The Business of Publishing

Harry Potter and the Pricing Problem

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As the planet enters the final lap of the Harry Potter frenzy, doom and gloom scenarios abound. No, not about the ending — apparently, there is an unspoken pledge among news agencies to keep that a secret (this is a limited time offer, naturally) — but about the money being made on the book. After all, if all goes according to plan, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be the biggest selling book ever. Staggered release windows are so last century. With one notable exception. J.K. Rowling will certainly rejoice. Her agent will both rejoice and panic, what with […]

The Business of Publishing

Living in a Writer’s Dream World

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On most Wednesday nights, Diana Allandale reads to a small audience of dedicated fans at Passionate Books. The shop is one of four that Diana owns and operates. When she’s not reading at one of her stores, Diana travels to faraway places where she always finds a receptive new audience. Diana’s life may sound like every author’s wildest fantasy. What strange world is this where writers own bookstores, travel far and wide, and never read to a room full of empty chairs? It’s called Second Life, and it’s proving to be a valuable marketing tool for the authors who venture

Marketing For Introverts

Borders Publishes A Book, Will It Change The World?

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So Borders has seen Barnes & Noble and raised the stakes: rather than ad nauseum reprints of classic, public domain cash cows, novels, Borders has gone ahead and published an original novel by a living, breathing author. Living, breathing authors are useful because they can do things like publicity. You don’t see Charles Dickens out flogging his work, do you? Publishers could invest the outlandish sums they spend on co-op advertising in other forms of marketing. It is only a matter of time before Amazon takes this step. In fact, if Amazon hasn’t been actively (or casually) discussing this very

The Future of Publishing

Connecting Books With Readers: A Failure

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Let me share a sad, sordid tale with you. Be forewarned: I do not look good in this tale and admit to what some might consider an ethical lapse. If you are not willing to have your illusions shattered, read no further. The sad thing is that the industry has the technology to get this book to me. Many months ago, I engaged to do a joint review of a favorite book with a like-minded friend. Technically, this type of review is known as a “lovefest”. We wanted to share our appreciation of the story with the world. At the

The Future of Publishing

Hansel and Gretel Were Right: Number 99 in Our Series on Search

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Day one of the O’Reilly Tools of Change conference has been both eye-opening and, well, comforting. The latter because, as we’re sure you can imagine, we do so like to be right, and we’re feeling very right at the moment. The former because we’re seeing a strong desire to make fundamental changes in how the publishing business works, without that little something extra that leads to actual jumping off of cliffs. Making yourself findable is just the first step… Not that we believe one should jump off a cliff. First off, very messy. Second, you don’t need to splatter yourself

Marketing For Introverts

Publishers Explore the Metaverse

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BS: While we are off to attend O’Reilly Media’s Tools of Change conference, we invited a guest writer to fill in. Ronin Kurosawa came highly recommended, though, in retrospect, we should have been more suspicious of his references. Still, we find his reporting to be thorough and excellent reading. One note, however: Ronin seems to be confused about the concept of a per diem. He seems to think it means “per word.” For months now, the media has been buzzing with enthusiastic reports about Second Life, a virtual reality world that looks something like a video game but acts more

The Future of Publishing

How To Behave In The Blogosphere, The Easy Way

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We know that publishers are huddled in meetings, devising strategies for going forth and embracing the blogosphere. There may be task forces or committees or, shudder, ad hoc committees. Now that they have religion, publishers and more than a few authors are trying to figure out how to make the most of the opportunities provided by online communities As publishers and authors join communities, they need to remember the rules of engagement. One important thing to note is that you and your product are already being discussed. You have lost control of the conversation. In many ways, you lost control

Marketing For Introverts

Stealing vs. Search – The Difference

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Now don’t get us wrong, we think that Richard Charkin is a bright, savvy man. We would have, at one point, even suggested that he understood the difference between search and anonymity. Sigh. Let us try this one more time. Search is not about Google — search is about making sure your customers find you. Publishers are sitting on loads of content, more content than they realize (we do not believe that all publishers have put forth the necessary effort to inventory and catalogue all that they own). Several houses are embarking on what we like to consider brilliant moves

The Future of Publishing

The Tupperware Party As The New Marketing Metaphor

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Every now and then, we are contacted by very kind individuals who are part of publishing “blogging outreach” programs. Based on our very careful, very detailed research, we have determined that these good folks are tasked with contacting bloggers of various persuasions and asking them if they would like free books. Your corporate website is not friendly nor usable enough to serve the community you’re trying to build. Truly, who doesn’t want free books? Let us suggest that this is a good first step, but not nearly enough. Yesterday, we began discussing the concept of niches. Today, we’re going to

Marketing For Introverts

Niche, Niche, Niche — All We Ever Do Is Niche

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As news trickles our way from the 2007 BookExpo America gathering (breaking: air conditioning not so very available), we are gathering the threads of a few themes. Meaning, yes, we’ll be analyzing and discussing them over the next few days. A biggie to emerge from the conference is the concept of niches. Putting advertising where the customers are: so simple, it’s almost genius. Since the beginning of time, publishing has always been about niches — publishers simply pretended they were catering to a large mass of people, much like television did prior to the advent of lots and lots of

Marketing For Introverts
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