BookBrunch

A lawyer says the author and publisher of the best-selling The Bookseller of Kabul have been sentenced to pay 250,000 kroner ($40,200) in damages to a woman portrayed in the book. (AZCentral.com)

Stieg Larsson Sells One Million Kindle Books (PC World)

McNabb book signing Tuesday (Washington Post)

Susan Kamil promoted to Publisher of the Random House and Dial Press imprints. (New York Times)

Education publisher Bright Red [Education Publisher of the Year at the IPA Awards] announces move into profit and 22-fold rise in revenue. (Scotsman)

Barnes & Noble, Borders decline to comment on Andrew Wylie's exclusive ebook deal with Amazon. (PW)

Kitten found stuffed into library book drop. (Philly.com)

Pornographic novellas disappear from Apple iBook chart. (Telegraph)

From a darkened room, Mark Billingham reflects on the eighth Harrogate Crime-Writing Festival, a social and professional must for those with blood on their minds, if not their hands

“I can’t make dinner I’m afraid, as I’m being murdered in 10 minutes and then I’ve got to interview Karin Slaughter…”

There aren’t too many places I can think of where I might find myself saying something like that, but the Theakstons Old Peculier Harrogate Crime-Writing Festival is one of them. I’ve just returned from this annual weekend of murder, mayhem and monkey-business, which is always one of the highlights of the year for readers and writers alike, and it will take me a day or two yet to recover. This is because the HCWF is quite unlike any other literary festival I can think of.

Following the announcement of the abolition of the MLA, Chair Sir Andrew Motion and Chief Executive Roy Clare pledge a smooth and orderly transition to deliver the best possible future for museums, libraries and archives across England and for the people and communities who expect to use them. (MLA)

Could "The Jackal" be the death of publishing? (Independent)

"That the Wylie/Odyssey agreement is reportedly exclusive raises many questions and concerns," - Authors Guild. (New York Times)

Janet Evanovich, rumoured to have been seeking $50m for her next four novels, has moved from her longtime publisher St Martin's Press to Ballantine Bantam Dell (New York Times); Evanovich says: "Load up the U-Haul; break out the pizza and the beer - it's moving day." (AP)

Asne Seierstad, author of The Bookseller of Kabul, is to pay K250,000 damages to Suraia Rais, wife of Shah Mohammad Rais, the bookseller of the title. (ABC)

A review of the TV book club phenomenon as Richard and Judy (without TV this time) return. (Viv Groskop, Observer)

Jane Streeter on independent bookselling, running the Lowdham Book Festival, and her friendship with the late Alan Sillitoe. (Left Lion)

Hodder revamps the Famous Five. (Mail)

Sachin Tendulkar denies that a luxury book about his career will contain his blood. (NDTVCricket)

Still, in the end I'd rather have the sales, concludes Peter James

Well, it was groundhog day again last night at Harrogate. There I was, a shortlisted author for the third year running for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel Of The Year, sitting in the auditorium as the winner was announced (the very charming RJ Ellory) with my Happy Loser Smile on my face.

That same smile has come out more times than I can count in the past few years, although on one occasion, at the televised Galaxy awards hosted by Richard and Judy, when I failed to win I screwed up my face into a scowl - and five million viewers saw it! I remember the following year, this time at the ITV Crime Thriller Awards, for which I was also shortlisted, along with Lee Child and Jeffery Deaver and others, seeing Lee caught on camera mouthing a silent expletive, accompanied by a face like thunder, when the winner was announced. I spoke to him later and told him I’d done something similar a year earlier. "Well," he replied, "If I’m shortlisted, I damned well hope to win and I'm going to hacked off if I don’t." I have to confess, I admire his attitude, but more often than not I still revert to my smile, as phoney as a fake tan…

Stieg Larsson is the second author, following James Patterson, to sell 1 million ebooks in the US. (Yahoo)

Obituary of Sir Simon Hornby, former Chairman of W H Smith. (Independent)

Leading publishers acknowledge that they are selling at least as many ebooks as hardcovers through Amazon. (PW)

Amazon's shares fall following second-quarter results. (WSJ)

Bedbugs infest Hachette's New York office. (Huffington Post)

Hyperion cancels book by Elizabeth Gilbert's husband. (Huffington Post)

In defence of Agatha Christie. (Andrew Taylor, Independent)

Half of Bolton’s libraries could close over the next four years. (Bolton News)

The New York Times reports that Andrew Wylie is planning his own digital publishing venture, Odyssey Editions, which will produce e-books by some of his clients, including Saul Bellow, John Updike and Philip Roth. (See also BookBrunch story)

Wylie is reissuing novels such as The Adventures of Augie March, Rabbit Is Rich, and Portnoy's Complaint, all published long before publishers mentioned digital editions in their contracts. Nevertheless, the publishers of those novels may still believe that they own the ebook rights.

The bookselling secrets of Daunt. (Publishing Perspectives, via Monocle)

Google Editions seems poised to become the world's largest seller of e-books (The Atlantic); Independent bookshops welcome Google Editions (SFGate)

Borders launches textbook marketplace. (Erictric)

Amazon.com's widely reported announcement that it sold more ebooks than hardbacks in the past three months has led to suggestions that hardbacks are endangered. But, whatever Amazon's sales are (and it does not give specific figures), hardback sales are still well ahead of ebook sales overall.

In 2009, according to the Association of American Publishers, revenues from adult and children's hardbacks were $4.3bn. Ebook sales were worth $313m. Of course, one reason why hardbacks are so far ahead is that they are more expensive; but they most be selling a good deal more by volume, too.