The Idea Logical Company

  • Blog
  • Speeches
  • Consulting
  • Clients
  • Media
  • About
  • Contact

Deep in the weeds of publishing economics

March 1, 2017 by Mike Shatzkin 31 Comments

This is a geeky post about publishing economics. Some people like that. If you don’t, you were warned before you invested any time. Two otherwise unrelated projects last week — a book I’m working on with a veteran fellow consultant named Robert Riger and a quick consulting call with a team from a major generalist […]

Filed Under: Authors, General Trade Publishing, Licensing and Rights, Marketing, New Models, Publishing History, Scale, Supply-Chain Tagged With: "The Mathematics of Bookselling", Amazon, Dolphin Books, Doubleday, In Cold Type, Len Shatzkin, Macmillan, Robert Riger, St. Martin's Press, Title P&Ls, Tom McCormack, Unit cost accounting

For the book business, VMI in warehouses might happen before VMI in stores

January 16, 2017 by Mike Shatzkin 2 Comments

The sales-and-returns convention by which most books are sold by most publishers to their retail and wholesale accounts is too often described as “consignment”. It actually isn’t. Actual consignment terms would give us a quite different supply chain, and we may be closer than most people imagine to shifting to it. Although major trade accounts […]

Filed Under: General Trade Publishing, Licensing and Rights, Marketing, Supply-Chain Tagged With: Amazon, B&N, Barnes & Noble, demand planning, GMROII, Ingram, vendor-managed inventory, VMI

The reality of publishing economics has changed for the big players

September 19, 2016 by Mike Shatzkin 28 Comments

A veteran agent who was formerly a publisher confirmed a point for me about how trade publishing has changed over the past two decades, particularly for the big houses. This challenges a fundamental tenet of my father’s understanding of the business. (And that’s the still the source of most of mine.) I had long suspected […]

Filed Under: General Trade Publishing, Licensing and Rights, Marketing, New Models, Publishing History, Scale, Supply-Chain Tagged With: Amazon, B. Dalton, Barnes & Noble, Hillary Clinton for President, Leonard Shatzkin, Publishing People for Hillary, Roy Campanella, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator Cory Booker, St. Martin's Press, Tom McCormack, Walden, Yogi Berra

The “Big Change” era in trade book publishing ended about four years ago

July 11, 2016 by Mike Shatzkin 8 Comments

Book publishing is still very much in a time of changing conditions and circumstances. There are a host of unknowables about the next several years that affect the shape of the industry and the strategies of all the players in it. But as publishers, retailers, libraries, and their ecosystem partners prepare for whatever is next, […]

Filed Under: Digital Book World, Direct response, eBooks, General Trade Publishing, Global, Industry Events, Licensing and Rights, Marketing, New Models, Publishing History, Scale, Self-Publishing, Supply-Chain Tagged With: "Electronic Publishing and Rights", Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Borders, CreateSpace, Edelweiss, Firebrand, Hachette, HarperCollins, iBookstore, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Kobo, Macintosh, Macmillan, NetGalley, Nook, Palm Pilot, Penguin, Publishers Weekly, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Steve Jobs, US Department of Justice, Voyager Expanded Book

Four players in the book business with the power to rewrite some of the rules

May 3, 2016 by Mike Shatzkin 10 Comments

The news came last week that ReaderLink has purchased Anderson News. Those two companies have been the leading suppliers of books to the mass merchandisers: primarily Wal-mart, Target, and Sam’s Club. There are other players selling books in the space, including Ingram, Baker & Taylor, and smaller distributors like the less-well-known American West. But most […]

Filed Under: General Trade Publishing, Licensing and Rights, Marketing, Scale, Supply-Chain, Technology Tagged With: Aer.io, Amazon, American West, Anderson News, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Big Five, BN .com, Books-a-Million, Follett, Ingram, Penguin Random House, ReaderLink, Sam's Club, Target, Wal-mart

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • …
  • 25
  • Next Page »

Search

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.

Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeShatzkin.

Interview with Mike Shatzkin

Book Cover: The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know

The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know

Sign Up

Get The Shatzkin Files posts by email.

Recent Posts

  • Running a big publishing house is not as much fun as it used to be
  • 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?”

Archives

Categories

  • Atomization
  • Authors
  • Autobiographical
  • Baseball
  • Chuckles
  • Climate Change
  • Community
  • Conferences
  • Digital Book World
  • Direct response
  • eBooks
  • Enhanced ebook university
  • General Trade Publishing
  • Global
  • Industry Events
  • libraries
  • Licensing and Rights
  • Marketing
  • New Models
  • Politics
  • Print-On-Demand
  • Publishers Launch Conferences
  • Publishing
  • Publishing History
  • rights
  • Scale
  • Self-Publishing
  • SEO
  • Speeches
  • Subscriptions
  • Supply-Chain
  • Technology
  • Unbundling
  • Uncategorized
  • Vertical

Recent Posts

  • Running a big publishing house is not as much fun as it used to be
  • 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

Pages

  • Blog
  • Consulting
  • In the Media
  • Clients
  • About Us

Follow Mike

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Search

Copyright © 2023 · eleven40 Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in