I had breakfast last summer with one of the titans of 20th century publishing who is now in his senior years running his own smaller operation. He’s a notorious non-techie. When we talked, he was trying to come to grips with what the problem for publishers was with this digital transition. From his perspective, publishing […]
Archives for January 2011
All publishers and book retailers are global now
One of the key building blocks of my career was the six years I spent working on a program called “Publishing in the 21st Century” with Mark Bide and a team at Vista Computer Services (now Publishing Technologies) led by then-Chairman Denis Bennett, John Wicker (now at Tata Consulting Services), and Martyn Daniels (now at Value-Chain […]
What the powers-that-be think about DRM, and an explanation of the cloud
My last post stemmed from a single catalyst: my frustration with what I feel is the tendency of those opposed to the use of DRM to promote the straw horse that people who defend its use must believe that DRM prevents, or even largely discourages, piracy. I know that isn’t true of me and I […]
DRM may not prevent piracy, but it might still protect sales
There is a lot of disagreement about piracy and DRM (digital rights management) among thinkers in the publishing space. This post will express a few thoughts about both but, mainly, this post is a plea not to conflate the two into the same discussion. In fact, whether they are part of the same discussion appears […]
Ruth Cavin, great editor and world’s nicest person, gone at 92
The title of “nicest person on the planet” is now open. The longtime incumbent, Ruth Cavin — also a veteran book editor who was known to many as the doyenne of mysteries — died early Sunday morning at the age of 92. She was still holding down a full time position as an editor with […]