The biggest publishers today are regularly delivering improved profit performance on a flat or declining sales base. This masks a troubling truth about today’s book business. The core asset base of a book publisher is “performing titles”: the books that are delivering measurable revenues. The more of them there are the healthier the business is. […]
We’ll see how what I actually learn compares to what I expect to find out
Australia and New Zealand have always been the far outposts of the English-speaking territories for book publishers based in New York and London. But the logistics and economics of managing inventory are very difficult. These countries are across long seas from where US and UK publishers normally warehouse their books. Whatever copies are shipped to […]
News this week that demonstrates how timely Digital Book World programming can be…and a thought about Amazon bookstores
There are some days that the news I see just makes me feel so good about the programming we’re doing for this year’s Digital Book World. One of those days was earlier this week when the news pointed directly to three items on our program. As I wrote in the last post, we have an entire […]
Transformation of companies and the book industry itself are not just 21st century phenomena
Company transformation is a major theme at this year’s Digital Book World conference. By “transformation” we mean substantial changes in a company’s business model or core competencies or revenue streams. We found eight worthy companies to speak on this subject. Six of them — Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Ingram, Quarto, Rodale, Sourcebooks, and Wiley — are […]
Book publishing lives in an environment shaped by larger forces and always has
(Note to my readers. This longer-than-usual post is really two. The first half is a recital of what I believe is very relevant history. The second half is about how things are now. Although I am personally fascinated by the historical context, if you get bored with the history, the bolded text below marks the […]