The New York Times carried a story on the front page of its Friday Business section about a book. This book is a novel entitled (appropriately for this piece) “The Big Disruption” by Jessica Powell. Of course, it is about Silicon Valley, which explains its positioning and why Times columist Farhad Manjoo was interested enough […]
Words-to-be-read are losing ground to words-to-be-heard, a new stage of digital content evolution
“Words-to-be-read” must now become a content category, along with still images, video, and audio. Audio includes “words-to-be-heard”. We are in what must be the early stages of a reordering of primacy among these varieties of “content for delivery and consumption”, which is distinguished from “content for interaction”, or the world of “gamified content” along with […]
The written word is losing its power and will continue to
If there were a futures market in literacy, it would be dropping. It is a sad fact that the value of written words, in relation to spoken words and still and moving pictures, is sinking like a stone. Changes like this happen for structural reasons. Since the invention of moveable type and the printing press, […]
Stability in the book marketplace does not mean commercial publishers continue to maintain their share
Publishing reporters doing wrap up stories occasionally call me for impressions. From those conversations I have gleaned that the prevailing impression of where the book business is now is of “stability”. The consensus about adult trade is that ebook sales have stalled or perhaps even receded, that print is strong, and that the big publishers […]
Amazon and the future of physical retail
There are two parallel conversations about the future of retail that are quite active. One is within the book business and it centers around what the future will be — and will there be one? — for Barnes & Noble. The other one is about the future of retail competitors to Amazon in the broader […]
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