This, as HarperCollins announces that it has become the official publisher of the archives of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Judith Curr speaks of ‘how inclusive Dr. King’s work is.’ Read More
Sales of Social Justice and Race Books Soar in the States
Nielsen's #KidsBookSummit: Nobody Said YA Books Aren’t For Teens
When The Medium’s Message Gets Rough It was an odd turnabout in the annual Nielsen Children’s Conference. Led by Kristen McLean—among the most respected people in the business of quantifying and evaluating the young person’s reading scene—the conference was a crackling success. Smartly produced at New York’s pristine Convene Center in Lower Manhattan on a… Read More
This Week’s Nielsen’s Children’s Book Summit: Research Over Guesswork
When Your Reader Is Not Your Customer Most kids aren’t choosing and buying their own books. Parents are the ones at the cash register, right? Of course right. But think about the marketing challenge: are you trying to reach the kid? Or the parent? Don’t be too quick to think you know the answer. As publishing… Read More
At BEA's IDPF Digital Book Conference: Youth Reading – Or Not
“How many of you think of your customers sitting in a chair reading a book?” Bookigee founder and CEO Kristen McLean got a goodly show of hands with that question as she opened her session on youth reading in the States at BookExpo America (BEA) on Wednesday (27th May). McLean focused on trends in young readers’ and teens’… Read More
What if the 90 percent does write a book?
‘Your followers are so cynical’ In digital publishing, we’ve been talking about that “tsunami of content” (thank you, Jon Fine) for a long time. This week here at BookExpo America (BEA), however, we had a good remi nder that the world at large may not yet understand the stupendously deepening inventory that has come right along with… Read More
Can better data management make good work stand out?
Into the data dome It was the kind of conference session that sends attendees out into the hallway wide-eyed and wary. And it was hard not to feel for them, too. After all, at Writer’s Digest’s Annual Conference in New York City, when more than 650 people attend, you still can get raised hands just by asking, “Who doesn’t… Read More
Writer's Digest's Conference In New York: Sway With Me
Every Year, New Moves Staging national-class writers’ conferences has never been easy. Competing interests go with the territory. In the past, organizers could lose a lot of sleep over the question of “craft vs. career” — how many sessions did hundreds of authors need on the art and skills of writing, and how many on the… Read More
Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com
It’s springtime for Amazon, and there’s more than one evolving new slant on the massive retailer in play at the moment. Between the monkey chatter and the growls of slow-moving traditionalists, hear it? A skip in the usual drumbeats. A new syncopation in the publishing jungle. Read More
Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com
Can real sense ever be made of the digital disruption of publishing — mothership retailers hovering in cyberspace over flocks of woolgathering independents in pastures below — if the core industry’s relationship with writers isn’t addressed? During discussions of the new incident between Amazon and the Independent Publishers Group (more on that below), I’ve been reminded by our colleague, Andrew Rhomberg in London, of the phrase “creative destruction” from economic theory. Read More