theBookseller.com reports: “Eat, Pray, Love, her [American Elizabeth Gilbert] account of the year she spent travelling the world alone after a difficult divorce, sold just shy of 300,000 copies in the final week before Christmas in the US, massively ahead of her nearest rivals Stephen Colbert (143,000) and Conn Iggulden (114,000) in the US, and Russell Brand (112,000) in the UK.”

Amazing statistics. If you haven’t read Eat, Pray, Love, I commend it to you, it’s an excellent memoir.

The wonderful success of this book should be giving you ideas for memoirs YOU could write, yes?

Now that JK Rowling has ditched Harry Potter and his wand, the hunt is on for the next big thing in children’s books.

The write stuff: Who’ll suceed Rowling as next big thing in kid-lit? reports: “‘We’re certainly seeing Stephenie Meyer as the heir apparent to J.K. Rowling,’ says Huie. ‘Twilight,’ Meyer’s first book in her girl-friendly vampire series, is on 53 top 10 lists on chapters.indigo.ca’s online community. ‘This is the best thing in the universe.’ I can’t wait to finish the next book.’ Reader commentary like this explained why ‘Eclipse,’ the third title in Meyer’s series, became the fastest selling youth-adult title within one week of its August 2007 release.”

Why not try writing the next sensation yourself?

Poets & Writers Magazine has an excellent Q & A with agent Lynn Nesbit.

She discusses the changing role of agents Poets&Writers, Inc.: “You are part of a writer’s support system—a very important part. The role of the agent is more important today than it was when I was starting out. Because the publishing world is so corporate, and editors move around so much, you are increasingly the only fixed point for the writer. That’s one way it’s changed. Another thing that I notice here, with younger agents like Tina and Eric, is that they do a lot of editing, and we didn’t do that when we were young. I think it’s partly because of the editors. There is such pressure on editors to come in with something that’s almost ready to go that the agents are assuming part of what the editors used to do.”