How has the recent eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano affected you? Are you stranded in an airport trying to get home? Did you miss an important funeral? Were you planning on going to the Coachella music festival? Talvin Singh, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and Gary Numan won’t be there. They can’t get a flight. WWE Raw Wrestlers are stranded in the UK  and can’t get home for their Jersey gig. Mika can’t get to his concert in Spain; Adam Lambert was set to kick off his UK launch this week. Chaos, people!

It’s blowing my mind (oh look, a pun, hee) that one volcano on a remote island basically in the middle of nowhere can disrupt the global travel to this extent. Because of the volcano, Europe is basically isolated from the rest of the world. You know, 10 or 15 years ago this would have been a major disaster; luckily we have the internet to keep us semi-connected. But the internet can’t transport a body yet. At least, as far as I know. Hm, that’s an intriguing hook. Someone needs to write that story!

As for the book industry, one of the major global book fairs, the London Book Fair, which is set for this week, has been hit hard.

Among the major U.S. houses, Hachette Book Group was able to get six of its planned 12 people to the fair, including rights and international sales staff. As of Sunday, only one of Simon & Schuster’s team had made it to the fair and it was unlikely any more would. Random House’s fair presence will be led by the U.K. group and it was unclear over the weekend how many staffers from Random U.S. will be in attendance.

A Maalox moment, especially if your rep was seeking international sales for your book.

In more bizarre news, an Australian publisher had to pulp and reprint a cook-book because of a horrible typo:

An Australian publisher has had to pulp and reprint a cook-book after one recipe listed “salt and freshly ground black people” instead of black pepper.

The odd thing is that the publisher didn’t seem all that remorseful.

“We’re mortified that this has become an issue of any kind, and why anyone would be offended, we don’t know,” head of publishing Bob Sessions is quoted as saying by the Sydney newspaper.

Hm.

The e-book race continues. Barne’s and Nobel is unveiling a wi-fi only Nook “lite“. I still think that iPads will dominate the e-book market for 2010.

Good news for writers trying to break into the YA paranormal market. Simon & Schuster is launching a new imprint:

With a reputation for punching well above its weight in the teen fiction arena, Simon and Schuster Children’s Books is poised to launch a brand new imprint, Simon Pulse, in June 2010.

The decision to launch Simon Pulse follows huge success for Simon and Schuster Children’s Books in the YA paranormal romance and urban fantasy area in recent months, with the hardcover edition of Becca Fitzpatrick’s Hush, Hush selling in excess of 100,000 copies since last autumn and L J Smith’s Dark Visions selling 75,000 copies within three months of publication.

YA still continues to be a hot market. This is great news.

Write on, people!

Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She has written two novels under the pseudonym Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter--both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President's teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins.
Kathleen Bolton
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