A cross-industry shadowing scheme allowing publishers and booksellers to offer work placements to one another has officially launched today (16th November), with publishers Little, Brown, Penguin, Dorling Kindersley, Profile Books and Simon & Schuster on board.

The scheme was jointly created by the Publishers Association and the Booksellers Association to encourage more understanding and awareness between the two industries, with work placements of a day or more beginning from January next year.

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The Charity Retail Association has denied it is responsible for damaging high street booksellers but said independent retailers need "greater help" in the current climate.

Last Friday (11th November) the BA called on the government to end tax and business rate concessions for charity bookshops, saying that they represent "unfair competition" to high street booksellers.

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The Booksellers Association has said the Office of Fair Trading's decision to clear the merger between Amazon and The Book Depository will give Amazon more power to put its competitors out of business.

The OFT announced today its four-month-long investigation into the merger of the two internet companies and said the takeover would not lead to a lessening of competition within the UK book industry.  The decision has prompted calls from the Publishers Association for the body to monitor the book retailing market as a whole, particularly online bookselling.

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Publishers and booksellers will soon be able to swap a working day in the life of each other’s businesses in a new joint initiative soon to be launched by the Booksellers Association and the Publisher Association.

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The Booksellers Association has welcomed a recommendation to reinstate booksellers with the defence of innocent dissemination in regards to the Defamation Bill.

The joint committee on the Draft Defamation Bill has suggested the government reinstate the defence which existed before 1996, and allowed booksellers to argue they had a reasonable belief defamatory material contained in a book was not libellous. Booksellers have not had this defence since the Defamation law was changed in 1996.

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Tim Godfray, chief executive of the Booksellers Association, has asked British Library c.e.o. Dame Lynne Brindley to review the Library’s relationship with Amazon “as a matter of urgency”, following the furore over links to Amazon.co.uk on records in its online catalogue.

Booksellers have challenged the British Library’s choice to link to the online retailer exclusively. The British Library took down the links on Friday (14th October) as a result of the criticism, but this week announced its intention to reinstate them.

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Independent booksellers say the government should step in to fix the price of books after the Booksellers Association called on the coalition to do more to maintain bookshops on the high street.

BA c.e.o. Tim Godfray appealed for help from the government and publishers this week to ensure bookshops continue to exist on Britain's high streets after the trade body's membership figures fell 20% in six years, with independent bookshop membership falling by 26% in the same timeframe.

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High street bookshops need help from the government if their presence there is to continue, the c.e.o. of the Booksellers Association has said.

Tim Godfray called on the government to give rate relief to businesses with a cultural and educational value to maintain independent bookshops on high streets and protect “the wellbeing of society”. He also called on publishers to do more to support bricks and mortar booksellers.

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Google is preparing an “imminent” UK launch of its e-books platform for selling digital titles, with members of Gardners Hive network able to sell the e-books from their websites.

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The Office of Fair Trading has said it now expects to announce its decision on the Amazon takeover of The Book Depository by late October.

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