Speakers at the 2016 FutureBook Conference in London emphasized putting disruptive technology to work for book publishers and readers, not fearing it. Porter Anderson 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
#FutureChat recap: Agents of change
Illuminating the landscape Getting a piece of the action has not, historically, been the way literary agents portrayed their services. Maybe at the breakfast table. Or over a quiet Campari. Rarely for the record. And despite several years of rapid digital-driven experimentation and a growing number of “agent-assisted” approaches to publication, the idea that the… Read More
Perceived differences between 'us' and 'them'
“More trust in your staff not to be numpties.” Only if you lingered for a bit after #FutureChat — or looked back later to see the stream — might you have spotted that comment from Suw Charman-Anderson. And not much earlier, Victoria Noe had said, “It’s like a generation gap.” She was referring to the… Read More
Kickstarter issues its annual greeting card
‘Three years ago Rebecca’s project got a pledge from Scott. This year they got married.’ That’s from Kickstarter’s look-back in handkerchieves at 2014. My associate at The Bookseller Charlotte Eyre has ably written up the attractive annual report that Kickstarter creates to regale us with how well things have gone. Her story, Kickstarter publishing projects raised… Read More
Richard Nash on Blurb's 'Dream Team'
“To help connect writers…with all the institutional stuff” We need some kind of system to help connect aspiring writers — writers who for one reason for another operate outside the traditional publishing structure, by choice or necessity — with all the institutional stuff, with all these people who used to have day jobs… Read More
16-24-Year-Old Readers And Their Books: #PorterMeets Luke Mitchell
With all the pleasure any good teenager has in proving his elders wrong, the 16-to-24-year-old age group might seem at times to delight in confusing marketers. And at Thursday’s The Bookseller Children’s Conference, in London, some of Luke Mitchell’s comments to the audience will help sort out what may be behind that demographic’s role in… Read More
Blog Sommelier: Pairing ‘Agent Orange’ And Howey
Orange To Writers: ‘Amazon is no big rock-candy mountain of authorial freedom’ The interests of the self-publishing cheerleaders have been well served by their subsidy from Amazon over the past few years but, from where I’m sitting, it looks to me like they are cheering the creation of a world where Amazon will turn the… Read More
Multi-track issues: #FutureChat recap
After our good #FutureChat exchange about the recent protests of Amazon’s negotiating tactics, one of our FutureBook community members noticed that the #UK’s “Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store” ranking seemed to be top-heavy with a group of Amazon Publishing titles. In fact, these titles doing so well on the list were all books published by… Read More
Publishing's Future: When Editors Eat Robots
The Quantified Self Of Richard Nash He is a podium prowler. He moves around during a conference presentation. He sets up gazelle-graceful concepts and wounds them quickly, before you get too comfortable. Lots of articulate gestures. Give him two flashlights and he could land a Dreamliner onstage as he talked. And his talks? They tend to work like… Read More