I remember a song lyric from the early 70s for which the opening line was: “we don’t need more sailors, we need a captain”. (I can’t find the reference in LyricFind and I don’t remember the name of the band.) That song could be about the new publishing that is arising from the phenomenon of […]
Is the new Amazon acquisition something publishers need to think about or not?
If you’re like me, you know a thing or two about the book business but you didn’t know there was a business called Twitch until you heard the announcement this morning that Amazon had bought it for about $1 billion, apparently outbidding or somehow finessing Google to make the purchase. Twitch, I have learned, streams […]
Planning the next publishing model: a new take on “no returns”
Although there are some very good minds working on the next publishing model — Jane Friedman with Open Road and Richard Nash with Cursor being the first two that leap to mind — I have developed a couple of thoughts that might be helpful to them or to others planning to avail themselves of the […]
Is the ebook and POD combo a viable publishing strategy yet?
There’s a new publishing model afoot, which is to lead with the ebook and just print what you need. That might be POD, and it might be press runs, if you can sell out whole press runs. If the ebook becomes a substantial chunk of sales and if ebooks maintain their prices, this looks like […]
BEA will be a shame to lose, but can it be saved?
Dinner Saturday night. 12 of us. Three spouses who had no particular interest in the BEA. Eight of us with one interest or another in the book business, but no possibility of personally being an exhibitor. And one publishing company CEO with a stand. Of course, I got my money’s worth. I got in free as […]