The question of how to plug the independent bookseller into the digital revolution is a knotty one. Nobody has really “solved” it. Two of the smartest guys in the UK, Francis Bennett and Michael Holdsworth, tried to tackle this question in a report for the Booksellers Association in a report published in 2007. While they […]
Epiphanies come and go
I was talking to one of the smart C-level people from a major house at a party last June at BEA in Los Angeles. He was very excited about what his company had accomplished. “We’ve set up a database and CMS so we can deliver a web page for every book a web page for […]
Talking to the agents, and introducing Filedby
I was flattered to be asked to speak to the AAR last night as part of a very distinguished group. My fellow panelists were John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan; Morgan Entrekin, the CEO of Atlantic Monthly Press; the agent Larry Kirshbaum, who was CEO of TimeWarner’s book division (now Hachette Book Group); and Susan Katz, the […]
Writing about Clay Shirky writing about newspapers
One of the great thinkers about digital change is NYU professor Clay Shirky. I have been reading posts and articles from him for years and he is always cogent and sensible. He has just posted a very insightful piece about the challenges faced by newspapers. Shirky doesn’t explictly say that he’s exploring the “vertical/horizontal” dichotomy […]
The author-publisher deal needs tweaking
I just want to riff briefly on a challenge; I am still thinking about what might be a solution, or even an approach to a solution. Here’s the challenge. We need some creative dealmaking between authors and publishers. The partnership is getting more complicated. Publishers (will always) need authors and (most) authors (still) need publishers. […]