Because of our Logical Marketing work and our interest in author websites (admittedly just a corner of the author-marketing world, even if we think it is a cornerstone), I did a couple of recent posts, the basic thrust of which was that publishers needed to rethink marketing and the author interaction around it. Now, British […]
No author website rules of the road in publishing contracts is a big fail for the industry
The topic of author websites and what the relationship between publishers and authors around them should be is a big “fail” for the publishing industry at the moment. Nobody seems to have thought this through. Publisher policies are all over the lot, even within houses, and that demonstrates that agents haven’t figured out what policies and […]
Better book marketing in the future depends a bit on unlearning the best practices of the past
[Note to subscribers. We have switched from Feedburner to Mail Chimp for email distribution to our list to improve our service. Please send us a note if you have any problems or think there’s anything we ought to know.] ************************************************************************* A few years ago, publishers invented the position of Chief Digital Officer and many of […]
No, the Big Five are not a cartel and it really ignores reality to label them as one
One of the best-attended breakout sessions of Digital Book World 2015 was the discussion called “Should Amazon Be Constrained, and Can they Be?” which shared the very last slot on the two day program. That conversation was moderated by veteran New Yorker journalist Ken Auletta, and included Annie Lowrey of New York Magazine, thriller author […]
The Digital Book World program this year covers the waterfront of the digital transition for book publishing
(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 […]