The Business of Publishing

Tools of Change 2013: What Excites Me Right Now

February 2nd, 2013 · 8 Comments

In about two weeks, I, along with a couple thousand or so of my closest friends, will be attending the 2013 Tools of Change for Publishing conference in New York. As you may have guessed, recently I’ve felt I haven’t had much to add to the digital publishing conversation. In many ways — while I […]

File Under: The Future of Publishing

Tools of Change 2012: Today. Tomorrow.

February 7th, 2012 · 14 Comments

Time certainly does fly when you’re busy doing things, doesn’t it? One day, I was looking forward to the entirety of 2012. The next, I realize I’m leaving for New York and 2012’s Tools of Change conference in less than a week. Naturally, I reacted with typical aplomb…frantically gathering clothes to take to the dry […]

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That Customer Service Thing

October 11th, 2011 · 19 Comments

So what with this, that, and the other, Booksquare has been a bit quiet lately. The world of digital publishing has been amazingly active, and — oh! — filled with more rumors, speculation, and nonsense than even I can stomach*. Which means the important news gets buried as the digerati chase the next bright and […]

File Under: The Future of Publishing

A Tale of Two Authors

March 21st, 2011 · 37 Comments

Monday, March 21, 2011 was a big day for publishing. On one hand, we have author Barry Eisler announcing he turned down a two book, $500,000 deal. On the other hand, we learned that super-hot indie author Amanda Hocking is shopping a new series, with a price tag climbing above $1 million for worldwide English […]

File Under: Non-Traditional Publishing

I Went to TOC, and All You Got Was This Wrap-Up

February 23rd, 2011 · 14 Comments

Months of anticipation. Weeks of preparing. Days of thinking. Hours of wondering. And that’s before the annual Tools of Change for Publishing Conference begins. Once the action starts, the mental rush is indescribable. It takes me days just to organize my thoughts, an entire year to wonder at how what I heard is playing out […]

File Under: The Future of Publishing

Bookstores Now, More than Ever

February 9th, 2011 · 20 Comments

At next week’s Tools of Change for Publishing conference, I am moderating a panel on the future of bookstores (Tuesday, 2/15, 1:40 pm, be there!). I proposed this topic because, despite today’s challenges, booksellers are critical to the publishing food chain. The loss of booksellers — traditional and innovative — is a huge blow to […]

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Reading in the Digital Age, or, Reading How We’ve Always Read

November 30th, 2010 · 29 Comments

As much as the idea of enhanced ebooks brings the sexy to publishing, it doesn’t really do much for most of the books published. Enhanced, enriched, transmedia, multimedia…these are ideas best applied to those properties that lend themselves to multimedia experience (or, ahem, the associated price tag). While many focus on the bright and shiny […]

File Under: The Future of Publishing

Post-BiB10 Thoughts: Mostly About User Experience

October 26th, 2010 · 17 Comments

I, along with a hundred or so of my peers, spent last Thursday and Friday at a conference called Books in Browsers. As one who sat on the sidelines when the first iteration of this conference was held last year, I wasted no time in inviting myself to the event. I am still processing everything […]

File Under: The Future of Publishing

Rethinking the Publishing Company

September 14th, 2010 · 42 Comments

I think we all know what the publisher of today looks like. The hierarchy and positions have become comfortable, established. Sort of like really nice flannel pajamas. That’s not to say nothing ever evolves; I mean, who wears the same pair of pajamas forever? And, if you talk to publishing people, you know those flannel […]

File Under: The Future of Publishing

A Question of Value

August 31st, 2010 · 28 Comments

I’ve been thinking about the topic of the value of books a lot. Not for days. Not for months. Years. However, recently I’ve been angered by the implication that readers are cheap, that they won’t pay a proper price for books, that they don’t get it. Whatever it is. These assertions are not untrue. They […]

File Under: The Future of Publishing