It’s the Canelic Arrival of the new digital press created by three familiar players in the UK market, publishing director Michael Bhaskar, m.d. Iain Millar, and technology director Nick Barreto. The fledgling company’s first three titles release today, the work of authors John Gapper, Chris Lloyd, and Martin Davies. Writing about the new effort in January, my… Read More
Are Book Prices Too Low?
‘A long summer absorbed in our colouring-in books’ My colleague Philip Jones at The Bookseller today is making the case today in his leader piece that Harper Lee’s endlessly watched Go Set a Watchman “is the latest big title to demonstrate how the trade’s pricing strategy remains too set on using discount to drive sales —… Read More
The Amazon Birthday Party
On the occasion of its 20th birthday, The Bookseller would like to wish Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos many happy returns. Amazon is a remarkable business led by a remarkable visionary. My colleague at The Bookseller, Philip Jones is right — party hats: on. In his leader piece for today’s edition of the magazine on… Read More
Reaching for accord: Authors' Contracts and Controversies
Authors approaching accord Two venerable author advocate groups, the UK’s Society of Authors and the Authors Guild in the USA, have recently stepped into the limelight to announce that they are fighting for fairer contracts between publishers and authors. The impetus for these actions seems to come from reports that authors’ median incomes have dropped precipitously since 2009, while publishers have fared… Read More
Subscriptions, 'know your readers'
Last August in his two-part essay for us here at The FutureBook, “On streaming, subscription, and big data,” CyberLibris’ Eric Briys (pictured) wrote of “understanding reader frustration.” Briys joined us from France Friday for #FutureChat with a timely reminder that knowing readers is really the key to right decision-making in the bounding changes of marketplace strategies.… Read More
Bath Spa University's MIX 03: Mixing it up for digital writing
‘An unusual event’: a space to show work, a chance to discuss work Recently at Bath Spa University’s Newton Park Campus, delegates to the third annual MIX festival have heard from a host of speakers including: Lucy English on the Book of Hours Sophy Smith on “Pervasive Theatre: New Online Environments for Performance Narratives” (which might… Read More
Will author contract reform succeed this time?
‘Can you hear me now?’ A not-so-funny television commercial a while back gave us that line with maddening repetition as we watched a hapless mobile phone customer wander through his world in search of a decent connection. The line might work today for authors, agents, and others who are becoming increasingly frustrated by the “silence of… Read More
Is Online Life Real Life? #AskELJames – No, Ask Chuck Wendig
One Big Gray (Not Grey) Area Of Rage Online is IRL. It’s all real. This is all really happening… It’s not a show, no matter how much we want it to be. That’s the author Chuck Wendig, wrapping up what he seems to have thought would be his one post on the PR hair-tearer #AskELJames. But a funny… Read More
Can subscriptions take the heat?
‘A long day. Full of complete and utter nonsense.’ That’s the author Hugh Howey writing about Wednesday (1st July), when Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select payout structure officially changed from its original per-borrow plan to a per-page-read plan. Howey, no stranger to post-apoc poesy, was less than impressed with the run-for-your-life! reactions of many of his… Read More
'Growing pains': Scribd's romance 'purge'
Mark Coker: Smashwords’ Scribd sales may ‘drop at least 50 percent’ Coming in the context of Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select’s controversial new per-page paymentsin its Kindle Unlimited (KU) and Kindle Owners Lending Library (KOLL) services, the news from Scribd may not raise independent authors’ spirits. One key platform c.e.o., Smashwords’ Mark Coker, refers to it as a… Read More