Book Bizzo #21 Housekeeping and Aussie book news

Photo by kesh (via morgueFile)

Regular readers might have noticed that the Book Bizzo hasn’t been posted in the last few weeks. I originally came up with the idea of a weekly news round-up because I thought it would be easier and faster to do than posting each item separately. As it turns out, I was completely wrong. The time it takes to put a Bizzo together is equivalent to posting a review. So after some deliberation, I’ve decided not to keep going with the Bizzos on Saturday. (Although I have a quick round-up in this one—mainly for Aussie romance authors and book news.)

I’m tossing up alternative ways to post news items. In the meantime, I post interesting items as I encounter them on my Twitter feed, so feel free to follow @BookThingo. I try to post mostly on topic, although it wouldn’t be Twitter if I didn’t digress occasionally. I might start posting shorter, more frequent round-ups on the blog, but we’ll see…

Commenters will also notice that the comment box is now a lot more user-friendly. I’ve been tidying up the site in little ways, some not readily apparent from the frontend (unless I stuff it up, in which case, you’ll know it by the weird page that pops up).

New releases

• Branded by Fire by Nalini Singh is due for release on July 7, but some Aussie stores already have it in stock. This week it hit #1 in Galaxy Bookshop’s bestseller list. You can read my review of Branded by Fire here.
• The Independent published a free short story by Carol Marinelli, Sunsets at Cape Town: A British Lions Romance. The story is part of the Mills & Boon series featuring the Rugby Football Union.
• Heart and Craft: Bestselling Romance Writers Share Their Secrets with You has just been released, featuring essays on how to write good romance by some well-known Aussie authors, including Valerie Parv, Helen Bianchin and Lilian Darcy. The Book Show has a very interesting—and fun—interview with Valerie Parv and Alexis Fleming.

UK version

Coming soon (books and events)

• Remastering Jerna by Ann Somerville comes out in August
• As Darkness Falls by Bronwyn Parry will be released in the UK in October—check out the new, more suspenseful cover
• The schedule for the IASPR conference in Brisbane is now available. The conference runs from August 13 to 14, just before the RWA National conference.

Future of books

• Sherman Young asks, Is the book dead? on ABC’s Unleashed blog
• The Book Show discusses ebooks and epublishing with David Taylor (President, Lightning Source) and Ivor Noble (Senior Vice-President, DNMAL) — the interview goes through quite a lot of issues, including the capabilities of epublishing, the future of ebook readers, and more. It’s interesting to hear Taylor’s prediction about ebook reading devices. He thinks the market will consolidate, and that we’ll ultimately end up with a multifunctional laptop-type reader because people want to carry as few devices as possible.

Productivity Commision’s report on the parallel importation of books

The Productivity Commission submitted its report on its study on the parallel importation of books last Tuesday. So far, I haven’t found any information on what the report contains, or if any of the draft recommendations were changed. According to @Tim_Coronel—whom I consider my Twitter guru on Australian publishing and books—the report is given to the Assistant Treasurer, who then has absolute discretion over if or when to release any of the contents.

Buffy vs Edward Cullen

This has nothing to do with Aussie romance, but if you read Twilight thinking Edward was a little too creepy for comfort, you’ll be glad to know that Buffy puts him firmly in his place (via Love Romance Passion):

Have a lovely weekend!