The most recent post here laid out a future for trade publishing that will be less and less about traditional publishers and more and more about non-traditional publishers delivering books into the marketplace without the financing or “approval” of a profit-seeking publisher. That’s a radical change from the industry we’ve seen grow over the past […]
DBW lets us look at ebook bestsellers by price, and things are revealed
Digital Book World unveiled its new ebook bestseller lists this morning. They put this effort together — I program the annual January conference for them; this work has almost nothing to do with me (although I’m over-generously credited with having provided “guidance”) — over the past couple of months working with Dan Lubart. Lubart owns […]
Publishers Launch conference at BEA will cover a wide range of digital change issues
What are the important topics to discuss today concerning publishing and digital change? I think we’ve got most of them covered at Publishers Launch BEA, the one-day conference we’ll stage at the Javits Center next Monday, June 4. Our all-day event has sixteen distinct presentations and panels. There may be a topic of interest to […]
Publishers better start using their scale to price better, and soon!
It was just about two years ago that I appeared on a panel at a meeting of agents with, among others, Macmillan CEO John Sargent and Sargent made the point that maintaining ebook pricing and margins was one of the critical challenges facing publishers. Ebook sales were still hovering around one percent of the business. […]
From some perspectives, we are tipping right now and publishers’ metrics will show it
Sometimes, and it would seem quite often these days, the future comes faster than you expected it. Followers of this blog, and of my speeches before there was a blog (this one’s from 2001!), know I’ve long been expecting ebook reading to supplant print book reading for many people. I’ve been wrong about the timing. […]