Fanning the flames When asking Pan Macmillan’s Naomi Bacon to join us at Frankfurt Book Fair’s Business Club for a discussion of “hardcore fandom” and books in our “Hug the Alien” series of events, I hadn’t counted on getting video in the bargain. But we got it, and it’s good stuff. Bacon, with the… Read More
50% Royalties On Ebooks, 5-Year Licenses: New Publisher Canelo
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
Is A Fan A ‘Quantified Reader’?
Michael Bhaskar: ‘Fans are critical to what it means to be a publisher today’ Historically, publishing meant amplification. “Making stuff available,” Canelo Publishing’s Michael Bhaskar told our Berlin audience. Putting something into print was enough to amplify it. But actually, now, on the Internet, when everything can be made available automatically, simply having stuff available is no longer… Read More
A Digital Picket Line: The Authors Guild Would Like Your Attention
‘Authors Are More Vulnerable To Exploitation Than Ever’ London-based publisher Michael Bhaskar has called digitally empowered readers “the power brokers who matter most” in publishing today. While that kind of commentary refers to the industry’s efforts to strike a more direct-to-consumer stance with a curatorial audience, there are other ways in which readers soon may begin… Read More
‘Putting Readers First’ At BEA: Gatekeepers, Curators, And ‘Too Many Books’
‘Readers Are The Power Brokers Who Matter Most’ Readers decide. Readers come first, as they are the primary filters. Imprints, choices, and selections should really mean something. Brand can’t be faked in this area. Publish fewer books; publish better books. The concept has begun gaining traction as it dawns on many of us that “discoverability”… Read More
Global dreams, local challenges: BEA amid transition
Amazon’s shadow, BookCon’s boost, IDPF’s confab, Chinese Trajectory, scalding-hot Scalzi: Must be BEA Just in time to chill the rising heat of late-May New York: news of troubled talks in the UK between the biggest bookseller and the biggest book publisher on Earth. As my colleague Philip Jones writes at The Bookseller, “Penguin Random House UK and Amazon… Read More
Is digital-first best for authors?
As our understanding of digital publishing evolves, how much holds true for authors? Publishing digitally first can help authors to learn about the publishing process, make writers more critical of their own work and help reinvent an author, but the format should only be used in the right context as there is “a difficulty in… Read More
Contributors and conferences: The sun never sets on The FutureBook
We see conferences — conferencing — in many ways now. In many places. Or in no places. Such is digital publishing. Such is digital everything. Everywhere and nowhere. At all times and at no times. World without schedule but hardly without agenda. And here we are, at The FutureBook, holding what is, in fact, a kind of… Read More
Putting a finger on imprints
‘Does anyone really care about imprints outside of the book trade?’ When Canelo publishing director Michael Bhaskar starts his essay for us here at The FutureBook with that question, he could well be referencing the range of perceptions and issues we found waiting in #FutureChat. Prompted by my colleague Philip Jones’ good column, The imprint of… Read More
Could imprints get publishers' readers in a row?
Join us each Friday for our live #FutureChat with The FutureBook digital community at 4 p.m. London (GMT), 5 p.m. Rome, 11 a.m. New York, 8 a.m. Los Angeles. You’ve heard it. I’ve heard it. Imprints are done. Right? Maybe not. Imprints are all around us — and in fact growing in number and importance.… Read More