Direct to Consumer Sales

The Most Popular Book Business Posts of September
October 8, 2015 at 1:02 pm

Here’s a collection of Book Business’ most read stories from September. Book Business Top 20 Book Manufacturers Ranking 2015 - Part of the Fall Issue, the Top 20 Book Manufacturers ranking returned, listing the top printers in the book industry by revenue. Why Oyster Failed - In this guest post, Bookmate CEO Simon Dunlop explains…

HarperCollins’ New Audiobook App is Hobbled by its Broken Website
September 28, 2015 at 11:57 am

When HarperCollins launched an ebookstore on its website last year, it was (and still is) such a mess that the majority of its customers aren't readers but industry insiders checking out the competition. The search is broken, the genre/category pages throw errors, and the store won't actually sell me ebooks. The many issues with HC's…

Press Release: New Direct to Consumer Bookstore Site Launched by Publishers’ Graphics
September 23, 2015 at 2:28 pm

CAROL STREAM, Ill.—September 23, 2015—Publishers’ Graphics, a leading manufacturer and distributor of short-run and print-on-demand books with locations in Chicago, St. Louis, and Kentucky, today announced the launch of its new e-commerce website, PG Direct. PG Direct (www.pubgraphicsdirect.com) is an online bookstore that reimagines the supply chain by selling books directly to consumers. “With a…

Press Release: Harvard Business Review Press Enters Agreement with Safari
September 17, 2015 at 2:48 pm

BOSTON—September 16, 2015—Safari, the global platform for business and technology learning, and Harvard Business Review Press, one of the world’s leading business book publishers, have entered into an agreement to make books, videos, and webinars from Harvard Business Review Press available on the Safari platform. The agreement brings together two organizations well known for delivering…

Big Ideas & Uncovering the Truisms of Publishing
September 15, 2015 at 12:21 pm

I like big ideas. I particularly like them as opposed to predictions. Predictions tend to be specific and are usually wrong. Big ideas are like a friendly guide showing us the way, never allowing us to wander too far off the path. They stand true to the test of time. I have two theorems that…

Why Bookselling Is Now a Relationships Game
September 15, 2015 at 12:12 pm

When the topic of direct-to-consumer sales arises in the book industry, a few key concepts come to mind: ecommerce sites, shopping carts, data analytics, and metadata, to name a few. While certainly important, these technical components of a direct sales strategy are rather worthless if publishers overlook a more abstract concept—that is, a “relationship” with…

Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) Starts with Building Community, Not Owning the Sale
September 8, 2015 at 2:50 pm

More and more book publishers seem to be focused on building a better direct relationship with consumers. Some of these direct-to-consumer (D2C) efforts are well thought-out while others are nothing more than publishers following the crowd. How else do you explain so many publisher sites that are simply catalog pages with the option to buy…

Press Release: HaperCollins Publishers Introduces the HarperCollins BookLab in the Seaport Culture District
September 3, 2015 at 11:57 am

NEW YORK—September 1, 2015—HarperCollins Publishers today introduced the event schedule for the HarperCollins BookLab, which will be popping up in the Seaport Culture District from September 12 through October 22. Throughout this six-week period, the space, which is located within Seaport Studios at 19 Fulton Street, will feature a curated list of titles available for…

The D2C Manifesto for Book Publishers
August 25, 2015 at 2:55 pm

“Direct to consumer” is not about selling books through your Web site. Rather, it is a philosophy that puts your consumer, the reader, first and foremost in each and every activity that the business undertakes. That might seem straightforward enough, but with decades of complex author, agent and retail agreements piling up — not to mention territorial…

Why That Ebook May Cost More Than The Hardcover
August 10, 2015 at 3:59 pm

Mike Shatzkin’s column of August 5 may be the one in which we someday remember hearing a new sermon, the beginning of the endgame. But Shatzkin is not delivering a benediction yet: This is not a death-knell for anybody. This is a changing world for everybody. His essay is The publishing world is changing, but there…