‘There Was No Interest At BEA In…Readers’ BookExpo America (BEA) makes its annual appearance next week (27-29 May). It’s one of the world’s big-three publishing trade shows of the year, preceded in April by London Book Fair and followed in October by the largest of all, Frankfurt Book Fair. And while the show officially ends on Friday the 29th, it… Read More
Libiro, PODG, And A Flash Of Green
“The Libiro Platform Is Serving A Niche Market” It’s like the fabled “flash of green” said to be spotted at times just as the setting sun slips below the sea’s horizon: you’re never quite sure you’ve glimpsed the “indie-only audience.” You read mildly feverish references to these quicksilver consumers in blog comments, of course. Allusions… Read More
Publishing's southerly migration at BEA
“The sound of silence” has never muted the industry! the industry! On Tuesday in this pink space, The Bookseller’s Philip Jones neatly positioned “the continuing negotiations between Amazon and Hachette” as “how much heat can be generated from so little information.” In fact, Publishers Weekly’s Calvin Reid and I found ourselves talking of a mounting tone of hysteria around the publisher’s and retailer’s… Read More
“A Footprint on the Convention Floor”: BEA’s Author Hub
So Grumpy Cat got more rock-star cheers from the BookCon crowd at BEA than John Green did. Nevertheless, the trade show’s first-ever Author Hub for entrepreneurial authors held its own. And one author managed to sign and give away 500 copies of her book on Saturday. While those of us working on the Hub saw… Read More
The Talk Of BEA: Amazon Blogs The Hachette Hoopla
As I write this at the sprawling glassed Jacob Javits Convention Center on Eleventh Avenue, the Big Five publisher Hachette’s round marquis floats above the BookExpo America (BEA) floor. That floor is strewn with wooden crates and crawling with forklifts. BEA opens to the throngs Thursday. About half a city block away from Hachette’s installation, the Amazon… Read More
BEA’s New Author Hub: “Don’t Sit Down!” Programming
From a new assessment of author services by the Alliance of Independent Authors to an AuthorEarnings talk by Hugh Howey, a book cover chat with C.J. Lyons’ artist, an explanation of the SELF-e library project and more, BEA’s Author Hub is humming. The Author Hub at BookExpo America (BEA) is the annual event’s first effort to follow its… Read More
BEA on Ice! (That Retailer-Publisher Chill)
For all the hot and humid “how dare they?” rants greeting Amazon’s standoff over sales terms with Hachette, our more sensitive spines may be feeling a chill. Cooler heads are trying to remind the anti-Amazonian forces that Barnes & Noble created a very similar crisis for authors last year without suffering nearly so much criticism.… Read More
New Howey Report: Self-Published eBook Authors May Out-Earn The Rest By 27%
A new quarterly report from AuthorEarnings.com is out. Its data estimates are interpreted to show that, quoting the text, “Self-published authors are clearly earning as much as traditionally published authors on the largest ebook sales platform in the world.” AuthorEarnings.com is the site housing these controversial reports generated by Sand and Wool author Hugh Howey wih the help of an unnamed author-associate (referred… Read More
Now Arriving at #BEA14: AUTHOR HUB
If some saw a failure in BEA last year to offer entrepreneurial authors a place at the publishing table like that LBF had provided, Rosato and his team saw the experience as an opportunity to rethink, revise, and renew. Read More
BEA Cupcakes: 'Women's Work' About Books?
Writing on the Ether provides selected news and perspectives on publishing. It is written by journalist and critic Porter Anderson for Jane Friedman and it appears at JaneFriedman.com each Thursday. Sponsorship opportunities are available and offer generous promotion. Ether for Authors—another gas—runs on Mondays at Ed Nawotka’s and Frankfurt Book Fair’s Publishing Perspectives. London on the Ether, a new UK-related edition of the column, has recently had its debut at TheBookseller.com Read More