The current very public battle over trading terms taking place between Hachette Book Group and Amazon has brought forth surprisingly few recollections by those reporting it (an exception here) of a similar fight last summer between Simon & Schuster and Barnes & Noble. This is publishing’s near-term future. The two most powerful channels that deliver books […]
It is not news to publishers that they have to engage directly with their readers
Since the merger that has created Penguin Random House, there has been precious little speculation (except by me, as far as I can tell) about what this new behemoth in trade book publishing could do to exploit their scale in new and innovative ways. Their scale advantage is huge. PRH has something in the neighborhood […]
Nine places to look in 2014 to predict the future of publishing
The digital transition of the trade book publishing business, which I would date from the opening of Amazon.com in 1995, enters its 20th year in 2014. Here are some of the ponderables as we close out the first two decades of a process of very rapid change that is far from over. 1. What’s going […]
No-inventory publishing changes everything for everybody and nobody will escape making adjustments
A somewhat overwrought article in Wired calling ebooks an “abomination” because they “price people out of reading” provokes thinking about how much the business models for the trade book business are changing. The article’s weakness stems from its focus on the pricing decisions publishers are making in selling print and ebooks to libraries when those […]
Publisher margins today may be enviable, but it will be a big challenge to keep them that way
The major publishers have apparently worked themselves into a very strong commercial position at the moment with the transition to ebooks. I say “apparently” because the data that gives the most recent rise to that understanding — a presentation by HarperCollins of the current economics — is somewhat incomplete. What Michael Cader reported in Publishers […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- …
- 15
- Next Page »