Five Little Indians by Michelle Good is the winner of the 45th annual Amazon Canada First Novel Award which offers a cash prize of $60,000 for first-time Canadian novelists. Good is a member of Saskatchewan’s Red Pheasant Cree Nation and now lives in British Columbia.
Amazon adds cut-price color printing choice for KDP Print books
Amazon is introducing a new color printing option for KDP print books which can almost halve the cost of color printing when compared with premium color. The cut-price choice could open up a new market for indie authors looking to offer color print books at a more economical price to readers.
Amazon offers new text editor with format options for Kindle book descriptions
Amazon has launched a new text editor for Kindle book descriptions which provides options for formatting the description and previewing before publishing.
Kobo Elipsa is a 10-inch e-reader that doubles as a notebook with stylus but non-Kobo epubs are locked out of annotation
Kobo is launching the Elipsa e-reader which includes a stylus that turns the device into a notebook where you can mark up or annotate an ebook or write documents of your own.
The Wattys 2021 looks for novels and adds Best Cover category as Wattpad Paid Stories hits $1 million paid out to writers
Details for The Watty Awards 2021 have been revealed and this year the Wattys are looking for completed novels across a dozen categories and have added a new contest category for Best Cover, which is backed by Canva.
Amazon Publishing signs deal to offer all its ebooks and audiobooks to US public libraries
Amazon Publishing is to make all its 10,000 ebooks and audiobooks available to US public libraries.
Serial thriller — Kakao buys short fiction sites Radish and Tapas for nearly $1 billion
South Korea's Kakao Entertainment is taking a big bite of the short fiction market by buying two US serial platforms --- Radish and Tapas --- in a deal totalling $950 million as the global sector hots up with another South Korean company Naver recently taking over WattPad for $600 million and Amazon getting ready to launch its own Vella operation.
Kobo Plus subscription scheme opens in Portugal
The Kobo Plus ebook and audiobook subscription scheme is opening up in Portugal in a partnership with LeYa and other Portuguese publishers.
Hugh Howey sets up Self-Published Science Fiction Competition with blogger judges
Self-publishing champion and best-selling author Hugh Howey is launching the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition.
Kindle Unlimited KENP rate for April 2021 sees small rise as KDP fund annual increase slows down
The Kindle Unlimited KDP Select Global Fund for April 2021 rose by $100,000 to $35.5 million while the KENP rate for April 2021 went up slightly to $0.0045 from $0.0044 in March 2021.
Scrivener 3 comes to Windows with new interface and range of improvements
It's been a while coming but a major update of Scrivener is now available for Windows with a modernised interface and many improvements that the company has been working on for years.