Latest news from The Bookseller

Prior rejects 'out of date' industry image Tackling an outdated image of publishing as a closed world unreceptive to the digital future is a key challenge Joanna Prior has set herself as president of the Publishers Association for the coming year. In an interview in this week's issue of The Bookseller, the Penguin General m.d. has said that publishing has "so many good stories to tell" but still needs to get home to the wider public, to potential new recruits, and to politicians both in the UK and Brussels, that it is has moved on completely from its old-fashioned image.

Taylor: Waterstones’ focus is on conversations Waterstones has more than tripled sales of its Fiction Book of the Month in volume terms in the past two years, the company’s head of events and PR Sandra Taylor revealed. She said its Book of the Month choices were “consistently making bestsellers because we are hand-selling better”. Giving tips to attendees of The Bookseller’s Marketing & Publicity Conference on how to improve relationships between retailers and publishers, Taylor said that training for Waterstones’ staff had recently focused on “conversations rather than the hard sell”.

Amazon wants 'all businesses to survive' It is in Amazon’s “interests" to "treat suppliers well” but the company should communicate with them better, Amazon’s head of public policy for the UK & Ireland has said.

OUP sales up but profit down Profits at Oxford University Press (OUP) were down slightly in the year to the end of March 2015 because of “difficult trading conditions”, the company has said. OUP had a total turnover of £767m in the 12 months to 31st March this year, up from £759m the year before, it revealed in its annual report. Profit before tax was down to £104m from £107.2m in 2013/14, and net profit for the year to 31st March was £93.1m, down from £95.5m the previous year.

Founder of Peter Owen Publishers steps down as m.d Peter Owen has stepped down as m.d. of his eponymous publishing house, with Nick Kent taking over the position. Owen has also handed over the position of publishing director to Antonia Owen, but will remain chairman of the company. Antonia Owen is Owen’s elder daughter, and previously held the role of editorial director, while Kent was sales and marketing director. Much of the sales and marketing director role will now be performed by Andrew Wallace, assisted by Leila Sellers, Kent told The Bookseller.

‘Pointless’ host to keynote BA Conference 2015 Richard Osman, writer and presenter of BBC One quiz show “Pointless”, will be the keynote speaker at this year’s Booksellers Association Conference. Held at Warwick University on 21st– 22nd September 2015 and sponsored by Gardners, this year’s conference will examine how bookshops are perceived and whether the time has come for consumers, the industry and the media to “Re-evaluate Books and Bookshops”. It will also discuss how bookshops can define their brands for different audiences in a fast-changing consumer environment.

Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year shortlist An exploration of the landscape around a remote Cornish farmhouse, a study of the role of lemons in the Italian cultural landscape, and an account of life below deck on giant container ships are among the books shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year shortlist. Stanfords relaunched the Dolman Travel Book of the Year prize under a new name this year, doubling its prize money to £5,000, and also creating a new award for travel writing.

Harper Lee manuscript 'first found in 2011' Claims have been made that the manuscript for Harper Lee’s forthcoming Go Set a Watchman (William Heinemann) was originally discovered more than three years ago, and not last autumn as previously said. Go Set a Watchman was written by Lee, called Nelle by friends, in the mid-1950s before she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, and features that book's narrator, Scout, as an adult. It is to be released on 14th July.

B&N appoints Boire as retail c.e.o. US book retailer Barnes & Noble (B&N) has appointed Ronald D Boire as c.e.o of its retail business. Boire will take on the role 8th September following the spin off of B&N Education. Earlier this year, the company said the separation will create two independent publicly traded companies, one comprising of its B&N College stores and the other comprising of its general retail stores and Nook digital businesses.

Bookseller Jean Lucey Pratt's diaries to be published Canongate is to publish the lifetime diaries of bookseller Jean Lucey Pratt, which cover 60 years of the 20th century. A Notable Woman: The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt will be edited by Simon Garfield and published this November. Pratt began the diaries aged 15 in April 1925, and continued them until her death in 1986. They comprise of more than a million words in 45 exercise books.

Infidelities wins Edge Hill Short Story prize Kirsty Gunn [pictured] has won this year’s Edge Hill Short Story Prize for her collection Infidelities (Faber & Faber). The £5,000 prize is now in its ninth year and is run by Dr Ailsa Cox, reader in creative writing and English at Edge Hill University. Cox said: “We chose Kirsty Gunn’s title for its haunting imagery and the beauty of its style. Sentence by sentence, Infidelities shows us the short story’s ability to take us straight to the heart of the mystery.”

Franklin defends trade non-fiction publishing Profile m.d. Andrew Franklin has defended UK trade publishers against criticism that they are not producing good non-fiction books.