No news from here today; just rumination. Those of us in the book business have to choose which anti-social position we want to take. Some people are for the most rapid possible adoption of ebooks. They can be cheaper. They don’t require paper which pollutes when you create it and adds carbon footprint every time […]
New ways to sell ebooks aren’t easy to implement
A simple and perfectly sensible suggestion emerged on the Brantley email list yesterday but the conversation around it showed that some stark realities about the book world have not yet been taken on board, even in very sophisticated circles (which this list is.) The list discussed a suggestion from librarian Josh Greenberg that publishers take note of […]
A baker’s dozen predictions for 2010
It is customary for those of us who do crystal-ball gazing to make some calls about the year ahead at around the time the celebrants head for Times Square. I am not a man to flout custom. Here are some of the things I expect we’ll see in 2010. 1. At least one major book […]
A context in which to evaluate ebook strategies
This post is part of a growing set initiated by the Sourcebooks experiment holding back an ebook from simultaneous publication with an upcoming hardcover. It is the second (link to the first below) and will be followed by at least one more, as the conclusion of this post makes clear. To talk sensibly about the […]
Is ebook pricing really a key to sales? We’re about to find out…
For those of you who missed the “Stay Ahead of the Shift” speech at BEA, we posted a link to the slides, but over this coming weekend we’ll do even better. From Friday morning, June 12 until Monday morning, June 15, we will post a link to a video of the entire speech! It is […]