One thing we try to do at Digital Book World is to present our audiences with useful, relevant, and, when we can, original data. It is a familiar complaint in our industry that we drive blind. Part of that is due to the sheer diversity and granularity of the “book business”. And another part is […]
Will print and ebook publishers ultimately be doing the same books?
Recent performance reports from Simon & Schuster and Penguin, which can be taken as indicative in some ways of what’s going on at the rest of the Big Six and instructive about what’s happening across trade publishing, say that revenue is flat or down, profits are up, and the ebook share of revenue is growing. […]
From some perspectives, we are tipping right now and publishers’ metrics will show it
Sometimes, and it would seem quite often these days, the future comes faster than you expected it. Followers of this blog, and of my speeches before there was a blog (this one’s from 2001!), know I’ve long been expecting ebook reading to supplant print book reading for many people. I’ve been wrong about the timing. […]
Supply chain analysis could get even more important as store sales diminish
http://mikeshatzkin.wpengine.com/a-coming-new-obsession-how-to-handle-a-smaller-print-book-business
One thing that has changed considerably in the last 20 years is the amount of information publishers have about what is going on in the supply chain: that is, they can track the books between their own warehouse and the end consumer purchase. The Big Kahuna of information, of course, is provided by BookScan, based on cash register capture of data as books are sold at outlets all over the country. BookScan not only lets its
VIDEO: Planning for a Long Career in an Industry That’s Changing
Mike’s speech to a packed house at Hachette, as part of a lunchtime lecture series known as The Publishing Point. Delivering what proved to be a thought-provoking and farsighted view of the future of the book industry, Mike had some clear advice for those planning a long career in publishing: the companies that will succeed will be those that focus on building compelling content for well-defined “vertical communities.”