The Book Industry Study Group, or BISG, is a book publishing trade organization now headed by Brian O’Leary that was formed to be pan-industry. They were preceded by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the American Booksellers Association (ABA), but those were two “sides” of the book trade with their own interests, and they […]
Dick McCullough was a great client for me, a great boss for many, and a great guy for everybody
I hadn’t seen Dick McCullough, who was my most-fun-to-work-with client of all time and the best leader I ever met in the corporate world, for at least a few years when I got a phone call from him at 7pm last New Year’s Eve. He was calling to tell me that he had just had […]
The reality of publishing economics has changed for the big players
A veteran agent who was formerly a publisher confirmed a point for me about how trade publishing has changed over the past two decades, particularly for the big houses. This challenges a fundamental tenet of my father’s understanding of the business. (And that’s the still the source of most of mine.) I had long suspected […]
Barnes and Noble faces a challenge that has not been clearly spelled out
The sudden dismissal of Ron Boire, the CEO of Barnes & Noble, follows the latest financial reporting from Barnes & Noble and has inspired yet another round of analysis about their future. When the financial results were released last month, there was a certain amount of celebrating over the fact that store closings are down […]
On Amazon stores and publishers accepting standardization; two unrelated commentaries
When the “Amazon-opening-400-stores” rumor landed a week ago, many people were gobsmacked. It took me a minute to get past that, which also required getting past my firm conviction when they opened the Seattle store last year that it was an information-gathering exercise, not the opening move of a bigger retail play. But, when you […]
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