When I did my two recent posts on ebook pricing — first one proposing “debut pricing” and then one taking it back as not viable — I got a note from a major company CEO saying that, of course, no publisher could discuss pricing with me because of anti-trust concerns. At the same time, I […]
The evolving role of agents
Because of a couple of panels I spoke on last spring and because of the development of FiledBy, I have had more and more conversations lately with agents. They are part of the General Trade Publishing ecosystem. So their lives are getting more difficult and more complicated, like everybody else’s in Book Valley. The agents’ […]
Len Shatzkin and the breaking of a publishing color line
There was a lot of lore in our family but one of my favorite bits of it was my father’s great pride at having hired the first two black office workers at Doubleday in the 1950s. This was particularly cheeky for the guy who was the only Jew in top management ranks. The way I […]
Talking to the agents, and introducing Filedby
I was flattered to be asked to speak to the AAR last night as part of a very distinguished group. My fellow panelists were John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan; Morgan Entrekin, the CEO of Atlantic Monthly Press; the agent Larry Kirshbaum, who was CEO of TimeWarner’s book division (now Hachette Book Group); and Susan Katz, the […]