The division of the consumer’s dollar across the publishing value chain has a history of change. When I came into the business 50 years ago, discounts from publishers to retailers often topped out at 44% and even wholesalers seldom got more than 48% off the retail price on hardcover books. Today discounts into the mid-50s […]
Borders Crosses the Last Frontier
The end of Borders took place within a larger context. I was in Italy for the IfBookThen conference last February when Borders’ impending bankruptcy was a rising expectation. Somebody in the audience asked me if I attributed Borders’ difficulties to ebooks. I said: “When the flu hits town, the old and sick die first.” Ebooks […]
Data helps us understand ebook pricing impacts
My new buddy and client over at iobyte, Dan Lubart, inspired a post last week about Amazon’s new Sunshine promotion because he documented its impact on their bestseller list. Since then he’s put up two new posts that are only worth reading if you care at all about the effect of price on today’s ebook […]
Technology, curation, and why the era of big bookstores is coming to an end
I stumbled across a Sarah Weinman post from a few months ago that posits the notion that the chain bookstore (by which it would appear she means the superstores of the past 20 years, not the chain bookstores in malls that grew up in the prior 20 years) perhaps had a natural life cycle which […]
Are open markets for ebooks a race to the bottom on price? Maybe our London show will help me understand
Sometimes something seems very obvious to me, but other people — smart people I respect — don’t see it that way and it makes me wonder if I’m missing something. What I’m thinking about that way today is the future of “open territories” in the ebook world. When English-language rights are sold to US and […]
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