cread | read & see

Australia's latest trade data suggests Australians may have curbed their overseas spending on items such as books and toys. According to Business Insider Australia, the Australian Bureau of Statistics' latest trade data shows a narrowing in the deficit on the Balance of Goods and Services to a seasonally adjusted $284 million from $693 million last month. A key to this was a fall in imports including a $40 million or eight per cent reduction in the importation of books, toys and leisure goods. In less encouraging news for books, the ABS seasonally adjusted estimate for book and newspaper retailing fell by -1.4%. Either way, booksellers, publishers and authors will be hoping that the many new titles flooding the market will be met by increased local buying. Business Insider Australia article Retail Trade figures What's your view on Australian's buying less books?

Small independent bookstores are fighting back in the US and a visit to Australia by American Booksellers Association chief executive Oren Teicher may add further strength to their market presence. Jason Steger of The Age reports that Teicher was in Australia for the Australian Booksellers Association conference in Adelaide and while bringing an encouraging message to Australian booksellers, would be taking something good back home. Mr Teicher indicated National Bookshop Day, which the Australian Bookseller Association introduced in 2011, would fit well with the 'burgeoning localism movement in the US that pushes the benefits for shoppers and the community of locally owned businesses.' 'This localism has changed the way people shop,' he said. 'My message to my friends in Australia is hold on because things are coming back and consumers are going to understand your value. We went through a rough patch, but at the end of the day, customers and reade

An Australian ad company, BMF ,  has developed an innovative book mailing product that will hopefully lead to many more good quality books being donated to reading programs for disadvantaged people. Mailbooks for Good is like an 'inbuilt' book mailing envelope that is part of the cover of the book and which can be folded out to encase the book with address and postage included to a chosen book charity or program. Mailbooks for Good is being trialled now with five Random House titles available from Gleebooks in Sydney with the beneficiary being The Footpath Library . The current Mailbooks for Good titles, selected in cooperation with Random House, are Crack Hardy by Stephen Dando-Collins, Wanting by Richard Flanagan, And Now for Some Light Relief by Peter Fitzsimons, The Fix by Nick Earls and Bureau of Mysteries by HJ Harper. The idea is that customers see a book they like in a bookstore and realise that not only can they read it, but can easily send it on to

New media, in the hand of entrepreneurial tech-savvy individuals, is finding its way into every avenue of life and reading is no exception. ReadCloud was founded in 2009 by Jeremy LeBard and is “the world's first social eReading software.” It recently signed with publisher, Macmillan, lifting its tally of eBooks to 75,000. It offers three products globally: Social eReading software for schools and book clubs which allows for sharing of annotations directly inside eBooks as well as easy distribution of eBooks to school laptops and tablets A white-label eBooks platform with tablet applications allowing physical bookstores to hacve their own digital bookstore selling eBooks from major international and Australian publishers. Course material encryption and distribution for corporate training and university course notes. The social platform syncs all connected ReadCloud apps (PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android) such as within an educational institution, to the cloud – internet data

It's book launchin' season - books are being launched willy-nilly with Father's Day closing in and Christmas only 123 sleeps away - so here's a few to look out for. MasterChef 2011 contestant Billy Law has – would you believe – written a cookbook. Have You Eaten? will hit book stores on September 1. Billy is a food-blogger at atablefortwo.com, where he details a competition and a couple of events surrounding the book's launch. Check it out at A Table for Two . Mistaken Identity: The Trials of Joe Windred by Stephen Dando-Collins launches tomorrow. The book details the adventures of bush identity Joe Windred, from twice being mistaken for a bushranger to becoming Orange City mayor while technically still a fugitive from American justice. The book is being launched at Orange Library tomorrow . Herman and Rosie by Gus Gordon became available yesterday. “Set in New York, this gorgeous picture book by Gus Gordon is a story about friendship, life in the big city,

Shrugging of bookseller gloominess over bricks and mortar stores and opening just in time for National Bookshop Day, former taxi drivers John and Antoinette Bernardi have re-opened Dymocks in Wollongong. ‘‘My wife had the cheesecake shop in Fairy Meadow and I had the pavlova shop in West Wollongong and then we both went into taxi driving,’’ Mr Bernardi said. ‘‘We got tired of working in the cold and rain and were looking to open something Wollongong didn’t have," Mr Bernardi told the Illawarra Mercury. Let's hope the Bernardis aren't back driving taxis too soon - their timing was good with the Australian Booksellers Association special day a great early boost and Book Week from August 18-24 soon to provide another. The new Dymocks in Wollongong Central replaces one that closed there in 2010 followed by the closure of Angus and Robertson 12 months later. Second-hand book store Perey's stepped into the breech, offering new stock, while Wollongong University book