A look back at the literary hits of 2014
Amazon's feud with publishers took the shine off what has been an extraordinary 12 months for the written word
How can we summarise the book world's past 12 months? Amazon bad, authors good? The rise or fall of e-books, depending on where you live? Prizes: Chinese rows, Aussie wins Man Booker (or is that Bloke Booker)? Adieu to Gabriel García Márquez, Sue Townsend, Maya Angelou. Young adult fiction marches on - grown-up writing gets a little, well, childish?
In industry terms, the year was dominated by the unpleasant but significant argument between corporate goliaths Amazon and Hachette, the French company that publishes J.K. Rowling, Donna Tartt and Stephen King, among others. The debate posed two crucial questions: first, how to price e-books, and second, is Amazon's influence on publishing a good thing?
No Chinese writer had a more surprising year than Xiao Hong who hit the bestseller charts more than 70 years after her death
Hachette took a stand, effectively arguing that Amazon's 30 per cent cut of e-books was excessive and endangered author's royalties. Amazon said it wanted low prices for consumers, and retaliated by delaying deliveries on Hachette titles and preventing pre-orders. These tactics inspired a group of writers including Tartt, King and Paul Auster to take out a full-page advert in The New York Times stating: "No bookseller should block the sale of books or otherwise prevent or discourage customers from ordering or receiving the books they want".
Amazon accused Douglas Preston, the advert's driving force, of being an "opportunist who seeks readers' support while actively working against their interests". Help came from 7,600 self-published authors who lambasted " The New York Times 900" by saying: "[They] have no interest at all in improving publishing for everyone. Only in preserving it for themselves."
