The Business of Publishing

In Which We Are Not Excited About Book Digitization

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In between this and that this week (mostly that, hence so little this), we have been intrigued by the recent business venture announced by HarperCollins. As one of the few publishers who took a lead in digitizing its catalog, HC decided it could turn the free advice it has been offering fellow publishers into a business. This probably means that we should take back at least one snarky comment we’ve made about the lack of innovation in the publishing industry. We’ll have the assistant search the archives for just the right words for us to eat. We are not, however, […]

The Future of Publishing

Considering Accessibility

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Do you know that blind people use computers? This is not an idle question. Do you realize this? In addition to blind people, there are deaf people, people with cognitive problems, individuals with mobility problems, and, yes, people who are too vain to admit they need help reading tiny print. Normally, we would raise this issue in conjunction with a rant about making your website accessible. Yes, accessibility continues to be a very important issue to us — and, frankly, just about the smartest thing you can do if you want to be found on the Internet. Remember, the biggest

Non-Traditional Publishing

How The iPhone Can Save The Book Business

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Here’s how things work: yesterday, Paramount Pictures announced they’re going to make downloads of feature films available via iTunes. In other news, Apple changed its name and announced the long-anticipated iPhone. Lightbulb, on. Bad timing, Paramount. Great news, book industry. Omigosh, you’re saying, cellphone? Books? Hello? Apples, oranges, dropped calls, excessive fees, itty bitty screens. Okay, the following is mostly fantasy. But fantasy based on solid science. As we know it*. In addition to an exclusive deal with Cingular (‘nother story, ‘nother day), the iPhone does stuff like surf the web, play media files, and make phone calls (a key

Non-Traditional Publishing, Perennials

Did You Hear The Book About…?

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Say what you will about the New York Times, but covering the obvious is something the publication never fears. Okay, possibly a bit on the harsh side, but today’s story about audiobooks and technology shift had us giggling. A little. The gist of the story is that as more people get iPods, they turn to digital downloads of books rather than countless CDs. This has naturally been a boon for services like Audible (still the home of a really lousy user experience). It has also been a great deal for books — people are able to enjoy fine reading in

Non-Traditional Publishing

Looking At The Future: The Price Of Books

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We were sitting quietly, considering possibilities for the big stories of still-nascent 2007. What, we wondered, would people be talking about in the coming year? At first we thought to look back to 2006, but, well, this is a modern blog. It’s all about the future, baby! Where our crystal ball failed (we so want a refund), the headlines of the day came through. Pricing of books, we have decided, will absolutely be a hot topic in the near future. How could such an obvious answer escape the sharp mind of BS Last week, in our still-ongoing discussion about readers

The Business of Publishing

The Other Side of the Story

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In response to our recent rant about an author who decided that the best way to help independent bookstores was to pull his book from Amazon, we received several interesting comments — and one fascinating comment (not a bad return on investment). In this case, the author noted that the costs of doing business with Amazon were not necessarily worth the benefits. Our commenter, Janet Szabo, who writes about knitting (it’s like the gods are telling us to finish the !@#$ project we started last fall), and she did the math, realizing that selling through Amazon resulted in lower profit

Back To Basics

News Of The World: Regan Fired

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Wow, while we were taking an unexpected week off (the laptop headed off to the hospital for a hard drive-ectomy; while he was there, he got a keyboard lift, some work done to his memory, and what appears to be a motherboard tuck), the unexpected happened. Judith Regan, she being the one who promised to bring culture to our fine city of Los Angeles, got herself fired. As in they’re using the word “fired” — clearly, someone didn’t get the memo that the proper way to describe this event is “pursuing other projects” or “spending more time with her family”

The Business of Publishing

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 — Book Parties Made Easy

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About a month or so ago, we told a charming little story involving a bar, a girl, and a guest post. What you didn’t know (couldn’t know) was there was more to the story. It was through the girl (also known as Carolyn Turgeon) that we found the incredible artist and author, Molly Crabapple. That Molly also eats fire is just, in our rarely humble opinion, an added bonus. Naturally, one thing lead to another, and while we’re busily engaged with Molly on a Top Secret Project (a full-time, if not more, proposition), we thought nothing of inviting her to

Marketing For Introverts

Quick Thoughts On Book Search

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Gosh, it seems like a year since we sat in a room and listened as a representative of Microsoft outlined the company’s ambitious plans for its book search project. In reality, it’s been closer to nine months. Which would make it six months since the company wooed authors and publishers at BookExpo America. “Come to us, and let us scan your books,” they said. Before we get into the point of this post, we want to dwell for a moment on this concept of scanning books. Unless policy has changed very recently, scanning is indeed how Microsoft is getting published

The Future of Publishing

Google Book Search, Google Print, The Plot Comes Together

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If you didn’t realize that Google was moving toward a paid content model with its various book initiatives, you haven’t been paying attention. Though the news has apparently just crossed the Atlantic Ocean, this goal was made clear at this year’s BEA (and, well, should have been obvious to everyone from the beginning). While publishers and authors continue to take the litigation route, Google is moving forward with plans to sell digitized content. This is great news for those publishers who are seeing increased interest in their products. This is also great news for consumers who can’t get access to

The Future of Publishing
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