(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 […]
Seven-and-a-half days of conference programming coming up during 4 days in January
Blog posts have been scarcer for the past couple of months because I’ve been so engaged with a major responsibility: putting together what amounts to 7-1/2 days of conference programming that will be presented on four days next month in New York City. As most readers of this blog probably know, we’re responsible for the […]
Publishers better start using their scale to price better, and soon!
It was just about two years ago that I appeared on a panel at a meeting of agents with, among others, Macmillan CEO John Sargent and Sargent made the point that maintaining ebook pricing and margins was one of the critical challenges facing publishers. Ebook sales were still hovering around one percent of the business. […]
More about direct response basics: testing, testing, testing
This is the second post based on our recent conversation with Neal Goff, a longtime publishing executive with extensive experience with direct response who is now consulting to publishers through his firm, Egremont Associates. Because we believe that trade publishers have to become B2C marketers like they have never been before, we think it is […]
Learning what every publisher needs to know these days about direct response
Until his knee gave out a couple of years ago, I used to run regularly with a Big Six C-level executive. In about 2007 I told him I thought all the big publishers needed, but lacked, a complete and thought-through email list compilation and marketing strategy and policy. I suggested we could help his company […]