On Thursday of this week, I’ll be at the Charleston Conference appearing in a conversation organized by Anthony Watkinson that includes me and Peter Brantley. Brantley and Watkinson both have extensive backgrounds in the library and academic worlds, which are the milieux of most attendees at this conference. I don’t. I am being brought in […]
Amazon as a threat to steal big titles from big publishers is still a ways off
When Larry Kirshbaum, the longtime head of TimeWarner Publishing (purchased right after he left in 2007 by Hachette and now the company called Hachette Book Group USA) joined Amazon many people thought — I among them — that Amazon was about to become a threat to take big titles away from the major publishers and, […]
After the DoJ action, where do we stand?
This post went up around midnight last night (Saturday, 4/14) in London, or between 6 and 7 NY time. I had been concerned about a part of it that has been edited below. If you read it before 5 pm today (Sunday, 4/15), you’ll not have seen this correction. And you’ll see some comments that […]
What’s the greater fear for publishers? Amazon or piracy?
Pottermore changed the game this morning. Congratulations to Charlie Redmayne, their CEO. The “aha” moment for me was when somebody on a listserv mentioned they’d bought Kindle editions of the seven Harry Potter books which, it had been announced, were available only from the Pottermore site. Penny drops. First thought: Hnh? How did that happen? […]
Libraries and publishers don’t have symmetrical interest in a conversation
Because libraries are, at most 5% of a general trade publisher’s business and far less of the ebook business, and because the market is changing so rapidly and because every retailer except Amazon can be said to be struggling to carve out a sustainable position in the global ebook marketplace, there are many legitimate reasons […]