As Michael Cader at Publishers Lunch tells us, Amazon Publishing is not an outfit that needs to turn tail and run after a couple of years’ slow starts. Read More
In Frankfurt: Enthrill Reimagines "The Original Discovery Engine" for Books
Enthrill Distribution’s biggest news at Frankfurt Book Fair was that its latest retail agreement is with Walmart Canada. Enthrill gift cards will be sold in Walmart locations across the country, allowing customers to walk in, buy a gift card for an ebook, and present it as a gift for the recipient to download to any e-reading device. Read More
Where Is Publishing's Jetpack?
Because moving into new potentials will mean leaving some things behind, it’s hard to contemplate, at times, the sort of speculation we need. Letting go is not easy. Read More
At Frankfurt Book Fair's CONTEC: Content, Technology…and Questions
The conference name CONTEC 2013 is created from “the marriage of content and technology,” according to the event’s programming director Kat Meyer. Read More
CONTEC: Self-Publishing's Implications and Impact
As Dr. Florian Geuppert of Books on Demand in Hamburg tells us from his own company’s seven-nation survey: “We have about 25,000 authors…these authors are in Germany, yes, but also in Austria, Switzerland, France, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. So we asked them what is their motivation? We also wanted to compare the different countries and see where self-publishing really is. Because the movement (toward self-publishing) is broad in Europe, but not at the level of what we see in the US. It will probably get there.” Read More
Do All Conference Roads Lead to Writers Now?
By Porter Anderson | @Porter_Anderson Ether for Authors: Do All Conference Roads Lead to Writers Now? [dropcap style=”flat” size=”5″]T[/dropcap]he centricity of the entrepreneurial writer in publishing circles still comes and goes as a focus these days. We’re in the early days, yes. But Jon Fine’s line about starting with the author as customer and working backward… Read More
What Happens When Everybody's a Critic?
Even on the consumer-review level of a site like Goodreads, the presumably smart aspect of a community inclusive both of the writers and their consumers, the readers, is new and evolving. Read More
Publishing is Now a “Data Game”
The session “Big Data / Little Data: The Practical Capture, Analysis, and Integration of Data for Publishers” takes place on Tuesday, October 8 from 10:40 to 11:30 a.m. at the Frankfurt Academy’s CONTEC 2013 Conference as part of the Frankfurt Book Fair. Read More
Can You Sell eBooks on the Half Shell?
I’ll be glad when more details come out about compensation for content owners. I’m also interested to see what a one-price buffet plan does, if anything, to our culture of reading. Until we know more, we just don’t know what’s inside the new ebook subscription service called Oyster. Read More
Is the Dust-Up Over Kobo's Devices Fair?
Kobo’s announcement last week—new devices, eyebrow-raising prices—showed nothing if not chutzpah. And predictably, that ambition was challenged before the equipment even rolled down the runway. Maybe rightly. Maybe not. Read More