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Amazon has done so many smart things that some of the best ones get forgotten

March 9, 2021 by Mike Shatzkin Leave a Comment

There’s quite a bit of publishing about publishing going on in the next few weeks. British academic John B. Thompson has written a solid scholarly history of book publishing in the past quarter century or so called “Book Wars” that will publish next month, focused on the arrival of ebooks and how publishers and the […]

Filed Under: eBooks, General Trade Publishing, Marketing, New Models, Publishing History, Supply-Chain Tagged With: "Behemoth, "Book Wars", "The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know", "The Family Business", Amazon Rising", Baker & Taylor, I2S2, Ingram, Ingram Internet Support Services, iPad, Jeff Bezos, John B. Thompson, Keel Hunt, Kindle, Nook, Robert Paris Riger, Robin Gaster, Rocket Book, Softbook, Sony Reader, West Margin Books

The dominance of Amazon needs to be addressed but it is far more attributable to natural circumstances than it is anybody’s fault

May 7, 2018 by Mike Shatzkin Leave a Comment

As things evolve in an era of rapid change, it is human nature to assign credit or blame for any drastic alterations in circumstances. And so we have the book business, with its last remaining chain store behemoth, Barnes & Noble, in a period of obvious decline and presenting the clear possibility that the book […]

Filed Under: General Trade Publishing, New Models, Publishing History, Scale, Supply-Chain, Technology Tagged With: American Booksellers Association, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Crown Books, David Leonhardt, Facebook, Google, I2S2, Ingram, Oren Teicher, The New York Times, US Department of Justice

Can crowd-sourced retailing give Amazon a run for its money?

December 16, 2015 by Mike Shatzkin 35 Comments

Although it has always seemed sensible for publishers to sell their books (and then ebooks) directly to end users, it has never looked to me like that could be a very big business. In the online environment, your favorite “store” — the one you’re loyal to and perhaps even have an investment in patronizing (which […]

Filed Under: Atomization, Authors, eBooks, General Trade Publishing, Global, Licensing and Rights, Marketing, New Models, Publishing History, Scale, Self-Publishing, Supply-Chain, Technology Tagged With: Aer.io, Aerbook, Amazon, American West, Barnes & Noble, Bertelsmann, BN .com, Bookish, Books Online, Borders, Google, Hachette, Hummingbird, I2S2, Ingram, Kindle, Kobo, Nook, Penguin, Random House, Ron Martinez, Simon & Schuster, The Book Depository, Zola Books

Three points worth adding to the excellent account of the Amazon story in The Everything Store

November 4, 2013 by Mike Shatzkin 3 Comments

The publication of Brad Stone’s book about Amazon, “The Everything Store”, is the catalyst for a lot of new discussion about the topic most difficult for the book business to discuss. It is pretty much impossible to be in the book business without benefiting from Amazon’s market reach. But it is also pretty standard fare […]

Filed Under: Authors, eBooks, General Trade Publishing, New Models, Publishing History, Self-Publishing, Supply-Chain Tagged With: "The Everything Store", Amazon, Amazon Prime, Barnes & Noble, Brad Stone, Digital Book World, dot lit, I2S2, Ingram, Ingram Internet Support Services, Jeremy Greenfield, John Ingram, Kindle, Kindle Owners Lending Library, Matchbook, Mobipocket, Palm Digital Microsoft, Peter Olson, Random House

Two questions that loom over the trade publishing business

February 28, 2012 by Mike Shatzkin 33 Comments

A lot of people in publishing would pay a lot of money to get a reliable answer to these two questions: When will the growth in Amazon’s share of the consumer book business stop? Who will be left standing when it does? I won’t attempt to answer those two questions in this post. In fact, […]

Filed Under: Authors, eBooks, General Trade Publishing, Publishing History, Self-Publishing, Supply-Chain Tagged With: Amazon, Amazon Prime, Barnes & Noble, Bertelsmann, BN .com, I2S2, Independent Publishers Group, Ingram, Ingram Internet Support Services, IPG, Kindle, Kobo, Macmillan, Nook, Random House

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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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