government. Orwell was wrong here. All the middlemen between a writer and a reader are going to disappear.

10.17am BST

More on censorship and freedom of information:

Doctorow explaining 'ratting': 100 arrested in last month for it - hacking into IDs and exploiting? Mainly sex industry but not only

10.11am BST

Doctorow says that as an artist, he is thankful every day for his ability to make a living from his writing, but "if the choice is between free specch free from surveilance, censorship, control and my ability to mke money from telling fairy tales, I'll find a real job." Among laughs from the audience, he insists: "I value a just world for my daughter more than I value my right to tell stories for a living."

10.09am BST

Doctorow's third law is: information doesn't want to be free but people do.

Doctorow: Information doesn't want anything more from us than we stop anthropomorphising it #TLC14

10.04am BST

Doctorow is talking about the Amazon-Hachette stand-off and digital rights management.

Doctorow: Hachette could play harder ball by creating their own app for selling books, but they are shackled by DRM

9.54am BST

Good morning! We're here in sunny London, ready to bring you all the developments from The Literary Consultancy's Writing in a Digital Age conference. Cory Doctorow just started his keynote

So thrilled to finally see @doctorow speak at #tlc14 @TLCUK Talking about the evils of DRM pic.twitter.com/vovVyb7Po5

8.17pm BST

Hello everyone, and welcome to the live blog where we will cover the first day of the conference Literary values in the digital age, now in its third year. We will follow the event minute by minute and bring you video and audio content about the future of books. This year's conference, organised by The Literary Consultancy, will be tackling the latest changes in the books trade, with particular focus on the exponential rise of self-publishing and the mixed fortunes of the e-book.

In the meantime, you can:

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Calling it wrong: when fictional names don't match the characters

'Planty Pall' Palliser, Arthur Seldom, Go sometimes novelists get these first decisions plain wrong. Please share your most mis-handled examples

It might seem unreasonable to complain about the names authors choose for their characters it's their choice after all. But some writers could clearly do with a little help.

Impac prize judge Maya Jaggi: how we chose this year's winner

Colombian novelist Juan Gabriel Vásquez is not a lone talent, but part of a rising generation of authors just hitting their stride

Impac Dublin prize goes to Juan Gabriel Vásquez

Judging the International Impac prize the 100,000 (£80,500) Dublin literary award that is the richest for a single novel written in, or translated into, English is an excellent way to take the pulse of global literature. This year's winning novel, The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, published by Bloomsbury in Anne McLean's superb translation and named at a ceremony in the Irish capital on Thursday, rose from a longlist of 152 titles in 17 original languages. These are nominated not by publishers, whose choices may be steered by commercial dictates, but by more than 100 libraries, or communities of readers, around the world.

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