A prior post described the new structure of the book publishing ecosystem. In the past three decades, we have migrated away from a world where a publisher needed to own a substantial infrastructure to deliver printed books to thousands of retail locations. And “back then” and for most of the time since, most book readers […]
A changing book business: it all seems to be flowing downhill to Amazon
Amazon’s introduction of the Kindle in 2007 was followed rapidly by other ebook systems — Kobo, Google, B&N’s Nook, and Apple’s iBook — and widely-available print-on-demand capabilities for printed books offered by Ingram (Lightning Print was already a decade old) and Amazon’s CreateSpace. Amazon had long exploited price as a weapon in the marketplace, discounting […]
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 […]
Looking at predictions from here going back a few years
Prediction posts are common blog- and article-fodder at the end of a calendar year. I don’t think we’ll do one this time around, but I thought it would be fun to review some of the prediction posts from prior years. So pardon the highly self-referential post, but I think reviewing the predictions and reality from […]