The Business of Publishing

The Art Delivery System

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The Year of Living Dangerously? 2005 can lay no such claim in the halls of the publishing kings. In the book world this was more along the lines of The Year Jose Canseco became Our Greatest Living Writer. Jose, I tip my cap to you and hope that Google engineers will capture your oeuvre now that the steroids have worn off, mine, not yours, for imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and I want to be a great writer too. Juiced was a surprise bestseller. Was it art? It told the truth, a truth that needed telling especially for […]

The Business of Publishing

To Live Outside The Law

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“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” -T.S. Eliot Hmm, in one of those funny coincidences, the song playing on the stereo is Dean Wareham & Britta Phillips’ (okay, it’s Luna without the rest of the band) Ginger Snaps. It blatantly cribs from the theme song from the Mary Tyler Moore show (“You’re gonna make it after all” becomes “We’re gonna make it after all”). This is a blatant, clear case of honoring the source. You know the reference being made by the song. You’re singing it your head right now. It’s homage, not ripping off. The idea of stealing versus

Our Continuing Fascination With Copyright

Books Are Good to Eat

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Maybe it’s me or maybe it’s the transit strike, but a wave of news releases from the Big Apple this morning suggest that everyone may be auditioning for A Fine Madness. I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge during the last transit strike and discovered two things: objects along the East River are further away than they appear and two, the streets were filled with Manhattanites asking one another for directions all of which led back to the bridge. The police were on hand to assist Brooklyn residents who were doubled over with laughter. Somewhere in Brooklyn is the Atlantic Avenue

The Business of Publishing

Publishers to Readers: We’re Not That Into You

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Jane Friedman is a smart executive. She runs Harper-Collins, one of the trade houses large enough to represent the book industry as a whole. HC is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp conglomerate, with all the drama and trauma that implies. Ms. Friedman made the comment last summer that she envisions a time when authors are secondary to the brand name imprint, that future book buyers will want to buy a book because Harper Collins is the publisher. Harlequin is the role model. Everyone knows what a Harlequin title is. Even the casual observer understands that Harlequin has a traditional audience,

The Business of Publishing

Don Your 3D Glasses, Everyone, We’re Going Digital

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Only one thing happened to the publishing business in 2005. Google went public. Lots of pin action in the stock. All the broker dealers will have big bonuses in their Christmas stocking. Sure, two Googlebots left the farm and moved to Elko Nevada, a scandal that hasn’t garnered enough attention. But in terms of market capitalization Google’s equity value surpasses Disney, Time-Warner, and Microsoft. They have six billion in checking and savings. That’s toaster oven territory. What does it mean? If you’re like me, you’re obsolete. If you’re not like me, there’s hope of course. Bertelsman Group will go public

The Future of Publishing

In The Beginning

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Long before Google was a glimmer in its founders’ eyes, years before Yahoo! made the scene, heck, possibly a decade or two before publishers caught on, there was a a digital revolution in publishing: Project Gutenberg. Way back when computers took up spaces the size the barns, a group of people were hand-typing (for the youth of today, that is a process where you rekey a work, letter for letter) books and storing them electronically. And this before storage was cheap and plentiful. Then, the dream was fantastic: Nobody paid any attention to it at all for the first 17

Our Continuing Fascination With Copyright, The Future of Publishing

Booksquare Awards A Rare Gold Star

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Such is our luck that our most sincere attempts at sincerity are often met with skepticism — still we persevere. We are very excited at the moment and pleased as punch with the publishing industry. We have been tingling with excitement about the recent digital warehouse announcement from HarperCollins. It’s like the great publishing gods finally heard our plea! Here are the basics, in all their glory: Brian Murray, HC president, said the company is intent “on building a digital warehouse that mirrors the one in the physical world.” HC has some 3,500 digital copies of its books, but those

The Future of Publishing

What If They Said No?

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We realize (truly!) that there is a fundamental difference between the music industry and the publishing industry. The two industries also have much in common, and given that music moves faster than publishing, the technological growing pains faced by one industry provide lessons for the next. The challenge from satellite radio is the latest example of how technology and changing consumer behavior are undermining the longstanding business models for record companies, Hollywood studios and other creators of entertainment content. Legacy systems — acquisition of product, distribution of product, associated accounting, artist development — are being challenged by the most powerful

The Future of Publishing

Teenage Lit, Or Something Like It

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We took a wrong turn in the bookstore the other day. One moment, we were blissfully considering cookbooks (for someone else, not the BS household); the next, we were lost in a sea of reading teenagers. Have you ever tried to navigate an aisle filled with kids lost in books? Let us assure you that they get cranky when forced to shift to make space for pedestrian traffic. The fire marshall would not be pleased, no sirree! While we are not sure if Edward Rothstein approves of this trend or not, he is clearly not falling on the side of

Books/Mags/Blogs, The Future of Publishing

Considering Pseudonyms

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The always-helpful HelenKay Dimon tells us that JK Rowling is looking to the future — and that future has a name change. There will be life beyond Harry Potter. Being taken seriously as a post-Harry writer will be difficult for Rowling. Sure, we’ve heard that lightening strikes twice, but her future work will always be viewed through the lens of what is arguably the greatest literary success ever. Thus, “There are other things I’d like to write. But I’ll need to find a good pseudonym.” While we understand her logic, we feel obliged to tell Rowling the awful truth: the

The Business of Publishing
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