My book business career (on the fringes since 1958 and pretty fully immersed since 1973) has been spent considering the path from "intellectual property creator" to "book purchaser". This is a world occupied by authors and packagers and agents; by … [Continue reading]
Doubts about the Department of Justice’s objection to the PRH acquisition of S&S
There are, at this moment, still five US commercial book publishers of mega-size. Penguin Random House is the biggest; HarperCollins is 2nd; and Hachette, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster round out the Big Five. PRH is, approximately, as big as … [Continue reading]
Every publishing strategy should start with Amazon and Ingram
Having been out of the day-to-day of book publishing for a few years now, and -- like most people -- cut off from most routine commercial conversations in the nearly two years of the pandemic, I took a look at some recent opportunities I encountered … [Continue reading]
Why books are different and why enterprises will be discovering they should be issuing them
My most recent post noted the rise of what I called "enterprise self-publishing". It increasingly looks to me like enterprise-driven book publishing will become the dominant provider of books over the next decade. What distinguishes it is book … [Continue reading]
“Enterprise self-publishing” is coming: the third great disruption of book publishing since the 1990s
The book business is in the early stages of its third great disruption in the past quarter century. The first two both changed the shape of the industry and created winners and losers across the entire value chain: touching every step from how … [Continue reading]