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What the ruling against the PRH-S&S merger means for the publishing business

November 1, 2022 by Mike Shatzkin Leave a Comment

Judge Florence Y. Pan ruled today that the acquisition of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House could not go forward. The ruling was explicitly to protect the “competition” for the “anticipated top-selling books”. In other words, the big books by big authors for which only the Big Five can compete regularly (with occasional bids […]

Filed Under: Atomization, General Trade Publishing, Licensing and Rights, Marketing, New Models, Print-On-Demand, Publishing History, Scale, Self-Publishing, Supply-Chain, Uncategorized Tagged With: Big Five, Hachette, HarperCollins, Ingram, Penguin Random House, PRH, S&S, Simon & Schuster

How book publishing has changed in recent decades and the puzzling question of what comes next

June 19, 2022 by Mike Shatzkin Leave a Comment

My book business career (on the fringes since 1958 and pretty fully immersed since 1973) has been spent considering the path from “intellectual property creator” to “book purchaser”. This is a world occupied by authors and packagers and agents; by publishers of various sizes and capabilities coordinating the many tasks and steps from the raw […]

Filed Under: Atomization, Authors, General Trade Publishing, Global, Marketing, New Models, Publishing History, Scale, Self-Publishing, Supply-Chain, Uncategorized Tagged With: Amazon, Amazon Kindle, bookstore sales, direct-to-consumer marketing of books, Ingram Content Companies, Ingram Spark, Kindle, online sales

The sea change that comes with the latest iteration of the book ecosystem

June 6, 2016 by Mike Shatzkin 13 Comments

In the past 10 years (since the mid-2000s), the ebook has arrived and the amount of shelf space for books in physical retail has declined, as book purchasing has continued to move to the Internet. This has put pressure on publishers’ distribution costs, as we discussed in a prior post. In the 10 years before […]

Filed Under: Atomization, eBooks, General Trade Publishing, Marketing, New Models, Publishing History, Scale, SEO, Supply-Chain Tagged With: B&N, Baker & Taylor, Borders, Dalton, department stores, Ingram, Walden

Things are calmer than they were in the book business, but change is a constant

May 25, 2016 by Mike Shatzkin 12 Comments

Among the shifts that have been taking place in publishing houses over the past decade is an increase in the head count dedicated to marketing and a decrease in head count dedicated to sales. This reflects the reduction in the number of bookstore accounts and the transfer of “discovery” from store shelves to digital search. […]

Filed Under: Atomization, eBooks, General Trade Publishing, Marketing, New Models, Scale, Self-Publishing, Supply-Chain, Unbundling Tagged With: Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Borders, CreateSpace, HarperCollins, Ingram, Kindle

Can crowd-sourced retailing give Amazon a run for its money?

December 16, 2015 by Mike Shatzkin 35 Comments

Although it has always seemed sensible for publishers to sell their books (and then ebooks) directly to end users, it has never looked to me like that could be a very big business. In the online environment, your favorite “store” — the one you’re loyal to and perhaps even have an investment in patronizing (which […]

Filed Under: Atomization, Authors, eBooks, General Trade Publishing, Global, Licensing and Rights, Marketing, New Models, Publishing History, Scale, Self-Publishing, Supply-Chain, Technology Tagged With: Aer.io, Aerbook, Amazon, American West, Barnes & Noble, Bertelsmann, BN .com, Bookish, Books Online, Borders, Google, Hachette, Hummingbird, I2S2, Ingram, Kindle, Kobo, Nook, Penguin, Random House, Ron Martinez, Simon & Schuster, The Book Depository, Zola Books

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Mike Shatzkin

Mike Shatzkin is the Founder & CEO of The Idea Logical Company and a widely-acknowledged thought leader about digital change in the book publishing industry. Read more.

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Recent Posts

  • Google knocked us out for a couple of days, but we’re back!
  • When a publisher might not do as good a job as a self-publishing author
  • What the ruling against the PRH-S&S merger means for the publishing business
  • “Automated ebook marketing by Open Road; can anybody else do it?”
  • How book publishing has changed in recent decades and the puzzling question of what comes next

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Recent Posts

  • Google knocked us out for a couple of days, but we’re back!
  • When a publisher might not do as good a job as a self-publishing author
  • What the ruling against the PRH-S&S merger means for the publishing business

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