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Following the runaway success of ‘Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’, the bizarre ‘mash-ups’ of Jane Austin novels published by Quirk Books, a sequel to the latter title is planned and it reportedly has a proper film trailer to promote it.

Written by Seth Grahame-Smith, the sequel is called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls. Quirk have taken the pioneering step of making a tongue-in-cheek trailer for it, featuring primly dressed madams with saucy expressions practicing their zombie-smashing ninja skills (yes, you read that correctly) as well as a cheeky Scottish Widows type in red scampering around the misty moors having a good pop at the undead.

In my opinion, this is not the future of book publishing, although it is an amusing idea as a one-off. Reading a book is about using your imagination, which I think would produce very interesting results in the case of this particular publication. Why spoil it with a movie cliché? It isn’t actually a film!

Major publishing company Random House are set to release former US President George W. Bush’s memoirs in November of this year, and it looks like it may be an interesting read (we can be sure the spellchecker was thoroughly exhausted).

In the book – entitled ‘Decision Points’ - the former President discusses what was going through his mind through major crises such as 9/11, the 2000 election and the Iraq war. Crown Publishing, the subsidiary of Random House that is to release the book, describes the memoir as

“a groundbreaking new brand of memoir”.

This said, Random House have previously published such ripping titles as include “The Lies of George Bush” and “My First persidentcy: A Scarpbook by George W. Bush”, making this new release somewhat inconsistent with the publisher’s track record on the subject of Bush.

According to an analysis of the day’s deals published by The Bookseller Daily, non-fiction was the key focus of the 39th London Book Fair. The analysis shows that:

• A total of 36 rights deals were done during the fair
• Of these, 21 were non-fiction and just 15 were fiction
• Successful agents included PFD, AP Watt and United Agents

Top of the non-fiction deals included the acquisition of ‘This is a call: The Life and Times of Dave Grohl’ by HarperCollins and a new history publication by Max Hastings, snapped up by HarperPress. Also confirmed was Transworld acquiring the rights to Britain’s Got Talent contestant Susan Boyle’s memoirs.

The much-hyped and long-awaited Apple iPad is set to be released soon, and many are hoping it will give the publishing and media sectors a much-needed boost. But is this really the case, or will it completely obliterate traditional media forms to the detriment of book-lovers and authors alike?

Book reader applications for the iPad are proving exceedingly popular, with 250,000 digital book downloads on the very first day of the devices’ US release, and publishers are hoping it will drastically improve their fortunes revenue-wise.

However, many claim the iPad cannot save traditional forms of media such as newspapers and books. In fact, it may actually make things worse. Newspapers will not receive as much revenue from subscriptions, circulation or advertisers, and will only make small savings on printing and distribution.

As much most of like to read news online, I personally believe there will never be an adequate replacement for the traditional book.

Following the success of the hugely popular TV series True Blood, HBO and IDW Publishing are planning to release a comic book series this summer. The announcement was made at a recent WonderCon comic book convention in San Francisco, with both fans and those involved with the show getting excited about the project.

In the comic book series, fans can expect the same characters existing in the same world as in the TV show, but there will be noticeable differences. The creator of True Blood, Alan Ball, explained how the story will be slightly different and more adventurous in this new format, as there are no budgetary or time restraints to hinder creativity.

The comic book series of True Blood is expected to be launched in June 2010.