A week ago I (perhaps unwisely) gave space to the cri de coeur of an independent bookseller. This was followed by several days of interesting and sometimes coruscating debate. I tried to steer things away from re-runs of the Net Book Agreement argument on the grounds that we no longer have retail price maintenance, it won't reappear, and there's little point crying over spilt milk.

However, some things never seem to go away altogether and the retail price maintenance debate is still a live issue in Germany. I wonder (again perhaps unwisely) if any of the commentators to this blog can offer advice to German publishers and retailers. For instance has the experience in the UK shown:

British consumers benefit from lower prices?

Supermarkets have significantly widened the market for books?

If the NBA had continued would supermarkets have even been interested in books?

Quality bookshop chains have thrived?

Independent booksellers have been able to carve out a price-insensitive niche?

Publishers have behaved responsibly in post-NBA dealings with retailers?

I think I can predict the responses but I'd love to be proved wrong. From a commentator in the USA a very interesting Q&A session with a mystery entrepreneur.

A very sad blog relating to the AMS bankruptcy in the USA which is likely to send small publishers into financial danger or disaster.

More statistics for the Macmillan year-end round-up - Numbers 1 and 2 in the back-to-university bestseller lists: Study Skills Handbook and Student Planner.

For those interested in cricket here is an extract from an email I received from a distinguished cricket journalist (you have to understand the game to get the joke/irony):

Sorry I haven't replied earlier but I have only just got back from Australia and what was probably a v close and competitive Test series compared with the ODIs to come!

And finally a show-off piece about a paper on stem cells which appeared in Nature Biotechnology. So far the paper has appeared in more than 1000 newspaper articles around the world according to Google News and any number of TV and radio mentions. Science may be difficult to understand but there is a huge demand for information about it and the reliability of that information is vital. We think our team offers just that reliability to scientists and the general public alike - and our press team knows how to make a scientific paper famous. That's a pretty good description of what all publishing is about - good content and good publicity.