book talk with Katie Allen

Katie Allen is The Bookseller's web editor. A somewhat surprising move from agent Ed Victor's POD and e-book venture Bedford Square Books this week. Its first original work, Dead Rich by Louise Fennell, is to be sold exclusively as a mass-market edition in Tesco. The deal will run for three months from 15th March. The novel, by the fashion entrepreneur and wife of jeweler Theo Fennell, is about a wealthy family caught up in a media storm. It's already out as an e-book and POD from BSB. Bestselling writer Rosamund Lupton said this week she had "huge admiration" for self-published authors, while picking up a Nielsen Gold Award for sales of 500,000 copies of her debut Sister (Piatkus). Her publisher David Shelley described Sister as Little, Brown's bestselling fiction e-book of last year, garnering sales of over 55,000 copies, and saying: "This just proves that p-books and e-books can happily co-exist together, with strong success across all formats and all sectors of the market".    Digital relationships have been less congenial across the pond. At the Tools of Change conference in New York, our reporter Gayle Feldman picked up dissent over Penguin’s decision last week to sever its connection with OverDrive and halt e-book lending in US public libraries. Libraries were championed at the conference, with The Revson Foundation’s Julie Sandorf reminding listeners that at a time of declining bricks-and-mortar stores, “libraries have real estate in every community. They can showcase and sell; they could become the new Barnes & Noble front window. Think about the utility of that”. Bilbary’s Tim Coates added: “twice as many books read in the US come from public libraries as come from bookstores. Every year, two billion books are circulated. That is a huge reason why publishers should take an interest.” Coates had caused debate earlier in the week in a statement released prior to his ToC appearance, saying: "Readers want more access to the extensive and famous backlists from the major publishing houses. To make e-reading a credible market there needs to be 10 times more backlist titles than are currently available." And finally, please don't forget that there is just over one week until the deadline for entries to The Bookseller Industry Awards. Find out everything you need to know by clicking here. Most reviewed titles in UK this week 1. Waiting for Sunrise William Boyd (Bloomsbury 16th February £18.99 hb 9781408817742) 2.  This Beautiful Life Helen Schulman (Atlantic 1st February £12.99 pb 9780857896230) 3.  Keeping Up With the Germans Philip Oltermann (Faber 2nd February £9.99 pb 9780571240173) 4.  Amateurs in Eden Joanna Hodgkin (Virago 9th February £25 hb 9781844087938) 5.  Cairo Ahdaf Soueif (Bloomsbury 19th January £11.99 hb 9780747549628) 6.  Angelmaker Nick Harkaway (Heinemann 2nd February £12.99 hb 9780434020942) 7. Survival of the Beautiful David Rothenberg (Bloomsbury 2nd February £11.99 pb 9781408828823) 8.  Kind of Cruel Sophie Hannah (Hodder 16th February £12.99 hb 9780340980699) 9.  Me and You Niccolo Ammaniti (Canongate 2nd February £10.00 hb 9780857861979) 10. The Paradox of Love Pascal Bruckner (Princeton 13th February £19.95 hb 9780691149141)  from The Bookseller