As sales of print books drop and publishers tighten their belts, good news stories in the world of books remind us that hard work, a good idea, an ear for genre and a stroke of blind luck can still work wonders for a writer. So it is with a debut author in New York whose unpublished manuscript has netted her advances across the world…

The radio play may have fallen on hard times, but interest in the form hasn’t disappeared altogether. Perhaps that’s because some writers are excited by the potential of a drama delivered entirely in sound. Curiously, the origins of the form stretch much further back than the radio. The first writer to create drama entirely for sound was Seneca the Younger, a philosopher, statesman, dramatist…

Online book retailers Amazon and Waterstone’s have both announced that ebooks are outselling print books. Amazon ebooks for its Kindle device are selling more than all hardbacks and paperbacks combined, not including free downloads. The caveat to this news is that the figures reflect volume, not value. Many Amazon ebook bestsellers sell for US$0.99.

In other news, Waterstone’s has been sold by its embattled…