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HarperCollins Launches Daily Facebook Live Program Featuring Authors
June 6, 2016 at 1:45 pm

Authors, get ready for your close-up. HarperCollins Publishers is launching a daily Facebook Live program that enables readers to interact with its writers through real-time video and written questions, helping authors expand their reach beyond local bookstore events. The book publisher is the latest company to experiment with the social network’s real-time video tool, which…

PRH Reviews Online Teen Spaces, Closes Spinebreakers
September 10, 2014

Penguin Random House said it needs to move to online spaces where "our audiences are already present", and will close its teen book community Spinebreakers on 30th September.

The Spinebreakers site was set up in 2007 as a place for young people to talk about books and write reviews or stories, and in 2010 between 10,000 and 15,000 people visited it every month. However, last month its members received an email from Penguin Random House saying that community was to close "after seven fantastic years".

D2C Marketing Report Now Available for Academic Publishers
September 9, 2014

D2C marketing of books is a small part of academic publishing today (it runs about 1% of sales now, with some presses reporting figures as high as 3%), but it has the potential to become a more significant channel. It is highly improbable that it could become the primary channel, however, as the exposure other channels provide (Ingram, YBP, Amazon, etc.) is of great importance to publishers. The challenge for a press is how to make D2C work in the context of a multi-channel strategy.

10 Things Publishers Have Been Doing (That We Should Celebrate)
July 16, 2014

Publishing is all too often, and all too easily, lambasted for all the things it does not do. But we should also acknowledge what has been happening. What publishers have been trying out and in what areas these initiatives have been working. 2014 has already been a sobering year for the business, with the loss of two redoutable indies (both scooped up by Hachette), and a continuing decline in sales of physical books (albeit at a slowing rate). But it has also been a year of innovation

Consumer Review of Oyster & Scribd Ebook Services
July 11, 2014

Two startups are trying to do for ebooks what Netflix does for movies. Oyster and Scribd let you read as many books as you want for a monthly price - $10 for Oyster and $9 for Scribd. I was skeptical at first. I can never find enough time to read, and I'm picky about what I do read. I was worried about their limited book selections.

UK Publishing Pros Ask: “Is Publishing Cool Any More?”
July 3, 2014

How can publishing compete with the allure of the tech companies? Do the tech companies scream "today" - even "tomorrow" - while publishing is still perceived as being stuck in "yesterday?" Does media portrayal of the publishing industry help or hinder? These were among issues raised at the London Book Fair's third 'Tech Tuesday" event last week, held in super cool Hoxton, a very funky area of east London, close to Old Street's "silicon roundabout" where so many app companies are based.

Five Reasons for Optimism About the Future of Ebooks
July 2, 2014

There's a lot of tsoris in the publishing community right now over ebooks. Much of it has something to do with THAT COMPANY WITH THE WEBSITE THAT SELLS ALL THE THINGS, how THAT COMPANY has a stranglehold on the book market, how it's devaluing our literary canon, how it has publishers right where it wants them. But we're not just cranky about THAT COMPANY. Other jeremiads include-but are not limited to-the painfully slow adoption curve of EPUB 3, the demise of beloved sites like Readmill, the failure of "enhanced" ebooks to gain traction, stagnating ebook sales,

Is Your Content Strategy Optimized for Millennials?
June 30, 2014

Unless your organization is a startup it's highly likely you're using a strategy and business model that's worked for many years. That same strategy and business model might span multiple generations. Even though you've embraced the latest technologies and devices, are you also meeting the needs and expectations of the younger generation?

Bookmate Brings Ebook Subscription to The International Stage
June 26, 2014

Bookmate is an ebook subscription platform that is bringing paid access to heavily pirated ebook markets such as Russia and the Ukraine. The subscription platform is available on all devices and operating platforms, allowing users to access books for roughly $4 a month.

With an Amazon Smartphone, the Retailer Seeks a Tether to Consumers
June 16, 2014

Hold the phone: Amazon wants to burrow even deeper into your life.

The retailer is expected to introduce a smartphone on Wednesday at an event in Seattle, a long-rumored project that aims to close any remaining gap between the impulse to buy and the completed act.

Amazon has spent the last several years furiously investing billions of dollars on multiple fronts: constructing warehouses all over the country to deliver goods as fast as possible, building devices as varied as tablets and set-top boxes, and creating and licensing entertainment to stock those devices.