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As a reader, you can do more with the Amazon Kindle app, and Amazon offers a bigger selection, but these three are fine at displaying text on a page. The selection on Kindle Unlimited is shockingly bad. Amazon seems to have been completely unable to persuade authors or publishers to join the program. More on the difference between immersive reading and chunkable copy: You usually use what we now call chunks of travel books, gardening books, cookbooks, computer books, crafts books. Even in the bookstore environment, sales of these books are suffering because a more granular offering is available online.
The core of subscription economics is to pay less to the content supplier than they earn other ways to give you some headroom to create a value proposition for consumers. Americans consume hundreds of millions of them a year. But many of their authors are writing and publishing books, and finding massive audiences, without being actively tracked by the publishing industry. By cutting out publishers, writers sidestep print and distribution costs, increase their revenue, and are beholden to readers and algorithms, not critics, editors, marketers, or sales people.
Print book reading has been on the decline since about the time the Internet came on the scene. Publishers gave up easy profits when they chose to ignore the future of the ebook and hide in the print past. Research participants "described being more emotionally attached to physical books, and said they use physical books to establish a sense of self and belonging," among other things. Industry numbers are vague, but Kobo is widely considered number three. Kobo wisely chose, from a base in Canada, to focus sales on "countries outside the US where e-books had a chance to become a serious category: Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
That was the year Hachette and Amazon came to blows over ebook pricing, with the publishing giant refusing to cede price control to the online bookseller. The battle in was all about that. We had to do it. That pulp is not dead. The company sells so many hiking books that it employs two full-time mapmakers in house.
But the real heart of the business lies in its list of textbook titles and its recurring revenue. Lyons loves the digital business, even though it appears to be in decline. Those sales are highly profitable, with margins of 90 percent. He gets a category of his own. But see also The Hot Sheet "the essential publishing industry newsletter for authors" by Jane Friedman and Porter Anderson I have boldfaced many of the points of particular interest to authors , who are not his main concern--publishers are.
Now Ingram has 16 million individual titles loaded in their Lightning Source database ready to be delivered as a bound book to you within 24 hours, if not sooner Because they really can lose money publishing a book, which two decades ago was actually a rare occurrence in a major house unless they had wildly overpaid for the rights. They build topic- or genre-specific websites, apps, and — critically — email lists. The email lists of book purchasers are of increasing value, if the publisher can continue to feed it choices from which it will find things to buy.
Important overall, and brilliant at explaining what happened with agency pricing: When 'Amazon showed a willingness to sell ebooks for Kindle at prices below the costs publishers charged them, the big legacy publishers became alarmed. They could see no end to the switch to ebooks and it seemed logical to figure out a way to encourage competition across ebook ecosystems. This led to anti-trust action by the US government by which agency pricing was allowed, but only by newly negotiated agreements between each of the major publishers and their vendors, including Amazon.
And big publishers are left wondering whether they should be glad they got what they wished for. And the biggest publisher, Random House, because they made a tactical decision to eschew agency pricing when it started, was not sued when the other big publishers including Penguin, which Random House subsequently acquired were. Penguin Random House is now by far the biggest single trade publishing house, with a volume not far off what the other four deliver combined. Visualize it this way. The other one is brand new, or maybe an old failure, but, in any case, the author advance will cover this sale.
So, which is more 'profitable'? That was a much rarer event in bygone decades. Read the Comments for some insiders' views of publishing economics. Those are consumers who, if they wanted a book, they used to come to us, and now they go elsewhere. Kindle is taking market share from all the other ebook platforms except possibly Apple iBooks, at the moment.
Part of that is that Kindle has titles nobody else has, as some self-publishing entities just use the dominant platform and skip the rest. And almost no big publisher commercial content is included in Kindle Unlimited Indie authors and Kindle Unlimited have made the biggest inroads It would be irresponsible of big publishers not to protect the brick-and-mortar stores that are stocking their print books speculatively and keeping the 20th century book publishing business model and supply chain alive.
It moves half or more of the books, requires minimal staffing to cover, and has, by normal standards, very low returns. Amazon does everything they can to claw back margin from publishers and always has a looming threat with their own publishing program, which at any time could reconsider the idea it abandoned a few years ago of going after big trade books outside the genres.
Five major newspapers have book publishing programs and many libraries do too. Newspapers see their audience as their readers; libraries see them as their patrons.
If you have a well-edited book, a library will buy POD. What's going to happen in book publishing. DRM, Book Piracy, and Readers' Rights There's a struggle between publishers wanting to control privacy and maximize sales and readers wanting privacy and fair treatment. The title of this piece is an homage to my friend Jane in London who is one of the people that inspired me to take the tech path. I have selected a narrator, and I have been really impressed by them. In the case of books, the publisher. The one person I thought I c.
And it is likely that books on display and selling in brick-and-mortar stores in the US and elsewhere actually stimulate sales at Amazon as well. For a while, self-published authors achieving bestsellerdom "was enabled by three big changes to the historical book publishing and distribution ecosystem. One was the rise of ebooks, which simplified the challenge of putting book content into distributable form and getting it into the hands of consumers.
The second was the near-perfection of print on demand technology, which enabled even print books to be offered with neither a significant investment in inventory nor the need for a warehouse to store it. And the third was the increased concentration of sales at a single retailer, Amazon. Between print and digital editions, Amazon sells half or more of the units on many titles and, indeed, may be approaching half the retail sales overall for the US industry.
But the author's share per sale is still higher on self-published books. With five thousand individuals [in many small outlets] making the decision about which books to take, even a small minority of the buyers could put a book into or stores But two big things have conspired to change that reality. The larger one is the consolidation of the retail trade. This has the beneficial effect of making sure the books seen to have the biggest potential get full distribution. The agent who was confirming my sense of these things agreed that the big houses used to be able to count on a sale of or copies for just about any title they published.
Yes, the publisher can promote the book to somebody watching a related video or reading an email on a related subject. This is probably changing the way people read books and might even change how they want their books edited and shaped.
Publishers who pay attention will see those changes as they occur. With funding from the Mellon Foundation, the University of North Carolina Press has "created a service offering through their Longleaf distribution platform that takes the design, pre-press, production, and distribution burden off the hands of university press and academic publishers so they can focus on what makes them distinctive: So a revolution that began with Amazon enabling indie authors, starting about ten years ago, to reach a big percentage of the total book market through Kindle and CreateSpace, is being dramatically extended.
The ebook revolution dawned at about the same time. Publishers have inadequate data systems about whether their books can be marketed outside the U. Publishers are not well set up to sell backlist titles and they should be, especially on titles with advances not earned out-- so publisher has "margin advantage" "the house gets to keep the part of the sales dollar that would go to royalties". They need to design workflows that take advantage of authors who are alive and marketing their own work. Smaller houses "have less bureaucracy keeping the author tethered to the editor relationship" so there is more flexibility about marketing, but they also have fewer resources and a smaller backlist.
Andrew Carnegie financed development of libraries. In the s, publishers began authorizing "returns" of unsold books. Amazon, a disruptive innovator. Environment for marketing shaped by Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google. For Amazon, customer acquisition is key, a first step; investors enable underpricing. In the first couple of years of this century the buying habits of academics shifted away from store-shopping to buying from Amazon, which dominated both the book and the e-book business, having achieved that status by underpricing, even when it meant taking losses.
It was in for the long game. And "where somebody buys something is not necessarily where they made the buying decision. This has long been true but is not, even now, universally appreciated. In short, Google Plus author pages are nearly as important as Amazon author pages, a fact totally independent of the traffic either of them gets. Both publishing and book retailing will increasingly become complements to larger enterprises and decreasingly be stand-alone activities that business can dedicate themselves to for profit.
Five years ago I would also have figured that one of the big publishers by would be a version of United Artists, several major authors organized to share an organization and create their own brand. There have been no signs of that yet either. Indie publishing is still growing and it seems that established publishing is at a standstill.
Subscription is a simple answer for that. Skip past the Amazon criticism and starting about para. In the aggregate, they can be very significant. But for each individual title, they are trivial. So the real commercial benefits flow to the aggregators — Amazon and Lightning — and much less to the publishers or authors of the individual titles.
There is a very small but growing population of authors with lengthy backlists who have gotten their rights back, or secured their ebook rights alone, and are able to consider alternative paths to market. The printer and warehouse operator must expect a shrinking share of the book business. Thirty years ago, editors picked the books, but checked in with the sales departments about what they thought about them first. Only a subscription model of some kind could work. Further fascinating analysis of the advantages traditional publishers are losing in this new digital world, and the advantages of publishing with a niche publisher that knows how to reach its market as Hay House, does, for example, with mind-body-spirit titles.
What changed before the publishing business changed is that many of us have some sort of platform now, as in 'a way to reach an audience. That increasingly encourages publishers who depend primarily on narrative reading to stick to it and to not publish books of other kinds. Shatzkin, who is publisher-centric, writes: Declared royalty rates that are closer to what Amazon can offer are critical for publishers to turn around a PR war for new authors that they have been losing. Pay authors more so you can pay retailers less. There will be a direct connection between the two.
As discussed by Mike Shatzkin: New publishing companies are starting that are much leaner than their established competitors Shatzkin Files, With changing models in book publishing, publishers will "offload everything except the functions that are absolutely core to publishing: Shatzkin's points are particularly of interest to authors: And they expect authors to do most of the promotion. E-book rights, developments, conflicts, pricing, and struggles for market On Amazon's Kindle, Sony Reader, iPad, and more Read what's here if your publisher is asking you to agree to new e-rights retroactively!
Here are a few key places to learn what's going on in the eBook digital revolution: Check out the roundup of coverage of Digital Book World MobileRead excellent forums "for mobile geeks seeking information and advice for keeping their gadgets happy". Let me know what key sources I've overlooked. Sales of audio books are also rising.
Responding to Rowberry, he agrees with some of his conclusion, but not with his assumptions. And in the case of digital goods, it cannot prevent consumers from adopting the digital goods - they'll just turn to someone else to supply the content The surprising resilience of print has provided a lift to many booksellers Higher e-book prices may also be driving readers back to paper It is also possible that a growing number of people are still buying and reading e-books, just not from traditional publishers Damien Walter, The Guardian, The difference between ebooks and the internet is minimal, and we should be glad the two are growing closer and closer.
Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal, Trachtenberg explains who gets what under different scenarios, and more. Read the graphic sidebar. Here's another good explanation: What Is the Agency Model for Ebooks? Your Burning Questions Answered S. Boyle, Publishing Trendsetter, The differences between the wholesale model and the agency model--see the chart.
But that turned around. So, in the recent negotiations, the big publishers had no choice about sticking with agency. Amazon insisted that they stick with agency As it was put to me by one observer, agency in was a strategy; by it was a surrender. What he didn't know "is that most of the publishers have already figured that out but are helpless against a customer so powerful that it dictates the terms. When Open Road Media launched in , the idea of an all-digital publisher was still fairly new. This is the lesson an author notices: Video is Open Road's "special sauce" -- not book trailers, but video of the author.
The title is not the brand. The new distribution and marketing service of The Perseus Books Group will allow authors to self-publish their own e-books. Traditional publishers normally provide authors a royalty of about 25 percent for e-books. Some fear this would downgrade the value of the book business. Apple reveals new service for authors to sell their books directly in the iBookstore David W.
You no longer have to use a service like Smashwords to put your book in Apple's iBookstore. Librarians feel gobsmacked by HarperCollins' loans restriction on e-book use in libraries. E-books "are typically available to one user at a time, often for a seven- or day period. From an e-book sale, an author makes a little more than half what he or she makes from a hardcover sale Thus far, publishers are resisting. Rowling refused for years to release her books in electronic format, retaining the digital rights for herself.
All seven Harry Potter novels will be available as e-books in multiple languages and will be device agnostic. Blio software can work on "any device with an operating system. Survival in the future will require focusing on the market. Fiction writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch on inaccurate e-book royalty statements issued by the Big Six traditional publishers, and a follow-up column a week later: Royalty Statements Update Cader's analysis of the e-book price wars: Moreover, they're not giving credit to the publishers who are making backlist titles of bestselling authors available free as e-books, in hopes of bringing new readership to those authors.
The book business has always been one with very low financial barriers to entry. Ebook publishing makes getting into the game even cheaper. It is also going to bring increased competition to book publishers from content-creators outside publishing. None of this is appealing if your power as a publisher is the ability to control shelf space and get fast reprints.
Another analysis of "the see-saw relationship between ebook growth and bookstore survival. When one goes up, the other goes down. The two are connected. See Dan Lubart's post on eBook Market: Fascinating analyses of price effects in a fast-changing market. It would be foolish to follow Amazon's bargain-basement pricing model for premium books as opposed to the type you buy o impulse in the supermarket checkout line, to borrow Mike Shatzkin's father's explanation.
The iPad, the Kindle, and the future of the book business. Can the iPad topple the Kindle, and save the book business? In a follow-up story, also on ebook pricing , Shatzkin writes, about the race for market domination: With all other device manufacturers able to coalesce around a non-Amazon standard, we have a situation analogous to the VHS-Beta conflict of the s and the Mac-Windows duke-out of the late 80s and early 90s.
Kindle does not seem to have even that element in its favor. But does anybody doubt that a world full of hardware creators will soon make a device that is similar but demonstrably better than the Kindle? Digital Books and Your Rights: Elsewhere Konrath talks about the money he's making selling e-books of his old titles that NY book publishers didn't want.
Digital Reader Penetration Accelerates: For more info,check out CR's E-book reader buying advice The e-book revolution favours the agile but deep pockets help , Dan,The Casual Optimist books, publishing, ideas --like their quote: The House Always Wins -- be sure to read this and the next one , part of an advocacy series by the Authors Guild. This installment looks at the implications of that disparity using as examples "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett, "Hell's corner" by David Baldacci, and "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand and suggests "an interim solution to minimize the harm to authors: This is only an interim solution, however.
In the long run, authors will demand to be restored to full partnership, and someone will give them that status. Comparing print shipments to the sales channels with ebook consumer sales is comparing apples to oranges. And "fluctuations in trade ordering behavior Ebooks are making me recall the history of mass-market publishing Mike Shatzkin's fascinating history of how the mass-market paperback revolution affected book publishing compares that huge shift to what ebooks are doing now.
Do Electronic Versions Deter Piracy? His most interesting points aside from Amazon massaging statistics: The room to grow is exponential. Genres and niches that get limited shelf space in the brick and mortar book world are perfectly suited for the digital book world.
One is that what the publishers can do to Amazon today, the authors can do to the publishers tomorrow. If the publishers could sell the ebooks of big books successfully from their sites, then the big authors could also sell them directly without a publisher. The other is that this is a 'last gasp' of a 'static product' publishing economy. Amazon's amazing e-book reader is bad news for the publishing industry Farhad Manjoo, Slate, , admires the Kindle 2 but fears its implications: If the Kindle succeeds on its current terms, and all signs suggest it'll be a blockbuster thanks Oprah!
But everyone else with a stake in a vibrant book industry — authors, publishers, libraries, chain bookstores, indie bookstores, and, not least, readers — stands to lose out. Bend me, shape me, any way you want me The Economist, , reports that electronic screens as thin as paper are coming soon The once and future e-book: Customers are not really buying those eBooks, writes Mike Shatzkin; they're licensing them. When I buy a physical copy of a book, I can lend it to as many people as I want; I can't do that with an eBook, which is the clear sign that I've paid for a license to read, not a book.
Publishers don't make that clear, and should. But licensing of subsidiary rights e. Among drawbacks of the e-book, as Klinkenborg sees them: The publisher decided that eBooks can only be checked out 26 times by library patrons until they expire, setting off protests and a call for library boycotts. Mike Shatzkin comparing features of competing e-readers and wondering which will win out.
Read this if you're shopping! Look at those sales take off! The Shatzkin Files, Shift of pricing control meant shift of responsibility at the point of sale and that meant publishers were now responsible for sales taxes, not the retailer Control of pricing immediately challenges publishers to get sophisticated, modern, and scientific at how they approach pricing. Musings on Publishing and Life in the Digital Age, Allowing each individual part, or right, to be disaggregated and auctioned to the highest bidder serves only those who make profit from short-term gain.
The book reader just wants the experience of reading the book, and that person is a natural digital consumer: Instead of a disposable mass market book, they buy a digital book. The book owner wants to give, share and shelve books. They love the experience. As we add value to the physical product, particularly the trade paperback and hardcover, the consumer will pay a little more for the better experience There will always be a market for physical books, just as I think there will always be bookstores.
Message to all authors from the Authors Guild. Be sure to read this one, if you have, or expect to have, any kind of book contract. Main points, in brief but read the details: Get the absolute right to renegotiate. Negotiate for a royalty floor. Double-check your reversion of rights clause. Check your contract; you may control e-rights. If you can't obtain adequate safeguards, you may want to bide your time. Many readers will soon be able to support their local booksellers when they buy e-books, without paying a stiff price for their loyalty. It still had to subsidize sales of many Random House titles to stay in the game with Amazon, but it didn't have to lose money on the sales of other titles.
Random House and other major publishers have a lot of work to do on that score. Electronic books are still far too crude to replace ink and paper, writes Pogue. They're pricey, pages turn slowly, they're copy-protected so you can read them only on the technology for which you bought them each company using a different protection scheme , you can't pass a book along to a friend when you've finished it the way you could a printed book , and you're unlikely to be able to read it years hence, when technologies have changed.
The Very Rich Indie Writer. Eli James, on the Novelr blog about reading, writing and publishing Internet fiction , lists monthly sales figures for Amanda Hocking and other Internet novelists, to show that you don't have to be traditionally published and don't have to be an A-list famous to sell a lot of e-books. Carolyn Kellogg, Jacket Copy blog, L. Times, Why Some E-Books Cost More Than the Hardcover Nathan Bransford's excellent history and explanation of the differences between the agency model and the wholesale model in e-book discounting and pricing.
All major publishers but one raising e-book prices. Random House is the last publisher sticking to traditional model for e-book sales; other major publishers switching to "agency model. The stakes are high, particularly for Macmillan authors. In a squabble over e-books, Amazon quickly and pre-emptively escalated matters by removing the buy buttons from all Macmillan titles with some exceptions for scholarly and educational books , in all editions, including all physical book editions.
Thousands of authors and titles are affected; hardest and most unfairly hit are authors with new books published by Macmillan that are in their prime sales period. The Authors Guild again: When it doesn't get its way with publishers, Amazon tends to start removing "buy buttons" from the publisher's titles. It's a harsh tactic, by which Amazon uses its dominance of online bookselling to punish publishers who fail to fall in line with Amazon's business plans. Collateral damage in these scuffles, of course, are authors and readers.
Authors lose their access to millions of readers who shop at Amazon; readers find some of their favorite authors' works unavailable. The publisher caves, and yet more industry revenues are diverted to Amazon. This isn't good for those who care about books. Without a healthy ecosystem in publishing, one in which authors and publishers are fairly compensated for their work, the quality and variety of books available to readers will inevitably suffer.
Authors and the New World of Digital Publishing. Final conference was in , and many talks are still available--watch and listen to them while they're still available! An Author's View" video--she's funny: A book is a mode of transmission of stuff from one brain into another brain. Gray spoke of three essential components for producing e-book titles: An author who can tell a good story; programmers, who can make that story something great; and producers, who can produce compelling video.
Click here for blip. Titles you may find of particular interest: How Soon Is Now? The Missing Manual [Go Top]. How to take advantage of the boom in audio books. Amazon and eBooks vs. That reality encouraged, even required, large book retailing operations: Yes, they do, says K0nrath, and he lists the ways, including: Legacy publishers have full control over the title of the book.
Legacy publishers have full control over the cover art. A lifeline for the long short read Kate Carraway, Globe and Mail, Amazon briefly turns off Macmillan's buy buttons to pressure publishers not to go to agency pricing. Predictions of things to come. Five years from now every book that matters will sell more copies online than it does in a brick store. The Amazon decision may mark the commercial turning point of that massive shift.
That not only means raising and lowering prices dynamically to get the most possible revenue, it might also mean experimenting with free sample sizes to see what delivers the best rate of conversion to a sale. I looked at the book shelf and slowly panned across, reading the titles on the spines. It was a lovely, heartbreaking, but uplifting and physical example of who she had been and the books she and I had loved together.
And the love we had shared. Unfortunately for NY, now there are other options and these options are leaner, meaner, and faster. This means that consumers get good books cheaper and the writers get paid better and faster. This all adds up for a WIN for authors and consumers, but NY is finding itself less and less competitive.
That is a viable argument and I can definitely appreciate their reticence. Read his excellent blogs on magazine, book, and association publishing. A look back at how the U. Because of "the decline in library purchases and the closing of bookstores over the last few years, publishers have devoted more of their marketing budget towards building a direct relationship with their customers. The creation of online communities has been central to this.
Alex Knapp, Forbes This was a helpful analysis of what authors should know about their rights in the new electronic world read. Her most valuable comments are on book publishers trying to becoming licensing agents for e-rights while taking a print publishers' share of income and without doing what a licensing agent ought to do, and since authors will very quickly learn how much they can do without the publishers, they are playing a dangerous game. Publishing Surprises bit by bit, authors learn what happens and doesn't happen in book publishing.
Literary agent Janet Reid reports from Book Expo about the coming artistic revolution. She doesn't know what will turn things around--maybe an enhanced e-book--but it won't come from traditional book publishing, which is not set up to invent things. Writes Anthony, in Comments, "Essentially, what it boils down to is decentralization and just-in-time JIT content models based on nimble movers and shakers that can turn on a dime. Better than free, by Kevin Kelly of Wired Magazine. Blackwell's to launch 'clicks and bricks' book retailing -- POD books delivered as you drink your coffee Lindesay Irvine, Guardian.
Blads "book layout and design" are booklet-sized previews of books, printed samples from a book to help sell it in advance of publication--showing basic publication information, cover artwork, sample pages showing layout and images. Book distribution John Kremer's list of top independent book distributors.
When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied: Immediacy, personalization, interpretation, authenticity, accessibility, embodiment, patronage, findability. Dick Margulis has some useful material on his website about book design. Go here to read a sequence of clear, brief explanations of typography, the architecture of the page--especially the chapter opening, the color of the paper and ink, and font choice and spacing.
Book Expo America formerly known as the American Booksellers Association convention and expo , the largest annual book-publisher-to-bookseller exhibit and gathering in North America. Book Expo podcast archives , listen to enlightening talks. Book Industry Statistics Dan Poynter. Hoping to make it easier for bookstores to survive, Bookish will make it easier for consumers to discover book. The article doesn't mention Amazon. The Bookish staff will select books from 14 or more publishers. Bookish is trying to straddle the same fence that Google, and, to a lesser extent, Kobo are: The hunch here is that if any one of these three big publishers had gone aggressively into direct sales, they would have risked serious retaliation from both of their two biggest customers: John Kremer's excellent resources.
Snow's presentation for a panel on book publishing. Book publishing and bookselling history Bookstores, chains, and trends toward big and small stores. I'm sure others are covering this topic, but I find Mike Shatzkin's analysis and predictions about what's going on in book publishing and bookselling both compelling and scary: A look back at an age of old retail and indie bookstores, before computers, celebrity memoirs, and megachains came to dominate the literary world Peter Osnos, The Atlantic, Here's a later entry: BEA Video of Mike Shatzkin discussing "the erosion of shelf space in bookstores, publishing innovation, English as a disruptive force overseas, and the two priorities publishers should be focused on over the next months: Nash's start-up, Cursor , is "a portfolio of niche social publishing communities, one of which will be called Red Lemonade.
Stepping back into time, another perspective on how things have changed: It all started locally in The number of bookmobiles in the U. Book Trade Info UK. Bookwire info about the world of commercial publishing--spend a little time searching this site. Mui and Susan Kinzie, WashPost, , followed up by letters to the editor.
An interesting series about how writers might deal with the enormous changes rocking and reshaping the book publishing industry. It comes in four parts: Changes in Book Publishing. If you're just beginning to sort out how new media and outlets are changing book publishing, there's no better place to start than with Mike Shatzkin's speeches or the O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conferences many talks from which you can listen to online. Underdown, 3rd edition--as reviewers put it, a cheatsheet to the very specialized separate world of children's and adolescents' book publishing.
The coming publishing portfolio reshuffle Mike Shatzkin, IdeaLogical. The confessions of a semi-successful author Jane Austen Doe, Salon. Contract terms for book publishing contracts full section of links to everything from the Author's Guild's Improving Your Book Contract: Negotiation Tips for Nine Typical Clauses to 8 clauses an agent is likely to negotiate in a contract. Dad could really help Mike Shatzkin on the new kinds of analysis of profit, margin, and loss that publishers need to do, with a nod to Tom McCormack.
Dan Poynter's list of self-published books that went on to sell a lot of copies. The difficulty of getting publishers to reconfigure departments Mike Shatzkin. Time Suck or Investment? Headed for a Borderless Future? Devices, Formats, Pirates Oh, My! Digital Imaging Guidelines guidelines prepared by the UPDIG Coalition, to establish photographic standards and practices for photographers, designers, printers, and image distributors.
Fowler and Jeffrey A. Among other points made in this important article: Read an excerpt on the academic publishing business here. Digital Text Platform lets you upload and format your books for sale in Kindle Platform. The digital transition really IS harder for trade publishers than for other publishers The Shatzkin Files Wholesaler Defined brief explanation by Eric Kampmann.
These are dark and stormy times for the mass-market paperback Do enhanced ebooks create a comeback trail for packagers? Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired and author of The Long Tail , thinks you should consider giving your book away. Rosenfeld on why he thinks so. First quote on deck: The book business as we know it will not be living happily ever after. Updike refers to another important essay: Full text of his keynote address to the Tools of Change Conference. ForeWord reviews of good books independently published. Francis Ten on today's music business. Free Your Mind by Steven Poole.
Stephen Fry twitter address: The future of publishing E-publish or perish , The Economist, Happy 75th birthday to the paperback! Read Street blog, Baltimore Sun, Holt Uncensored archived columns of Pat Holt, an independent bookstore owner, and of her archived spoofs, Remainders of the Day. How Authors Really Make Money: Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape , Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich , on the economics and practical realities of being published in print, in e-books, and through self-publishing vs.
Listen to the realistic video. Publishers are good at distribution and making good book covers. Three books Ferriss recommends: Book Sales Up in Book Business, Is the ebook and POD combo a viable strategy yet? Mike Shatzkin on lessons from current reality. Is Print the New Vanity Press? Seth Godin, a best-selling author of Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers , is leaving his traditional publisher and plans to distribute his content in several media,including audio books, apps, podcasts, and print on demand.
In this young new market, "whether a book is published and distributed by a reputable print publisher or self-published in ebook form is not as important as whether or not the content is immediately available, is reasonably inexpensive, and meets a need," reports Bates. The good news on self-e-pubbed genre novels! Lament on the Fading Culture of the Printed Word: Life of a book and other pages of explanation for authors, from Blackwell Publishing, UK. More end-of reflections on Harcourt's bad behavior and the possible end of [good] publishing. Click on "presentations now online" top right and download presentations some of them mind-opening.
As Madi Solomon says in one, "Content is no longer a scarcity, attention is. Making Information Pay Book Industry Study Group's publishing industry conference for senior executives in operations, sales and marketing , slideshows from some past presentations available online. Marketing and Publishing Dennis Meredith's excellent series of short articles on new opportunities for writers to market and publish books and articles, available ONLY to members of the National Association of Science Writers.
Medieval Monastery Book Helpdesk funny video. Edward Nawotka, Publishing Perspectives Having a topic with a "large enough" audience enables "scaling up": Online start-ups Byliner and The Atavist have established a market for stories too long for magazines and too short for books between 5, word magazine articles and , words books. Much of their income is from apps, not content. Mike Shatzkin and Len Shatzkin's speeches on a changing industry. MobileRead forums for mobile geeks seeking information and advice for keeping their gadgets happy. Must we give away digital creative works?
NewPages guide to independent publishers and university presses. NewPages guide to literary Weblogs and daily news sites. Ego, insecurity, and irrational exuberance in the clubby world of New York publishing. O'Reilly Tools of Change videos. See Tools of Change, below.
PersonaNonData publishing industry news, trends, and strategies. Pictorial Webster's John Carrera, video showing a linotyper's labor of love in producing a reproduction of an old book--in other word, linotype printing in action. Hector Florin, Time A guide to publishers and writing services for writers with warnings about the bad guys. PublishersMarketplace what's going on in book publishing, with e-mail subscriptions available for Publishers Lunch and Publishers Lunch Deluxe. Publishing at the Tipping Point Danny O.
Jason Epstein, NY Rev of Books, , on "the inevitability of digitization as an unimaginably powerful, but infinitely fragile, enhancement of the worldwide literacy on which we all--readers and nonreaders--depend. Printing industry circa visually informative film from the Prelinger archives about the printing process and industry before the digital era. Publishers Marketplace blogs by various authors. Publishers Weekly PW, key industry news and reviews. Self-publishing has become a huge industry that has evolved into a virtual minefield.
There is a fork in the road to self-publishing that comes very early in the process.
The book is divided into eleven playlists on various aspects of the self-publishing process. Ron also runs a "self-publishing" company--"helping authors become publisers": Publishing Careers blog An online "informational interview" for college students, new graduates, and career changers interested in knowing what a job in publishing is like and how they can get one Publishing Is Weird Publishing , with Helpful Digressions , frank explanations for novices, from Jennie and friends, on This Crazy Industry, In answering a question "how can a self-published author get an agent to widen his market?
Where there is purple it's kind of hard to read: I recommend you copy the whole thing, paste it into a Word document, and read it there, if like me you can't read the heavy-purple areas. It's a good wrap-up on how things work, although the whole biz is changing and this may all change! The Publishing Contrarian Lynne W. Scanlon, the "Wicked Witch of Publishing". Publishing for Profit Marion Gropen's blog for the independent publishing community. Publishing Perspectives daily international news and opinion in publishing. A roadmap for the future: Shatzkin thinks ahead for the rest of us.
In brief, he suggests that publishers have to change the way they do business, because digital delivery increases supply even more than it increases demand, so prices have to go down. Readers don't care where the book comes from. Brands are shortcuts for consumers; they orient us as to what to expect in products or services, including social cred, quality, and price.
Publishing Questions explains the process of getting published. Publishing Trends monthly newsletter, news and opinions on the changing world of book publishing. Puttin' Off the Ritz: Sarah Johnson's site showing how certain art gets used and reused for covers on historical novels and Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of Love , hardcover edition. Reusable cover art in historical novels Sarah Johnson's gallery--check out all the examples. Rights databases and transaction costs are an issue in the slimmed-down world publishing must become, says Mike Shatzkin in Ever heard of Tata Consulting?
Is the universal library now in reach? The case against Google. How digital technology has disrupted old business models. What happens when books connect? Will we still be able to read at the beach? Let us know about it. Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image. Is this product missing categories? Checkout Your Cart Price. From starting with an Indie Press, through self-publishing, to finding a NY Agent and playing with the big boys. Christine tells it like it is. She has traveled coast to coast promoting her work, becoming a social networking maverick and an Amazon bestselling author. Her marketing efforts sold over five times more books in the crucial first year than the average books sells in its lifetime.
Reading it is like sitting down and having coffee with a good friend who's in the know about the publishing industry.