David Nussbaum

Ellen Harvey is a freelance writer and editor who covers the latest technologies and strategies reshaping the publishing landscape. She previously served as the Senior Editor at Publishing Executive and Book Business.

Eugene G. Schwartz is editor at large for ForeWord Reviews, an industry observer and an occasional columnist for Book Business magazine. In an earlier career, he was in the printing business and held production management positions at Random House, Prentice-Hall/Goodyear and CRM Books/Psychology Today. A former PMA (IBPA) board member, he has headed his own publishing consultancy, Consortium House. He is also Co-Founder of Worthy Shorts Inc., a development stage online private press and publication service for professionals as well as an online back office publication service for publishers and associations. He is on the Publishing Business Conference and Expo Advisory Board.

Yesterday I posted a blog discussing one point addressed during the CEO Roundtable at the Digital Book World Conference-namely, book discoverability. The larger discussion of that panel focused on the future of the ebook, for which the CEOs (Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media, Dominique Raccah of Sourcebooks, Carolyn Reidy of Simon & Schuster, and David Nussbaum of F+W Media) seemed to have more questions than answers.

The future of book publishing is changing rapidly and now, more than ever, book publishers are asking, "What's next?" This question was top-of-mind in day two of the Digital Book World Conference and Expo. Yesterday's headline event, the CEO Roundtable, delved into this head on, discussing the future of the ebook. Book discovery is a huge part of that future, and the road forward, the panelists asserted, is not an easy one.

In the weeks that I’ve been putting together my ebook bestsellers breakdown, which examines the titles that are doing better in digital formats than in print and investigates how titles hit the bestseller list, one common key to success pops up over and over again: The power of a sale. A one-day Kindle Daily Deal can drive enough sales to propel a title onto the New York Times ebook bestseller list for just one week. And self-published authors’ low-priced titles are taking up more and more spots.


Book Business' own Eugene G. Schwartz was on the scene at the third annual Digital Book World Conference. He filed this comprehensive report from the proceedings.

Attendees at the third annual Digital Book World Conference heard reports that while publishers are in fact healthy and thriving in the new digital age, a lot more work is needed to let go of the habits of the past and live in the new interactive, multi-platform and vertically patterned business world of the future.

The cohort of newly minted consultants in attendance—emerging out of downsizing and transformation—are witness to their price as well as their opportunities.

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