A reporter called earlier this week focused on what he figures are the upcoming negotiations over trading terms between Amazon and Penguin Random House. I had observed when Amazon was throwing sharp elbows at Hachette during their contractual dispute that Amazon wouldn’t try similar tactics with PRH. Since then, with HarperCollins and Amazon having announced […]
Asking whether Amazon is friend or foe is a simple question that is complicated to answer
I’ve been invited to join a discussion entitled “Amazon: Friend or Foe” (meaning “for publishers”) sponsored by the Digital Media Group of the Worshipful Company of Stationers (only in England!) and taking place in London next month. I think the answer must be “both”, and I suspect that my discussion-mates — Fionnuala Duggan, formerly of […]
Kids book publishers need to massage their data to understand where their books are really going
The day before Digital Book World (which this year was last Tuesday, January 13th), we organize a conference about publishing for young people called Publishers Launch Kids. Because my involvement with juvie publishing over my half century in the business has been relatively cursory, we are fortunate to have recruited our friend, Lorraine Shanley of […]
End of a year, and perhaps the end of a stage of the ebook transition
The year ends with a front-page New York Times story reporting the consternation in the indie author community at the current state of their commercial lives at Amazon. The proximate cause of distress is seen to be the Amazon Kindle Unlimited subscription service, through which indie authors are receiving considerably less compensation per read than […]
The Digital Book World program this year covers the waterfront of the digital transition for book publishing
(This is a longer-than-usual Shatzkin Files post reviewing the topics and speakers for the 26 breakout sessions at DBW 2015. It serves as a checklist of “things to think about right now” for book publishers living through the experience of digital change. The entire program is here. We decided not to link to each and every […]