The Daily Square – Brand New Friend Edition
Daily links from booksquare: booksquare
Netflix For Books: Follow The Money Trail
Every now and then, the tides of thought turn to the age-old question: why isn’t there a Netflix for books? Invariably thoughts will turn to one of the many so-called “swapping” services and someone will say, “Look, I found one!” Swapping services help readers but also cut into author compensation. Oh no, dears, not even close. While we’re sure the people who run these services have the best intentions — and we recall that at least one service contacted us touting itself as a “Netflix for books” — the fact of the matter is that these businesses cut into author
On Avoiding Bandwagons
One irony: Harper Perennial says it invested $2,500 in Web advertising intended to drive viewers to the book’s Web site. But Mr. Roth-Ey estimates that only 1% of those who have seen the videos came from links for which the publisher paid. Steamy Book Gets Buzz From Web
The Daily Square – Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone Edition
Daily links from booksquare: booksquare
The Borders Problem
We know that times are tough. In an era where your basic blogger can barely find the time to shop for new shoes (much less purses!*), sympathy must be expended to others in the industry. Even empathy, though that is harder for us to muster. Especially when it comes to the Borders chain. Borders hasn’t spent the past decade or so focusing on the reader experience. There we said it. We feel no sadness for Borders, except as it relates to our personal book shopping issues. It is, as you will all recall, 2007. For those who haven’t been paying
Rebranding A Publishing House, With Questions
As part of our regular contemplation of the bookselling process, we recently turned our attention to branding. Branding, we believe, is a big problem for publishers. It is also, not surprisingly, a big problem for other major media, but we think it’s a problem for publishers especially. As all the beauty that is Web 2.0* is being embraced by publishers, they still haven’t quite figured out a sad truth about consumers: the publisher is the least important part of the name recognition mix. We especially like that the new publishing venture is focused beyond the traditional paper-and-cardboard book model. We