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Wattpad Dives into Native Advertising
June 19, 2014

Wattpad, which lets authors share their stories with a community of readers, has attracted lots of interest from investors, having most recently raised a $46 million Series C. It's also seeing impressive user engagement - the company says that 27 million of its 30 million users are active each month.

But founder and CEO Allen Lau noted that until recently, Wattpad hasn't done much to monetize that activity, aside from experiments with crowdfunded self-publishing. Well, that's changing. The company has launched its first native ad campaign and is lining up more.

London Book Fair Report, Pt. 2: Innovation and Technology
April 17, 2014

Last week when I attended the London Book Fair, I sought out sessions that spoke to the technological shifts affecting the industry. Some of best content came from The Digital Hub sessions at the Tech Theater. Ostensibly paid-to-play sessions, they were short but sweet bursts of knowledge that beat out some of the more trudging sessions elsewhere.

What Publishers Can Learn from TV
March 13, 2014

Nate Hoffelder of The Digital Reader published a blog Tuesday hyping a U.K.-based survey that bears good news for ebook lovers. According to UK reading charity Booktrust, ebook adoption is at 29% among respondents. Good news, right? Perhaps, but in light of a more worrisome number, I'm less ecstatic.

News Corp. Buys a Media Start-Up for $25 Million
December 23, 2013

In a move highlighting the increasing role that user-generated content plays in the news business, News Corporation, owner of The Wall Street Journal, announced on Friday that it had bought Storyful, a company that calls itself a "social news" agency.

Storyful, a self-described "social news" agency, sifts online content and sends authenticated reports and videos to its clients.

Storyful monitors websites like Instagram and YouTube for compelling news and video, has its journalists confirm the material's authenticity, and distributes it to clients in newsrooms around the world.

How Games Inspire Breakthrough Thinking—And How Publishing Can Benefit
October 14, 2013

Look around. Games are everywhere. Start with that carton of orange juice in your fridge, which might advertise it's worth three points, redeemable for discounts and prizes. It's a game. What about frequent-flier miles, which are games that reward loyalty? Mega Millions, Powerball, Take Five and other state lotteries? Games. Nissan has an in-car gaming system that encourages drivers to compete for best efficiency levels (Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum). Talk about a mobile game. You could look at Twitter as a game, the pay off being more and more followers and greater numbers of retweets the more you use it.

Hi Startup Moment Mapping the World
October 1, 2013

Every individual experiences the world in a unique way but, so far, there hasn't been a technology able to capture those experiences in a moment by moment manner. Say hi to "Hi."

Still Hot...or Not? Technology Firms Face Faster Product Cycles
September 12, 2013

Tablet sales showed their first sequential decline ever in the second quarter of this year, according to research firm IDC. Apple sold fewer iPads than expected in its most recent quarter. Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader sales fell 20% in the fiscal first quarter ended August 20, two months after the company announced it will no longer make color versions of Nook, only black and white ones. And analysts are worrying about whether smartphone profit margins can hold up as buyer fatigue sets in.

Reza Aslan Is Publishing World's Newest Star, Thanks to Fox News
July 31, 2013

It's a marketing triumph no book publicist or agent could have dreamt up: appear on Fox News, patiently endure a markedly confrontational line of questioning about one's religious affiliation, and wait for the whole thing to go viral.

But it's precisely what has happened for Reza Aslan, an Iranian-American scholar of religion, who appeared on a weekly Fox News webcast on Friday to promote Zealot, his controversial new biography of Jesus, only to be asked-repeatedly, for several minutes-why he, a Muslim, would be writing about Jesus.

Book Publishers Poised for M&A, Says Providence Equity's Napack
May 31, 2013

The book industry, rattled by the surge in e-book sales through online retailers, is poised for consolidation, said Brian Napack, a former Macmillan president and senior advisor at Providence Equity Partners.

"We're in a major battle right now for the future of the industry," Napack said Wednesday at BookExpo America, the industry's annual convention held at the Javits Center in New York. "It will be very difficult for the existing major players to stand alone in the face of growing scale because they are competing for the same authors and competing for the same distribution channels. There are only so

Details on how News Corp. split will work
April 23, 2013

News Corp. is planning to split into two companies. One company will operate as a newspaper and book publisher and will retain the name News Corp. The other will be an entertainment company, called 21st Century Fox.

Here's how the split will work:

- Newspapers, book publishing and information services such as Dow Jones Newswires will be part of the publishing company. The 20th Century Fox movie studio, the Fox broadcast TV network and the Fox News Channel will be part of the media and entertainment company.