Tom Turvey

Peter Davis, President McGraw-Hill Education; Brian Murray, President & CEO HarperCollins Publishers; Carolyn Reidy, President and CEO, Simon & Schuster; David Steinberger, President & CEO, Perseus Books Group; Tom Turvey, Director, Strategic Partnerships, Google; Peter Osnos, Founder and Editor-at-Large, PublicAffairs Books

(Press Release) New Providence, NJ, May 4, 2010 — Bowker, a leading global provider of bibliographic information solutions and services, has reached an agreement with Google to provision and facilitate the assignment of ISBN numbers to Google Editions, Google’s digital book offering launching later in 2010.  The agreement sets an important publishing industry precedent, helping to ensure a standards-driven framework for the identification of digital and print-on-demand book products made available and sold through Google Books.   Bowker operates the U.S. ISBN Agency.

With no government bailout in sight to rescue their ailing industries, more than 1,200 book- and magazine-publishing executives convened at the 2009 Publishing Business Conference & Expo in New York City, March 23-25, in search of strategies to help them weather the worsening storm. And while much of the discussion centered around cost-cutting, the topic of innovation took center stage throughout the event, which featured nearly 60 educational sessions and more than 125 speakers.

The hot-button issues in the book industry today surround an increased focus on content and alternative forms of distribution. Publishers are still keeping a watchful eye on the Internet and the fear that it may replace the print-based distribution business in the future. But there appears to be a greater acceptance and realization that “content” is a publisher’s real asset, and that the delivery method means nothing if the content isn’t outstanding. An increased focus on content, book search tools, digital distribution, a declining print readership, increased used-book sales, rising fuel and paper costs, and decreasing bookshelf space in retail superstores are all

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