by Porter Anderson

All-you-can-guess about subscriptions

Publishing can be forgiven for its mixed response to the ebook-subscription issue. Not only does the all-you-can-read construct for selling books run contrary to traditions in bookselling — and reading — but even some of our sister media disciplines, much deeper into their experience with subscriptions, are still trying to parse the effects of similar models. Just… Read More

by Porter Anderson

Do you subscribe to subscriptions?

Many young, digitally oriented companies enjoy taking a specific kind of staff photo these days, I’m sure you’ve seen it. In such a photo, everyone is happily gregarious but individualised. Several staffers laugh together. Two or three peer at some paperwork as if it were intensely interesting. Another small knot of employees watches something on a screen.… Read More

by Porter Anderson

Opening a 'Cracked Eye': The short and the short of it

Follow @Porter_Anderson In short: Another online literary journal enters a crowded field A very crowded field. In fact, there are now so many books — and so many journals and magazines of fiction and other writings — that a new one based in London is banking on “short” as the ace up its sleeve. Short.… Read More

by Porter Anderson

At Frankfurt Book Fair: 'Surprise' support for subscriptions

As my Bookseller colleague Philip Jones is writing for us today in Turn up the volume, Frankfurt Book Fair 2014 provided, if nothing else, a look at digital now under sail in early, calm waters. He writes, “The one common factor is that we have have all become participants rather than watchers. The being dazzled bit looks to have gone.… Read More

by Porter Anderson

#FutureChat recap: A busy workout in the subscription debate

“There is much to unpack here.” That line from The Bookseller’s Philip Jones in his lead editorial Friday may have been the understatement of the week. Articles and essays, blog posts and comments continue to proliferate around the many issues in the digital book subscription debate, of course. One of the points made by Rachel Deahl at Publishers… Read More

by Porter Anderson

Subscriptions: What If All The Fitness Club Members Actually Come To The Gym?

If I had a dollar for every time I had seen a pitch for a subscription-based ebook platform, I would by now have launched my own. And right about now, you could be forgiven for feeling that The Bookseller’s Philip Jones is the only guy who hasn’t launched a digital book subscription. In his lead editorial for… Read More