Amazon’s introduction of the Kindle in 2007 was followed rapidly by other ebook systems — Kobo, Google, B&N’s Nook, and Apple’s iBook — and widely-available print-on-demand capabilities for printed books offered by Ingram (Lightning Print was already a decade old) and Amazon’s CreateSpace. Amazon had long exploited price as a weapon in the marketplace, discounting […]
Book publishers do not do SEO like the big guys do although they could
Partner Pete McCarthy pointed me to an article a couple of weeks ago that also introduced me to a website called Viperchill and its gifted, self-promoting SEO/Marketing creator, Glen Allsopp. The linked post, which I strongly urge you to read, enumerates quite painstakingly the techniques used by 16 online media companies with a large portfolio […]
Full text examination by computer is very unlikely to predict bestsellers
PW currently has a story on a forthcoming St. Martin’s book called “The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of The Blockbuster Novel” in which authors Jodie Archer and Matthew L. Jockers “claim they created an algorithm that identifies the literary elements that guarantee a book a spot on the bestseller lists.” As readers of The Shatzkin Files know, […]
When it comes to supporting authors in marketing efforts, no publisher has it right yet
It is my firm conviction that the biggest shortcoming of traditional publishers these days is their failure to help authors help themselves with digital marketing. In my opening remarks at Digital Book World earlier this month, I said this: At the very least, every house should do a “digital audit” for every author they sign […]
If Amazon pricing of ebooks is the problem, is agency actually the right solution?
In the past week, I’ve had conversations with leading executives at two of Amazon’s competitors in the ebook space. They had strikingly different takes on whether the agency pricing regime, which is now in place by contract with all five of the biggest trade publishers, helps keep competitive balance in the ebook marketplace or prevents […]
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