What Adult Coloring Books Show Us (And It's Not About Books)

Of all the colors in the big box of crayons, which hue is missing? Adult coloring books roll on in major publishing markets, but the picture coming together isn’t about books. Read More

Jonathan Taplin’s Drive for a ‘Digital Renaissance’: DBW Keynote

Jonathan Taplin — film producer and Annenberg director—will warn Digital Book World that publishing may be ‘sleeping through a revolution.’ Read More

Is this the triumph of print?

‘Digital is now as big a part of this industry as print’ There is a belief (and relief) now among some booksellers that the ebook “threat” is over. I have heard similar talk from senior buyers at supermarkets, who tell me that they have seen e-reader buyers switching to print books. So writes my good colleague… Read More

AuthorEarnings: Brought To You By Us, Your Breathless Media

My Hype Is Better Than Your Hype Sometimes it seems that almost no one in the publishing industry can deliver a message without a sticky gloss of agenda-laden hype on it. The latest AuthorEarnings report, prepared by the author Hugh Howey and his technologist colleague known as “Data Guy,” is a good case in point. Rather than opening… Read More

Why That Ebook May Cost More Than The Hardcover

It’s Not Over ‘Til The Big Dog Barks Indie publishing is still growing and it seems that established publishing is at a standstill. Mike Shatzkin’s column of August 5 may be the one in which we someday remember hearing a new sermon, the beginning of the endgame. But Shatzkin is not delivering a benediction yet: This… Read More

#DBW15: #LaunchKids: Good trends, many examples, little understanding

‘Just look at what this little thing has turned into’ Mike Shatzkin had borrowed a spare outlet to power up and check messages on his phone during the lunch hour at #LaunchKids. His Publishers Launch series of events was producing the fourth such outing focussed on children’s publishing. He stood for a minute with me… Read More

#DBW15: #LaunchKids rolls out to the pad

A “take-up of digital books” that is “huge and growing” By day’s end Tuesday, the audience for Digital Book World’s daylong Launch Kids Conference will emerge into New York City’s notably chilly evening breezes — a -3C is as warm as it’s to get today here — fortified by the surveyed details of surely the most extensively studied… Read More

Digital Book World’s Choir: Keynotes From Amazon, Apple, And All

The First Major Publishing Pilgrimage Of 2015 Publishing conferences are ritual performances. They are to the varied segments of publishing what morality plays are to the various forms of Christianity. They are narratives that are organised to demonstrate, emphasise, and reinforce the orthodoxy. Those are the words of one of our most dependable iconoclasts, Baldur… Read More

Hugh Howey Calls A Ceasefire

‘No Need To Come Out On Top’ It’s time to back off a bit on the arguments for self-publishing. In a classic example of “burying your lead” — along with a hatchet –the author-activist Hugh Howey quietly has signaled a stand-down to his supporters this week And he’s doing it with the note of generosity… Read More

At Frankfurt Book Fair: Where's Amazon?

My first sea journey was on the Cunard liner, the HMS Queen Elizabeth.Not the QEII, but her predecessor — longer than the HMS Queen Mary by 11 feet, I loved telling my friends. And as my family drove along the dock in France to reach the ship, I noticed a vast, dark brown wall beside us…thought nothing of it…some big warehouse… Read More