The publishing behemoth and electronic commerce company Amazon has reported a profit of $513 million (£351 million) in its first quarter.

The increase has been helped by a 28 percent increase in sales. Sales and profits were higher than analysts expected and Amazon shares shot up by 12 percent in after-hours trading.

The sales figures (which hit $29.1 billion for the three months until the end of March) were helped by sales of Amazon’s Kindle and Fire tablet computers.

The company reported strong growth in the numbers of customers for its Prime service, which includes free delivery and TV shows.

​Sales growth was also boosted by Amazon’s could services unit, which rents out data storage space and software services to other companies. The revenue rose 64 percent year-on-year and reached $2.5 billion.

April saw the merger of two Welsh self-publishing firms – Octavo Publishing and Onion Custard Publishing.

The Cardiff-based Onion Custard’s managing director David Norrington will become the manager of Octavo where he will head up a team of four members of staff.

Onion Custard has published some 80 titles since its formation in 2012. These titles will now be distributed by Accent Press under its Octavo self-publishing arm.

Octavo offers publishing and marketing options, as well as writing classes and workshops at its headquarters in Cardiff Bay.

Short stories rock... Why not try out some Friday Flash Fiction? Our sister sister publishes a selection of the very best flash fiction every Friday.

You can contribute your own story through the site's submission pages and of course you are welcome to read and enjoy the stories any time.

We look for original and entertaining stories of no more than 100 words. 

“Quite simply, this is the best book I’ve read in ages” – was our verdict on Eric J. Smith’s memoir Not a Bad Ride: Stories from a Boomer’s Life on the Edge.

Published at the end of last year, the memoir is delivered in wry vignettes and concentrates on the sixties and seventies as the author drifts through a swarm of conflicts and regrets. Smith’s writing is evocative of life in Maryland and Virginia and his skill is to make the ordinary seem extraordinary in much the same manner as Alan Bennett and, before him, Joyce Grenfell.

The book has more than 30 reviews on Amazon – the majority of them five star, with comments such as “a level of honesty that few autobiographies achieve”, “nails what it was really like to grow up in the 60s and 70s”, and a “fantastic, entertaining read”.

Born in New Orleans, Smith grew up in Maryland, lived for many years in Virginia, and most recently has been a long-time resident of St. Mary’s County on Maryland's western shore.

He now has begun a novel and writes flash fiction pieces--very short stories (you can read examples of his flash fiction here). Before re-launching his writing career in 2012, he worked for thirty years as a proposal editor and writer. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy and an M.A. in English from the University of Maryland, College Park.

You can buy Not a Bad Ride at Amazon here. The book is also available on Kobo, iTunes and Barnes and Noble. 

​Books are still the “DNA of our civilisation” according to Penguin Random House UK’s chair.

Reporting on a speech Gail Rebuck delivered to the London Book Fair’s Quantum conference earlier this week, Publishers Weekly said Rebuck talked about the changes she has witnessed in her publishing career over the last two decades.

The publisher’s job was made easier nowadays, Rebuck said, because digital research and sophisticated insight tools allowed marketers to segment audiences and target them appropriately. However, there had also been a decline in authors’ revenue and that only one in 20 writers could live on their writing income along, with half of all self-published authors earning less than $500 a year.

The challenges for publishers included squeezed margins across the whole supply chain, a lack of diversity in e-book distribution and competition from other media for readers’ time.

Technology, she added had made it possible for a tiny minority of authors to “hit a global jackpot of unprecedented, Himalayan proportions” while making it much tougher for many authors to be seen or heard in among the “vast sea of information” in which we live.
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In an earlier speech at the conference, author Philip Pullman had also reiterated the importance of books and that the new ways of doing things did not entirely replace the old.
 
Read the full article on Publisher’s Weekly.

2016 is going to be an exciting year for Comely Bank Publishing. A further two books are due out later this year and there are two more in the pipeline.

Jane Tulloch's Our Best Attention is still a best-seller at Blackwell's book shop in Edinburgh, and she is currently working on the book's sequel. Her book is now on its third print run.

TD Burke's next book - a thrilling, swashbuckling tale about Vikings and life in 9th Century Britain - will be published this year. The book is called Scourge of the Vikings.

Roland Tye's Weekender is scheduled for publication in August. Weekender tells the stories of different Edinburgh residents over the course of one weekend.

Gordon Lawrie's short story collection will be published later this year too - 100 Not Out is a collection of very short stories (flash fiction) and will be available as an e-book.

Emma Baird is currently working on her third novel, provisionally titled Parallel which is the story of a young couple who suddenly find themselves in another couple's lives. Her second novel Two Slices of Carrot Cake will be published as an e-book.

All of the Comely Bank Publishing titles are available via our book shop. You can read Jane's updates on her book writing and selling journey at her blog - janetulloch.com and Emma's writing and blogging services are also available via her blog, highheelsandpinkglitter 

Our Best Attention by Jane Tulloch is still a Scottish best-seller.

Published in January by Comely Bank Publishing, the book is still the top-selling Scottish book at Blackwell’s Edinburgh store. Quite an achievement for a debut author!

Our Best Attention is the story of Murray’s, a fictional Edinburgh department store, its staff and customers. It is set in the 1970s and it tells the story of those people and their lives, providing a nostalgic glimpse of the hey-day of department stores.

The book is just about to go into its third reprint.

The book’s author Jane Tulloch said: “A big thanks to all the readers who have made this possible and whose continuing interest spurs me on to complete Book 2.”
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Our Best Attention can be purchased from Blackwell’s Edinburgh Store, The Golden Hare in Edinburgh, Amazon and of course from the Comely Bank Publishing bookstore.  

Want some light reading material for the weekend? Browse our sister site Friday Flash Fiction for some wonderful short stories.

The Friday flash fiction movement has been going for more than two years now and writers from around the world have joined in, contributing short stories that are as varied as they are clever. There are funny stories, fantastical tales, satire, wit and more. 

Flash fiction is an excellent challenge for the budding writer - it hones editing skills, it tasks the vocabulary and, if you keep it, it's an excellent disciplinary take to take up.

Why not try it for yourself?