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Book publishing lives in an environment shaped by larger forces and always has

January 10, 2016 by Mike Shatzkin 15 Comments

(Note to my readers. This longer-than-usual post is really two. The first half is a recital of what I believe is very relevant history. The second half is about how things are now. Although I am personally fascinated by the historical context, if you get bored with the history, the bolded text below marks the […]

Filed Under: Digital Book World, General Trade Publishing, Global, Industry Events, Marketing, New Models, Publishing History, SEO, Supply-Chain, Technology Tagged With: "Four Horsemen", Aer.io, Amazon, Andrew Carnegie, AOL, Apple, B. Dalton, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Bing, Borders, Copyright Clearance Center, David Young, Facebook, Fred Argir, Google, Google Plus, Hachette UK, Hachette US, Jeff Bezos, John Ingram, Jon Taplin, Jonathan Kanter, Microsoft, Moz, Putnam, Rand Fishkin, Roy Kaufman, Scott Galloway, Simon & Schuster, Virginia Heffernan, Waldenbooks, Yahoo

Borders Crosses the Last Frontier

July 21, 2011 by Mike Shatzkin 6 Comments

The end of Borders took place within a larger context. I was in Italy for the IfBookThen conference last February when Borders’ impending bankruptcy was a rising expectation. Somebody in the audience asked me if I attributed Borders’ difficulties to ebooks. I said: “When the flu hits town, the old and sick die first.” Ebooks […]

Filed Under: General Trade Publishing, Publishing History, Supply-Chain Tagged With: Amazon, B. Dalton, Barnes & Noble, Bertelsmann, BN .com, Borders, Bowker, category management, Ed Nawotka, IfBookThen, K-Mart, Publishers Lunch, Publishing Perspectives, Waldenbooks

Oil in the bookstore ecosystem marshlands; danger ahead

May 31, 2010 by Mike Shatzkin 11 Comments

I am finding an eerie similarity between the disastrous Gulf oil spill and the parlous state of America’s bookstores. In both cases, the forces are in place for a disaster that will play out over the coming months and years. And while the tragedy of what is happening in the Gulf is far more consequential to […]

Filed Under: Autobiographical, eBooks, Publishing, Publishing History, Supply-Chain Tagged With: Andy Ross, B. Dalton, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Brentano's, Cody's, Collier Books, Dolphin Books, Doubleday, Ingram, Laredo, Len Shatzkin, Macmillan, Orange County, Waldenbooks, Walmart

Can the chains provide us with better small bookstores?

November 8, 2009 by Mike Shatzkin 11 Comments

There is considerable concern among the trade publishing establishment about the future of brick-and-mortar stores. As well there should be. Retail stores provide the most efficient promotion opportunities for books: putting them in front of people poised to buy. They give clear signals about sales appeal by positioning and piles of stock of varying sizes; […]

Filed Under: General Trade Publishing, New Models, Publishing, Publishing History, Supply-Chain Tagged With: B. Dalton, Barnes & Noble, Bookstop, Borders, Brentano's, Crowell-Collier, Ingram, Leonard Shatzkin, Macmillan, Waldenbooks

Third old publishing story: tracking POS, and the explosion of backlist sales in the 1970s

March 30, 2009 by Mike Shatzkin 1 Comment

In an earlier post, I told the story of Ingram’s introduction of the microfiche reader in the 1970s and what it did for backlist sales. There was another new technology introduced at the same time by the B. Dalton bookstore chain, based in Minneapolis and owned by the Dayton-Hudson Company. At this time, B. Dalton and […]

Filed Under: General Trade Publishing, New Models, Supply-Chain Tagged With: B. Dalton, Ingram, Waldenbooks

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Mike Shatzkin

Mike Shatzkin is the Founder & CEO of The Idea Logical Company and a widely-acknowledged thought leader about digital change in the book publishing industry. Read more.

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