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What makes books different…

September 9, 2014 by Mike Shatzkin 38 Comments

Before the digital age, retailers that tried to sell across media were pretty rare. Barnes & Noble added music CDs to their product mix when the era of records and cassettes had long passed. Record stores rarely sold books and, if they did, tended to sell books related to an interest in music. For those […]

Filed Under: eBooks, General Trade Publishing, Marketing, New Models, Supply-Chain Tagged With: Amazon, Apple, AuthorEarnings, Barnes & Noble, Google, Home Depot, Hugh Howey, iBookstore, iPad, Leonard Shatzkin, Matchbook, Nook, YouTube

Sony exits and the ebook business loses an original player

February 9, 2014 by Mike Shatzkin 13 Comments

Sony has thrown in the towel on the ebook business and turned its customers over to Kobo. This has unleashed speculation that Nook will soon do the same. If B&N were really forced to choose between the investments they need to make in their stores and the investments required to compete in digital delivery, it […]

Filed Under: eBooks, Scale, Supply-Chain Tagged With: 24Symbols, AllRomanceebooks, Amazon Source, Android, aNobii, Apple, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Blio, Bookish, BooksonBoard, Borders, Copia, Diesel, Google, iOS, Kindle, Kobo, Len Riggio, Matchbook, Mobcast, Nook, Oyster, Sainsbury's, Sony, Sony Reader, Tesco, Txtr, Wal-mart, Waterstone's, Zola Books

Nine places to look in 2014 to predict the future of publishing

January 1, 2014 by Mike Shatzkin 59 Comments

The digital transition of the trade book publishing business, which I would date from the opening of Amazon.com in 1995, enters its 20th year in 2014. Here are some of the ponderables as we close out the first two decades of a process of very rapid change that is far from over. 1. What’s going […]

Filed Under: Authors, eBooks, General Trade Publishing, Marketing, New Models, rights, Scale, Self-Publishing, Supply-Chain Tagged With: 24Symbols, Amazon, Amazon Prime, Apple, Big One, Big Six, Curtis Brown, Derek Jeter, Diversion, E-Reads, Entitle, eReatah, Following Four, Hugh Howey, iPad, John Locke, Kindle, Kindle Fire, Kindle Owners Lending Library, Matchbook, O'Reilly, Oyster, Pearson, Penguin Random House, PRH, Rosetta, Safari, Scribd, Simon & Schuster, Writer's House

Amazon might lose interest in total hegemony over the book business before they achieve it

November 5, 2013 by Mike Shatzkin 25 Comments

The industry got the news that Amazon was probably reassessing its own publishing program a couple of weeks ago when it was announced that Laurence Kirshbaum was stepping down as the head of Amazon Publishing and being replaced by a 14-year veteran of the Seattle company, Daphne Durham. Whatever are Durham’s strengths and connections, they […]

Filed Under: Authors, eBooks, General Trade Publishing, Licensing and Rights, New Models, Scale, Self-Publishing, Supply-Chain Tagged With: "The Everything Store", "Wool", Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Brad Stone, Countdown Clock, Daphne Durham, GoodReads, Google, Hugh Howey, Jeff Bezos, Laurence Kirshbaum, Macmillan, Matchbook, Penguin Random House, Penny Marshall, Timothy Ferriss

Three points worth adding to the excellent account of the Amazon story in The Everything Store

November 4, 2013 by Mike Shatzkin 3 Comments

The publication of Brad Stone’s book about Amazon, “The Everything Store”, is the catalyst for a lot of new discussion about the topic most difficult for the book business to discuss. It is pretty much impossible to be in the book business without benefiting from Amazon’s market reach. But it is also pretty standard fare […]

Filed Under: Authors, eBooks, General Trade Publishing, New Models, Publishing History, Self-Publishing, Supply-Chain Tagged With: "The Everything Store", Amazon, Amazon Prime, Barnes & Noble, Brad Stone, Digital Book World, dot lit, I2S2, Ingram, Ingram Internet Support Services, Jeremy Greenfield, John Ingram, Kindle, Kindle Owners Lending Library, Matchbook, Mobipocket, Palm Digital Microsoft, Peter Olson, Random House

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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.

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