Freight Books’ authors have been told to buy back their stock or face it being pulped after creditors have revealed the company’s debt is estimated to be £160,000.

Those owed money by the troubled company, which went into provisional liquidation along with parent Freight Design (Scotland) Limited in October 2017, include authors, agents, a printing company and a PR company. The money owed is estimated to amount to £158,799.

Independent publishers are rejoicing at the news they are bucking the market trend, with their sales up 2.7% to £511.4m compared to just 0.2% growth in the wider market, as the annual Independent Publishers Guild (IPG) Spring Conference gets underway in Oxfordshire.

Only 4% of all the children’s books published in the UK last year featured a black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) character, according to “alarming” new figures from a study into ethnic representation in children’s literature.

The study, initiated by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) and funded by Arts Council England, found that of the 9,115 children’s books published in the UK in 2017, only 391 – 4% – featured a BAME character.

The cloud of Brexit hung over the Scottish Book Trade conference on 26th February, although the mood of the day was one of optimism and resilience.

A record number of 250 delegates attended the conference, held jointly by Publishing Scotland and the Booksellers Association, at its new location of Surgeons Quarter in central Edinburgh. With a jam-packed programme featuring three keynote speeches and a range of sessions squeezed into one day, the possibility of extending the conference to two days was discussed.