November 2007 Issue
2007-2008 Book Publishing Resource Guide
Book Business’ all-new resource guide is your year-round tool for quickly finding the companies, services and products that can help your enterprise succeed in today’s marketplace. It offers a comprehensive selection of companies that provide valuable services to the industry in everything from business management and e-media to manufacturing, production, distribution, marketing and more. For the 2007-2008 Book Publishing Resource Guide, please see the November 2007 print edition of Book Business magazine.
Best Practices in Global Book Sales
When the “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” series decided to go global with its newest edition, “The Remarkable … Revealed,” the company took a chance by tweaking the typical foreign publishing model. Rather than licensing full publishing rights, as many publishers do, Ripley chose to handle printing and work directly with foreign distributors. “We’re finding that, with licensing, [foreign publishers] don’t [always] have the commitment we do,” says Norm Deska, executive vice president of intellectual property, Ripley Entertainment. “We’re looking to better establish our brand with a high-quality annual book, and the only way to do that was to do it ourselves.” Ripley, whose
Gene Therapy
Longfellow’s celebration of the forest primeval finds its echo today in the green revolution taking place along the supply chain of the paper industry. Although—as I learned from interviewing people who prefer not be quoted on the subject—good intentions are ahead of actual practice, it is a harbinger nonetheless of the revolutionary transformations taking place in the paper industry’s business practices. Which brings me to the subject of this column: a snapshot of the globally transforming paper industry, the state of book-paper supply, and how the present outlook shapes your paper usage and purchasing strategies. As long as print products are foundational to the
Two Major Developments on the ‘Green’ Front
As Kermit the Frog used to say: “It’s not easy being green.” While the beloved puppet was referring to his skin color, the saying has been applied to being “green” in the environmental sense. And, not to make light of a serious situation regarding our environment, the saying has been relevant in book publishing for years—many publishers have “good intentions” (as Book Business columnist Gene Schwartz suggests in this month’s “Gene Therapy”), but they struggle to balance those good intentions with negative impacts on their bottom lines and/or their lack of know-how for making their intentions realities. But as Kermit’s outlook changes in the
Vickie Stringer: The Queen of Hip-Hop Lit
While her business card officially lists her as “Author/CEO,” Vickie Stringer has earned many other titles, both formal and informal, in the book publishing world—from founder of Columbus, Ohio-based Triple Crown Publications and Queen of Hip-Hop Literature to literary agent and marketing guru. Her publishing odyssey began in an unlikely setting: in a federal prison, while serving a seven-year sentence for drug trafficking. It was there that Stringer wrote her first novel, a semi-autobiographical account about a young, female hustler, called “Let That Be the Reason.” Once she was released from prison, she began to shop her manuscript to a variety of publishers.
