“This will be my last post until Monday, April 13, 2015.” No, not me. (You wish.) No, that’s a colleague, the memoirist Kathy Pooler. She’s a good, cold-weather Catholic, mind you, so Lent means a lot more to her than it does to troppo Protestants like me. Following a retreat with some author-colleagues, Pooler has decided… Read More
An industry divided? In digital we trust — some of us
It’s not as if we haven’t seen opposing viewpoints — along with rising and falling fortunes — during publishing’s encounter with the digital dynamic. Some of the main divisions of variously rivalrous perspective include: eBooks vs. print, Online bookselling vs. bricks and mortar, Apps vs. ebooks, and immersive ebooks vs. enhanced, Traditional publishing vs. self-publishing for authors,… Read More
The Bookseller's Books of 2014: 66 by Women, 54 by Men
‘What are these lists good for?’ And how 2014 of The Bookseller staff to have asked itself this. It has been a very “wait a minute, what are we doing?” kind of year in publishing. And not always a lot of answers at the ready. Or maybe too many answers at the ready, no way… Read More
#FutureBook recap: The Bookseller 100
Even as we started #FutureChat, some of the keenest observations on The Bookseller’s new listing of the 100 most influential people in the UK book business were being drawn by my colleague Philip Jones in his commentary,Centuries apart. He wrote: Looking back at the first Bookseller Century (as it was then known, in 2009), is like… Read More
Elsevier offers DRM-free ebook-bundling through BitLit
Elsevier has become the latest publisher to partner with Vancouver start-up BitLit to offer discounted ebook editions of a part of its book catalog. “And one of the exciting things is that Elsevier is going DRM-free on the bundling,” BitLit co-founder Peter Hudson (pictured) tells The Bookseller. “Not even watermarking. So Elsevier becomes one of the big three… Read More
Diversion Books Launches EverAfter App
Is The Romance Market Really Bottomless? An innovative independent publisher in New York City, Diversion Books has announced a new venture: EverAfter is described in its inaugural press release as “the first bookstore experience exclusively dedicated to romance ebooks,” offering “in-app purchase.” The consumer copy on the app’s landing page puts across its information in this customer-facing language: Always… Read More
Mission Critical At Writer Unboxed’s UnConfab in Salem
Reviewing? What’s Your Motive? Next week, I’ll be leading a session on criticism — “When To Listen And What To Hear” — at Writer Unboxed’s “Un-Conference” event in Salem, Massachusetts…where they know a few things about being critical. That session and this column are not about the more extreme moments in consumer review that have… Read More
Are we still not 'prepared' for digital progress?
Three signal keynote addresses open The FutureBook Conference in two weeks, from : George Berkowski, author of How to Build a Billion Dollar App: Discover the Secrets of the Most Successful Entrepreneurs of Our Time Carla Buzasi, Global Chief Content Officer with WGSN Tom Weldon, CEO, Penguin Random House UK in conversation with Bookseller Editor… Read More
#PorterMeets Crystal Mahey-Morgan: 'Beyond good will'
At the FutureBook Conference on 14th November, Crystal Mahey-Morgan says she intends to to what The Bookseller editor Philip Jones asked for in his Turn up the volume post. Jones, in that reflection on a Frankfurt Book Fair that seemed too quiet to some of us, wrote about #FutureBook14, as we’re hashtagging it, this way:… Read More
The FutureBook Digital Census: What's Powering Digital Publishing?
Early indications from The FutureBook Digital Census: As our Bookseller colleague Joshua Farrington writes, the response to the survey has been strong: So far more than 1,000 respondents have completed the survey about the digital book industry, with close to 60% indicating that plain vanilla e-books are still leading the transition. is this a statement you… Read More