The planning process for the main Digital Book World program — about 40 discrete programming elements using about 150 speakers over two days — has always benefited from a “Conference Council” brainstorming meeting. This year’s iteration is later this week. We’ll have attendees from all of the Big Five, several other publishers, agents, and assorted […]
My personal list of what should be top-of-mind for publishers around digital change today
What are the most important digital change issues publishers face? To prepare for DBW 2016, we need to decide what publishers need to be thinking about and learning about next March, when the seventh annual DBW will take place. It would be extremely limiting for that selection to be based on my thoughts and opinions […]
Four of the big five have new deals with Amazon and only the biggest is still to negotiate one
A reporter called earlier this week focused on what he figures are the upcoming negotiations over trading terms between Amazon and Penguin Random House. I had observed when Amazon was throwing sharp elbows at Hachette during their contractual dispute that Amazon wouldn’t try similar tactics with PRH. Since then, with HarperCollins and Amazon having announced […]
Asking whether Amazon is friend or foe is a simple question that is complicated to answer
I’ve been invited to join a discussion entitled “Amazon: Friend or Foe” (meaning “for publishers”) sponsored by the Digital Media Group of the Worshipful Company of Stationers (only in England!) and taking place in London next month. I think the answer must be “both”, and I suspect that my discussion-mates — Fionnuala Duggan, formerly of […]
Kids book publishers need to massage their data to understand where their books are really going
The day before Digital Book World (which this year was last Tuesday, January 13th), we organize a conference about publishing for young people called Publishers Launch Kids. Because my involvement with juvie publishing over my half century in the business has been relatively cursory, we are fortunate to have recruited our friend, Lorraine Shanley of […]