Audience Development

This week Hachette Book Group (HBG) quietly updated its website in an effort to better align it with HBG’s direct-to-consumer marketing strategy. The upgraded site include a responsive design that improves mobile experience, original audio and video content, and sharable online book excerpts. Currently the site features an audio excerpt from the Jordanna Max Brodsky’s…

That whole “Netflix for books” thing doesn’t seem to be working out for anyone, particularly readers. A few years ago Scribd was one of the companies launching such a service. All you could read for just $8.99 per month. What a deal! Of course, last summer they decided that the service was all you could…

NEW YORK—February 8, 2016—Discover Sci-Fi (http://www.discoverscifi.com) today launched a new hybrid publishing venture that is a collaboration among ten of the world’s top-selling science fiction authors, who have appeared on the USA Today and Amazon Best Sellers List. The venture’s founders include Jay Allan, Evan Currie, Joshua Dalzelle, Michael Grumley, Autumn Kalquist, Matthew Mather, Samuel…

Two major players in the world of young adult publishing have teamed up to launch a book imprint: Seventeen Fiction from Harlequin Teen, which will debut September 27 with Something in Between, a novel by another familiar name in YA: Melissa de la Cruz. The new publishing venture involves a true hands-on collaboration between the…

Publishers who sell ebooks direct to consumers typically do so in EPUB format. That’s because most publishers are still wedded to the false sense of security DRM provides and EPUB offers a popular DRM solution. Contrast that with Amazon’s format, mobi, where Amazon is the only company who can apply and manage mobi’s DRM’d files…

Data enables book publishers to connect with their readers in deeper and more meaningful ways — and sometimes, interact for the very first time. As digital exchanges between publishers and readers increase, data insights culled from those interactions continue to emerge and make a significant impact on how book publishers operate. Publishers are using data…

Low website traffic and a lack of existing customer engagement are some of the most common reasons book publishers aren’t pursuing a direct-to-consumer (D2C) model today. They’ll point out that almost nobody comes to their site, so they question the value of investing in a D2C solution. That’s a great point and one that shouldn’t…

Last week entertainment subscription service Playster announced its official launch in the U.S., a market that has faced some major shifts in ebook subscription over the past year. Oyster closed in September amid reports that ebook subscription services actually lose money the more users read. And despite predictions of massive adoption of services like Kindle…

Playster, which announced in October that it would be coming to the U.S. this year, has officially launched its multimedia subscription platform for U.S. users. The service offers unlimited access to content including books, audiobooks, video games, music, movies, and TV shows. Playster is making a big push to enter the U.S. market, offering users…

How is book publishing divided today? Let’s not count the ways. Outsiders looking into this beleaguered industry, however, might be surprised at the reticence many authors and publishers can have about each other. Maybe about being around each other. Meeting each other. Talking more than friendly chitchat or cover design with each other. Make no…