I was interviewed a couple of weeks ago by a journalist who was working on a story about publishers and digital change. He was building something around my “Stay Ahead of the Shift” speech from last year’s Book Expo. “I was impressed by that speech,” he said. “You were very prescriptive about what publishers should do. So […]
Tech companies need to look like they understand publishing, which they don’t always do
I showed up Tuesday morning at the gorgeous Cipriani restaurant and ballroom on 42nd Street for The Future of Publishing Summit, not knowing what to expect. I had been invited to attend this in an email last month which promised an interesting program (lots of big tech companies plus a book publishing “track” led by the […]
The wild weekend of Amazon and Macmillan
Now I swear all this is true. As everybody knows, a very serious food fight broke out between Amazon and Macmillan late Friday night. All weekend Michael Cader led the way in ferreting out additional useful information and I spent most of today (Sunday) trying to write an analytical blogpost. I got it just about […]
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.”
The ebook windowing controversy has subtext
It took me a couple of days of pondering this to come to my current understanding of it, but I now think that Carolyn Reidy of Simon & Schuster and David Young of Hachette Book Group, since joined by Brian Murray of HarperCollins, are not really fighting a battle to rescue hardcover books from price […]