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Dick McCullough was a great client for me, a great boss for many, and a great guy for everybody

June 18, 2017 by Mike Shatzkin 7 Comments

I hadn’t seen Dick McCullough, who was my most-fun-to-work-with client of all time and the best leader I ever met in the corporate world, for at least a few years when I got a phone call from him at 7pm last New Year’s Eve. He was calling to tell me that he had just had […]

Filed Under: Autobiographical, General Trade Publishing, Publishing History Tagged With: ABA Convention, Charles Ellis, Crowell-Collier, Dan McNamee, Dick McCullough, George Stanley, Harry McCullough, Jess Johns, John Wiley, Leonard Shatzkin, Macmillan, Michael Bennett, Peter Clifton, Peter McCarthy, Rich Freese, Scribners, Stewart Wolpin, Teresa Hartnett, Warren Sullivan

New data on the Long Tail impact suggests rethinking history and ideas about the future of publishing

June 25, 2014 by Mike Shatzkin 66 Comments

For most of my lifetime, the principal challenge a publisher faced to get a book noticed by a consumer and sold was to get it on the shelves in bookstores. Data was always scarce (I combed for it for years) but everything I ever saw reported confirmed that customers generally chose from what was made […]

Filed Under: Atomization, Authors, eBooks, General Trade Publishing, Marketing, New Models, Scale, Self-Publishing, Supply-Chain Tagged With: B. Dalton, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Booknet Canada, Borders, BP Reports, Brentano's, Cambridge University Press, Collier's Encyclopedia, Crowell-Collier, Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, HHI, Ingram, Kindle, Leonard Shatzkin, Lightning, Macmillan Publishers, Marcello Vena, Noah Genner, Oxford University Press, publishing history, RCS Libri, Two Continents, Walden

The expected changes in the book business favor Amazon’s share growth

March 5, 2012 by Mike Shatzkin 22 Comments

This post is the second that is contemplating two big questions facing the publishing industry: When will the growth in Amazon’s share of the consumer book business stop? Who will be left standing when it does? Amazon applies pressure and generates angst among publishers from two directions. As they grow to be 30% or more […]

Filed Under: Authors, eBooks, General Trade Publishing, Publishing History, Self-Publishing, Supply-Chain Tagged With: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Brentano's, Charles Scribner's Sons, Crowell-Collier, Deepak Chopra, Doubleday, Forrester, Jackie Collins, Larry Kirshbaum, Leonard Shatzkin, Macmillan, Scribner Bookstore, Simon & Schuster, Sterling, Tim Ferriss, Time Warner Books

Technology, curation, and why the era of big bookstores is coming to an end

June 7, 2011 by Mike Shatzkin 22 Comments

I stumbled across a Sarah Weinman post from a few months ago that posits the notion that the chain bookstore (by which it would appear she means the superstores of the past 20 years, not the chain bookstores in malls that grew up in the prior 20 years) perhaps had a natural life cycle which […]

Filed Under: Autobiographical, General Trade Publishing, Publishing, Publishing History, Supply-Chain Tagged With: Amazon.com, Avon, B. Dalton, Baker & Taylor, Bantam, Barnes & Noble, Bill Shinker, Bookstop, Borders, Brentano's, Burrows Brothers, Cambridge University Press, Crowell-Collier, Crown Books, curation, Doubleday, Doubleday Merchandising Plan, Iacocca, Ingram, Jack Romanos, Kroch's & Brentano's, Len Shatzkin, Peter Mayer, Rosemary Rogers, Sarah Weinman, Steve Clark, The People's Pharmacy, Walden

Can the chains provide us with better small bookstores?

November 8, 2009 by Mike Shatzkin 11 Comments

There is considerable concern among the trade publishing establishment about the future of brick-and-mortar stores. As well there should be. Retail stores provide the most efficient promotion opportunities for books: putting them in front of people poised to buy. They give clear signals about sales appeal by positioning and piles of stock of varying sizes; […]

Filed Under: General Trade Publishing, New Models, Publishing, Publishing History, Supply-Chain Tagged With: B. Dalton, Barnes & Noble, Bookstop, Borders, Brentano's, Crowell-Collier, Ingram, Leonard Shatzkin, Macmillan, Waldenbooks

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Mike Shatzkin

Mike Shatzkin is the Founder & CEO of The Idea Logical Company and a widely-acknowledged thought leader about digital change in the book publishing industry. Read more.

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Recent Posts

  • Running a big publishing house is not as much fun as it used to be
  • Google knocked us out for a couple of days, but we’re back!
  • When a publisher might not do as good a job as a self-publishing author
  • What the ruling against the PRH-S&S merger means for the publishing business
  • “Automated ebook marketing by Open Road; can anybody else do it?”

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Recent Posts

  • Running a big publishing house is not as much fun as it used to be
  • Google knocked us out for a couple of days, but we’re back!
  • When a publisher might not do as good a job as a self-publishing author

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