Four of the big five have new deals with Amazon and only the biggest is still...
A reporter called earlier this week focused on what he figures are the upcoming negotiations over trading terms between Amazon and Penguin Random House. I had observed when Amazon was throwing sharp...
View ArticleMy personal list of what should be top-of-mind for publishers around digital...
What are the most important digital change issues publishers face? To prepare for DBW 2016, we need to decide what publishers need to be thinking about and learning about next March, when the seventh...
View ArticleThings to discuss
The planning process for the main Digital Book World program — about 40 discrete programming elements using about 150 speakers over two days — has always benefited from a “Conference Council”...
View ArticleThe publishing world is changing, but there is one big dog that has not yet...
Recent data seem to show that, for the publishers, the growth in the retail ebook market has slowed down or stopped (at least for the moment), while Amazon’s ebook sales apparently continue to grow....
View ArticleBarnes and Noble results and the latest news from Perseus
The most recent Barnes & Noble financial results — which appear to have discouraged Wall Street investors — aren’t good news for the book business. They show that the sale of books through their...
View ArticleWhat Oyster going down demonstrates is not mostly about the viability of...
The news that the general ebook subscription offering Oyster is throwing in the towel was not really a surprise. The business model they were forced to adopt for the biggest publishers — paying full...
View ArticleIf Amazon pricing of ebooks is the problem, is agency actually the right...
In the past week, I’ve had conversations with leading executives at two of Amazon’s competitors in the ebook space. They had strikingly different takes on whether the agency pricing regime, which is...
View ArticleWhen it comes to supporting authors in marketing efforts, no publisher has it...
It is my firm conviction that the biggest shortcoming of traditional publishers these days is their failure to help authors help themselves with digital marketing. In my opening remarks at Digital Book...
View ArticleFour players in the book business with the power to rewrite some of the rules
The news came last week that ReaderLink has purchased Anderson News. Those two companies have been the leading suppliers of books to the mass merchandisers: primarily Wal-mart, Target, and Sam’s Club....
View ArticleThe departing CEO reminds us that Barnes and Noble is of interest and a...
When Barnes & Noble interrupted Holiday week day-dreaming to announce that recently elevated CEO Demos Parneros had been abruptly dismissed for a contract violation that also eliminated his...
View ArticleThe end of the general trade publishing concept
My brilliant friend Joe Esposito has written a piece to explain why Penguin Random House would want to acquire Simon & Schuster. I have also been thinking about why PRH, or any of the other three...
View ArticleWhat the ruling against the PRH-S&S merger means for the publishing business
Judge Florence Y. Pan ruled today that the acquisition of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House could not go forward. The ruling was explicitly to protect the “competition” for the “anticipated...
View ArticleRunning a big publishing house is not as much fun as it used to be
The idea that general trade publishing and general trade publishing houses were going to have to change or die was first floated here in a post in 2007 and then expanded upon in a post called “The End...
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