(This is a longer-than-usual Shatzkin Files post reviewing the topics and speakers for the 26 breakout sessions at DBW 2015. It serves as a checklist of “things to think about right now” for book publishers living through the experience of digital change. The entire program is here. We decided not to link to each and every […]
The ebook marketplace is a long way from settled
When we put on conferences, we sometimes book speakers because of who they are, or who their company is, but we also do our best to make sure the content of their presentation will be useful to our audience. So I had booked Matteo Berlucchi, the CEO of the British ebook startup Anobii, to speak […]
What’s the greater fear for publishers? Amazon or piracy?
Pottermore changed the game this morning. Congratulations to Charlie Redmayne, their CEO. The “aha” moment for me was when somebody on a listserv mentioned they’d bought Kindle editions of the seven Harry Potter books which, it had been announced, were available only from the Pottermore site. Penny drops. First thought: Hnh? How did that happen? […]
What smaller publishers, agents, and authors need to know about ebook publishing
As the shift from a print-centric book world to a digital one accelerates, more and more digital publishers are creating themselves. The biggest publishers, with the resources of sophisticated IT departments to guide them, have been in the game for years now and paying serious attention since the Kindle was launched by Amazon late in […]
Can big publishers compete if the coin of the realm is “names”?
In a conversation earlier this week I learned that the big Hollywood talent agencies have come to the recognition that “audience aggregation”, a component of what I have been calling a “vertical” strategy, needs to be incorporated into their thinking going forward. This was signaled very strongly recently when longtime publisher Steve Ross took his […]