Data

The UK’s independent publishing sector is growing and “thriving”, a second annual independent publishing report has found. However, Brexit has materialised as the most significant issue facing members now, with staffing resources and cash flow issues high among the concerns. Intended as a “comprehensive” overview of and analysis into the state of independent publishing in…

Jodie Archer had always been puzzled by the success of The Da Vinci Code. She’d worked for Penguin UK in the mid-2000s, when Dan Brown’s thriller had become a massive hit, and knew there was no way marketing alone would have led to 80 million copies sold. So what was it, then? Something magical about…

As traditional publishers struggle with sales, Amazon is quietly cornering a powerful new trend in books. A recent report (pdf) from Bowker, the US company that issues International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN), shows that self-publishing is growing rapidly. Between 2010 and 2015, the number of ISBNs from self-published books grew by 375%. From 2014 and…

The rules of online publishing seem to shift daily. One minute publishers are being told long-form articles have no home on the web, yet recent data suggests long-form does well on mobile and social. This webinar will explore major trends in online publishing and what a closer look at data analytics say about these trends. Leading publishers will share how their unique audiences are behaving within the context of broader industry trends and how they’re using analytics to drive their content & audience development strategies.

Caution is important at the outset on this report. You may hear people saying that Bowker’s latest report shows 727,125 self-published titles in 2015. That is incorrect. Publishing Perspectives has spoken with Bowker’s director of identifier services, Beat Barblan, who clarifies that the company’s newly released figures show that in 2015, 727,125 ISBNs were applied to self-published works.…

LONDON — August 16, 2016 — After nearly 50 years of promoting and selling ISBNs and prefixes to publishers in the UK & Ireland via a manual process, Nielsen has launched an online store that enables publishers and self-published authors to go to one site and purchase ISBNs, Book2Look widgets and a subscription to their…

Although enhanced ebooks and apps with sound and video have been poorly received by book consumers, Neoglyphic Entertainment, an entertainment technology developer, has created a platform that makes use of data science, gaming technology, machine learning and crowdbased focus groups to create new experiences around traditional storytelling. The company has plans to offer its multimedia…

Publishing is a notoriously risky business. A publishing house might give a first-time author a six-figure deal, only to see the book flop. It's always been hard to predict what will sell. Now publishers are getting some help from data that tells them how readers read — and that makes some people nervous. Alan Rinzler…

You can’t have failed to notice that there are an awful lot of books around these days. Too many books, some say.[1] ‘Every year there are a million new books published in English. That is officially published books around the world. They have an ISBN. Every year, we are adding 1,000,000 books to the sum…

I'm a big fan of all types of publishing, from ebooks (obviously!) to print books, magazines and newspapers. Why? Because when it comes digital publishing solutions, we have a lot to learn from each other. Like book publishers, newspapers struggled to adjust to the Internet age (though newspapers arguably struggled more than book publishers). And…