Even potential prize-winning authors can experience repeated publishers' rejections

Rejection by publishers is a common experience of authors, regardless of their quality, or even of their being potential prizewinners. Two of the authors shortlisted for this year’s Booker award have been turned down by many publishers before being successfully published. One is by Tan Twan Eng whose novel is published by Myrmidon, a small publisher in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The other author is Deborah Levy, whose novel Swimming Home is co-published with Faber by the  subscription publisher And Other Stories. It is her first to be published for 15 years after her last one, since when she has struggled to find a publisher.

Even potential prize winning authors can be rejected repeatedly by publishers

Rejection by publishers is a common experience of authors, regardless of their quality, or even of their being potential prizewinners. Two of the authors shortlisted for this year’s Booker award have been turned down by many publishers before being successfully published. One is by Tan Twan Eng whose novel is published by Myrmidon, a small publisher in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The other author is Deborah Levy, whose novel Swimming Home is co-published with Faber by the  subscription publisher And Other Stories. It is her first to be published for 15 years after her last one, since when she has struggled to find a publisher.

Parents should take responsibility for encouraging children to read

It isn’t the fault of children if they don’t read. It is up to parents to encouraging them by example. For instance, if they never see their parents concentrating on reading a book, children cannot be blamed for sitting with an iPhone or pc game. 

This emerges from a survey by the National Literacy Trust which found that fewer children than previously are reading, whilst more than 12% admit to feeling embarrassed at reading in front of friends, and to being scared of being regarded as a ‘geek’.

www.literacytrust.org.uk/assets/0000/7665/Family_reading_survey.pdf

Amazon set to launch iPhone soon in UK

There is  a plethora of mobile phones and, within this market, an ever-growing list of available tablets for reading books. Huge revenue benefitis  to be gained by whichever global corporation hits the jackpot with the latested smart phone. It looks as though Apple is set to corner the market, perhaps before the end of September and certainly in time to reap rich rewards in time for the Christmas market, first in the USA and then in the UK and other Western countries, notably in Western Europe.  Apple launched the first iPhone in 2007. Now Apple will launch the iPhone 5, following the launch of iPhone 4s in 2011. Details of the specification are a closely guarded secret till as near the last minute before publication as possible. However, it looks as though the new iPhone will be thinner but larger (10.7 cm or 4.2 inches), with a 4G high speed wireless, than its predecessors. Also, there may be built-in add-ons including some form of service for streaming, perhaps music and perhaps mobile payments.

Competitors exist, or are due shortly and therefore represent potential competition. Here are three of them:

 

Galaxy SIII by Samsung

This is priced at just under £500 by Amazon which uses the Android software by Google. It has face recognition and can respond to the voice of the regular user.

 

Kindle Fire HD by Amazon

This is price from about £160 upwards and is a tablet, which means potentially – when it reaches the UK in October 2012 – it will be able to download films. Potentially also, it will have access to Amazon’s huge library of book, games, television programmes, songs and games. It is likely to have huge memory, in contrast with many 4G predecessors and a capacious battery to match, which will give it a generous battery life.

 

Lamis 920 by Nokia

This isn’t available in the UK yet. It may be published in October, at which time a price will be set by the manufacturers and, presumably, by competing retail outlets. It will probably use Microsoft Windows 8 software and will function on 4G networks, likely before 12 months or less to be available in the UK.