The “ebook tipping point” has recently been a frequent subject of discussion for me. I started out thinking about the business implications and that’s the main focus of the panel discussion on the subject at Digital Book World. As I mentioned briefly in my last post, I have lately been turning my thinking to a […]
Serious thoughts about the business (published by Barnes & Noble)
Daniel Menaker was not long ago the Executive Editor-in-Chief at Random House and writes knowledgeably about the state of play and state of mind inside Big Publishing today. His piece Redactor Agonistes is a psychological snapshot of a declining industry, a catalog of the frustrations that are increasingly common in an environment where, as hard […]
A Little Ado About Something
The transition from print to digital is going to be a continual lesson in branding for publishers and in merchandising for retailers. I got a dose of that trying to make use of modern technology to deal with an old common problem last week. I knew two or three weeks before that I was going […]
Ebook growth explosive; serious disruptions around the corner
The news about trade ebook sales growth continues apace. The IDPF has just said that sales in June 2009 were up 136% over June a year ago. Calendar year sales to date are up about 150% over 2008. Anecdotal information from big trade houses suggests that ebook sales are approaching 3% of total sales. But […]
The coming publishing portfolio reshuffle
As the reality of the shrinking marketing opportunities for general trade books and the continuing verticalization of audiences through the Internet takes hold, we can expect to see some unusual changes (by historical standards) in trade publishing over the next few years. It seems inevitable that retail shelf space for books is going to be […]