Somebody somewhere reported last month that the United States is the home country to the second largest number of Spanish-speakers in the world, after Mexico. Since I am speaking in Madrid to Spanish publishers at the end of May, that seemed like something I should learn more about. The US must be a market. The […]
Digital marketing scales and that could create new opportunities for capable publishers
There are three new promotion and marketing opportunities for publishers of ebooks that have been created by the original upstart ebook publisher, Open Road Integrated Media. They all come from OR/M’s development of tools to promote their own extensive list of ebooks, but which now actually benefit from the inclusion of a broader array of […]
Things are calmer than they were in the book business, but change is a constant
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. […]
On Amazon stores and publishers accepting standardization; two unrelated commentaries
When the “Amazon-opening-400-stores” rumor landed a week ago, many people were gobsmacked. It took me a minute to get past that, which also required getting past my firm conviction when they opened the Seattle store last year that it was an information-gathering exercise, not the opening move of a bigger retail play. But, when you […]
The support infrastructure for entities to publish is growing but the most important piece may not yet be provided
I remember a song lyric from the early 70s for which the opening line was: “we don’t need more sailors, we need a captain”. (I can’t find the reference in LyricFind and I don’t remember the name of the band.) That song could be about the new publishing that is arising from the phenomenon of […]