The fact that Publishers Launch Conferences will stage half-a-dozen or more events before our next big multi-day Digital Book World blowout next January doesn’t change the DBW calendar. Now is the time of year when we have to start thinking about what the big issues will be at the turn of the year so we […]
It will be hard to find a public library 15 years from now
I spoke last week to a group in Montreal convened by the English-language Publishers of Quebec and the Quebec Writers Association in a small auditorium at the Atwater Library. The Atwater Library is a private library with very limited government funding which is more than 100 years old. (The Globe and Mail article that quoted […]
Publishers Launch Conferences: a new partnership with Michael Cader
I had already been in the “publishing futurist” game for a few years when my frequent project partner Mark Bide and I put together a day-long conference in March 2000 at the London Book Fair called “Publishing 2010.” (As I look at what I wrote for that conference, I can see some things I got […]
Random House joining the (formerly) Agency 5, and what it might mean
Now the Big Six are all selling ebooks on the agency model. Random House has joined their five competitors. It is almost a year since Apple launched the iPad, opened the iBookstore, and delivered big publishers an opportunity to rewrite the rules of the ebook marketplace, at least for their books and at least for […]
Introducing the North American Big Six
There’s a new Big Six in town. Or maybe not “in town.” But “on the planet.” The Big Six is a term commonly used to collectively designate the behemoths of US trade publishing: Random House, Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan. Although there are other large players, some of whom occasionally […]