The Idea Logical Company

  • Blog
  • Speeches
  • Consulting
  • Clients
  • Media
  • About
  • Contact

The sale of B&N again calls the question of the future of America’s bookstores

June 17, 2019 by Mike Shatzkin Leave a Comment

The most important question in the world of trade publishing is “what will happen to the book trade”, meaning, primarily, the bookstores (but also the other retailers that sell books, the libraries and the wholesalers that supply them). That was the topic of a panel called “The Power of Retail” at BEA in New York […]

Filed Under: General Trade Publishing, Industry Events, New Models, Supply-Chain, Uncategorized Tagged With: ABAn, Amazon, American Booksellers Association, Barnes & Noble, Dennis Abboud, Elliott Management, James Daunt, Madeline McIntosh, Oren Teicher, Penguin Random House, ReaderLink, Tim Mantel, Waterstone's

Subscriptions are in the news this week

July 24, 2014 by Mike Shatzkin 16 Comments

Subscriptions for ebooks are certainly in the news this week. Amazon just announced their Kindle Unlimited offering, taking its place beside Oyster and Scribd as a “one price for all you can eat” Netflix- or Spotify-for-ebooks program. And the Book Industry Study Group has released a lengthy and fact-filled report from Ted Hill and Kate […]

Filed Under: Authors, eBooks, General Trade Publishing, Licensing and Rights, New Models, Self-Publishing, Subscriptions, Supply-Chain Tagged With: Amazon, Baen, Big Five, BISG, Book Industry Study Group, Hachette, HarperCollins, Hugh Howey, Kate Lara, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle Unlimited, KU, Macmillan, Madeline McIntosh, Oyster, Penguin Random House, Publishers Lunch, Scribd, Simon & Schuster, Ted Hill

Inevitable consequences follow from the new hierarchy of power among publishers

May 21, 2014 by Mike Shatzkin 10 Comments

The current very public battle over trading terms taking place between Hachette Book Group and Amazon has brought forth surprisingly few recollections by those reporting it (an exception here) of a similar fight last summer between Simon & Schuster and Barnes & Noble. This is publishing’s near-term future. The two most powerful channels that deliver books […]

Filed Under: Authors, General Trade Publishing, Scale, Supply-Chain Tagged With: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bonniers, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, James Patterson, Macmillan, Madeline McIntosh, Malcolm Gladwell, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster

Selling direct will become an essential capability for publishers to have

June 18, 2012 by Jess 35 Comments

One question on which I have had a long-standing difference of opinion with most of my friends in the biggest publishing houses — or at least with their publicly-stated views — is whether it is sensible for them to sell direct to end consumers. That conversation was joined last week among three very smart people […]

Filed Under: Direct response, eBooks, General Trade Publishing, New Models, Supply-Chain Tagged With: "The Lean Startup", Andrew Rhomberg, Dominique Raccah, Eric Ries, F+W Media, Fritz Foy, Jellybooks, Macmillan, Madeline McIntosh, Random House, Seth Godin, Sourcebooks, Vogue Knitting Magazine

Random House maintaining a big field force while the industry wisdom is to cut

April 12, 2012 by Mike Shatzkin 21 Comments

I was brought up to believe in the virtues of a large field sales force. One of Dad’s early successes in his career as Director of Research at Doubleday was when he analyzed sales rep effectiveness to advise the company about the optimum number of reps to keep when they combined sales forces that had […]

Filed Under: General Trade Publishing, New Models, Publishing History, Supply-Chain Tagged With: Big Six, Doubleday, Edelweiss, Jaci Updike, Joan Demayo, Leonard Shatzkin, Madeline McIntosh, Markus Dohle, Random House

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Search

Mike Shatzkin

Mike Shatzkin is the Founder & CEO of The Idea Logical Company and a widely-acknowledged thought leader about digital change in the book publishing industry. Read more.

Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeShatzkin.

Interview with Mike Shatzkin

Book Cover: The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know

The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know

Sign Up

Get The Shatzkin Files posts by email.

Recent Posts

  • Google knocked us out for a couple of days, but we’re back!
  • When a publisher might not do as good a job as a self-publishing author
  • What the ruling against the PRH-S&S merger means for the publishing business
  • “Automated ebook marketing by Open Road; can anybody else do it?”
  • How book publishing has changed in recent decades and the puzzling question of what comes next

Archives

Categories

  • Atomization
  • Authors
  • Autobiographical
  • Baseball
  • Chuckles
  • Climate Change
  • Community
  • Conferences
  • Digital Book World
  • Direct response
  • eBooks
  • Enhanced ebook university
  • General Trade Publishing
  • Global
  • Industry Events
  • libraries
  • Licensing and Rights
  • Marketing
  • New Models
  • Politics
  • Print-On-Demand
  • Publishers Launch Conferences
  • Publishing
  • Publishing History
  • rights
  • Scale
  • Self-Publishing
  • SEO
  • Speeches
  • Subscriptions
  • Supply-Chain
  • Technology
  • Unbundling
  • Uncategorized
  • Vertical

Recent Posts

  • Google knocked us out for a couple of days, but we’re back!
  • When a publisher might not do as good a job as a self-publishing author
  • What the ruling against the PRH-S&S merger means for the publishing business

Pages

  • Blog
  • Consulting
  • In the Media
  • Clients
  • About Us

Follow Mike

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Search

Copyright © 2023 · eleven40 Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in