Booksquare

Today is the final day for early registration for the Tools of Change for Publishing conference, to be held in New York, February 22 – 24, 2010. Recently, there have been a lot of conferences dedicated to the magical world of digital publishing, but this is the only conference focused on looking forward.
It may be [...]

Over the New Year holiday, Jonathan Galassi, president of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, published an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times titled “There’s More to Publishing Than Meets the Screen”. I think he started with the intent of justifying the cost of ebooks — something publishing has handled abysmally — but he took a [...]

For your reading enjoyment, I have compiled a list of about a dozen things that will not save publishing. I have also created a brief list of things that will save publishing. As always, neither list is comprehensive, and I reserve the right to add items if I think of something while I’m in the [...]

Has there ever been an industry more unwilling to make its customers happy than publishing? Simon & Schuster and Hachette have (independently) decided they’re going to hold back the ebook releases of some titles. Not all of course. Most likely just the ones they paid far too much for anyway. They’re taking a stand by [...]

Dear Mr. Sobel,
While I do not know you, I am impressed by your resume and the portrait of you with what appears to be a brown tabby. I generally cut cat lovers more slack — and brown tabby owners…they get a free pass, as a rule — but I cannot do so in this instance. [...]

For the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about Digital Rights Management (“DRM”), and the diversity of comments have been fascinating. I still do not believe DRM prevents or slows piracy*. Add to this fact that public perception of DRM, honed by years of abuse by the music industry, is negative…or rather, though most people [...]

If there are two truths we hold to be self-evident, they are these: 1) DRM does nothing to stop piracy, and 2) DRM, as used by many publishers today, frustrates legitimate purchasers of books. This leads many to conclude that DRM does not work, and that DRM is evil.

How do we get past “it’s good” [...]

Like so many others, I am bemused by some of the coverage of the Tools of Change Frankfurt conference (bemused=not sure people interviewed were at same conference I attended)*. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but when your industry is undergoing what can generously be described as upheaval, it is imperative that you listen to [...]

Welcome back from whatever you did this summer. Me, I spent my time building a digital publishing company. It went mostly okay, though, in the end, there was no company to show for it. That has nothing to do with the work and talent of the people involved. Talk about amazing, smart, and creative.
Four terrifying [...]

If you are a regular reader of Shelf Awareness (and if you’re not, you should be!), you know about the steady drumbeat of bookstores closing. You also know about the rising chorus from booksellers who are changing, adapting, growing, and understanding their place in the larger community.
I am really lucky: I have two branches of [...]