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 […]
Subscriptions are in the news this week
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 […]
Inevitable consequences follow from the new hierarchy of power among publishers
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 […]
Selling direct will become an essential capability for publishers to have
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 […]
Random House maintaining a big field force while the industry wisdom is to cut
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 […]