A few weeks ago, I wrote that there are three big forces driving the future of publishing: scale, verticalization, and atomization. I was wrong. I had forgotten my own blogpost from last September when I identified another trend that belongs with the first three: “unbundling”. The book business, in the trade segment I follow most […]
Atomization: publishing as a function rather than an industry
The announcement of what amounts to the first book publishing program spawned by Google demonstrates a paradigm we’re seeing repeatedly. It suggests a sweeping change in publishing from how we’ve known it. The bottom line is that most people employed publishing books perhaps as soon as 10 years from now won’t be working for publishing […]
Seven-and-a-half days of conference programming coming up during 4 days in January
Blog posts have been scarcer for the past couple of months because I’ve been so engaged with a major responsibility: putting together what amounts to 7-1/2 days of conference programming that will be presented on four days next month in New York City. As most readers of this blog probably know, we’re responsible for the […]
Hats off to Amazon
When the story of how Amazon came to dominate the consumer book business is written ten years from now, there will need to be a chapter entitled “September 6, 2012”. Of course, that was the day that Judge Cote approved the settlement agreed to by HarperCollins, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster and began the process […]
What retailers know that publishers need to know
The Wall Street Journal ran a piece last week about what the ebook retailers know about how we are all reading. In fact, all the ebook retailers who manage ecosystems that include apps for using their platform on multi-function devices can see every move their consumers make. We all have the sense that they know […]