This post began being written a couple of weeks ago when I recalled some specific misplaced expectations I had for the self-publishing revolution and started to ponder why things happened the way they did in recent years. It turns out a big part of the answer I was looking for provides clarity that extends far […]
If the industry is changing, publishing house structures, processes, and budgets need to change too
A thought kept recurring — one I’ve written about before — while I was learning new stuff at Digital Book World last week. The structure of publishing houses and of the publishing process as it has developed over the past century make some of the challenges and opportunities of publishing in the emerging digital era […]
News this week that demonstrates how timely Digital Book World programming can be…and a thought about Amazon bookstores
There are some days that the news I see just makes me feel so good about the programming we’re doing for this year’s Digital Book World. One of those days was earlier this week when the news pointed directly to three items on our program. As I wrote in the last post, we have an entire […]
Transformation of companies and the book industry itself are not just 21st century phenomena
Company transformation is a major theme at this year’s Digital Book World conference. By “transformation” we mean substantial changes in a company’s business model or core competencies or revenue streams. We found eight worthy companies to speak on this subject. Six of them — Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Ingram, Quarto, Rodale, Sourcebooks, and Wiley — are […]
Books as brands and the opportunities to sell book-branded merchandise
There’s a lot in this post that anticipates conversations we will have at Digital Book World 2016, coming up March 7-9 at the New York Hilton. “Transformation” will be an important theme at that event and nothing says “transformation” more than revenue sources you didn’t used to have. It was really 20 years ago that […]