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 […]
Nothing happens over 4th of July weekend, except this year
Monday, July 4, was supposed to be a quiet day in the publishing business. It turns out it wasn’t. Three developments reported as special holiday bulletins by Publishers Lunch have strategic implications worth pondering that will have trade publishing people all over the world conferring with their friends and colleagues as soon as they shake […]
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 […]
Amazon’s Sunshine Program is another wake-up call for the Big Six
Amazon began a program on June 1 that will apparently run for two weeks. When you go to the Kindle home page, there’s a banner across the top reading “Sunshine Deals, Over 600 Books on Sale for $0.99, $1.99, and $2.99”. These books are not from the big agency publishers, who set their own prices. […]
A Frankfurt reminder: the world is getting smaller
At the conclusion of another Frankfurt Book Fair — my thirty-somethingth — here is something I actually knew before but have taken on board in a whole new way: there is an enormous gap between the US and everyplace else in the Western world (at least) in consumer ebook takeup and acceptance. Here is what […]