At Frankfurt Book Fair, debate about how to position reading and publishing in the mobile space was a frequent topic of interest. Michael Cairns and Publishing Technology unveiled a new study based on the survey responses of some 3,000 consumers in the United States and United Kingdom. “An increasing number of people are now using their mobile… Read More
Crowdsorcery: #FutureChat recap
“Join the crowd” on Friday meant jumping in on our #FutureChat conversation with The FutureBook.net community about all things crowd-ish — crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, a crowded season of releases and new ideas. Even as I create this recap, an email has arrived offering “your very own piece of PeerIndex!” (Exclamation point theirs.) The London-based social analytics platform… Read More
Innovation’s Momentum: A Digital-Only Publisher In Oz
“I Got Acquired” Over the weekend, an Australian author, Steve P. Vincent, was a guest blogger at Writer Unboxed, one of the best-read daily blog sites around. In his piece, Advice To My Newbie Self , Vincent made some perfectly cogent points familiar to many writers. Among them: After submitting your manuscript, it will take longer than you’d… Read More
Independent Author Previews and a 'tide turning'
The Bookseller’s announcement that it will begin next month previewing self-published work from the Nook Press platform prompted our #FutureChat focus on efforts to “open up to indies,” as the Alliance of Independent Authors’ campaign (ALLi) has it. While most of the reception of the news has seemed positive, the new programme’s outlines are still coming… Read More
Can we float more indie boats?
With news of The Bookseller’s Independent Author Previews — an arrangement with the Barnes & Noble self-publishing platform Nook Press — self-publishing authors gain a store window on a long, virtual high street that’s swarming with competition. For those books and authors chosen to be featured, Independent Author Previews has the potential to be a game-changer. The new programme will see an average… Read More
Alta Editions' cookbook innovation recipe
Just when you thought we had innovation on every corner…”Cookbooks belong on line,” Chris McBride tells us. “Not just on your shelf.” By the time we wrapped up Friday’s live #FutureChat on publishing innovation, we’d hit the deadline (5 p.m. London time) for making entries in The FutureBook.net Innovation Awards (#FBIA2014). By Tuesday 9th September,… Read More
Torchin' For Books Data
Nobody came forward to say we have too much books data. The fact that we cannot see the size and shape of the publishing industry today, however, strikes some as more problematic than others. And shortly after The FutureBook.net community’s #FutureChat on the problem of missing data, I was reminded once more of how many folks… Read More
Amazon: ‘The World’s Most Complicated Iceberg’
Depth Charge I think the difficult piece with Amazon is that everyone underestimates what they’ve built. Craig Mod does not underestimate it: If Gutenberg’s printing press was the equivalent of Amazon, you would look at the printing press and you’d go, “Oh, I can probably replicate that, it’s just a couple of dowels and a press… Read More
A Dim View Of Missing Books Data
Got a light?… Just as The Bookseller’s Philip Jones was aptly saying that the publishing industry is “looking at its market by candlelight,” I was reminded that, in fact, book publishing isn’t the only industry suffering this problem: Amazon never releases sales figures for any of the hardware it builds, but that isn’t stopping others from making their best guesses… Read More
Infographic: eBooks advance in Dutch-language market's Q2
“There is no flattening out yet over here in ebook sales” …“Our country is quite unique in the diversity of its ebook landscape,” says Timo Boezeman, a sales account manager in the digital division of the Dutch distributor CB Logistics. Based in Culemborg in the central Netherlands, this 140-year-old company (formerly Centraal Boekhuis) — operating… Read More