Gene Therapy: From Book Proposal to Profit
The press averages 225 to 290 front-list titles a year and has a backlist of about 3,500 titles. It generates the ONIX files and sends monthly updates to about a dozen targets, including Ingram, Nielsen Bookdata and Amazon, which—together with Barnes & Noble and Bowker, as well as several others—are in the core constituency for ONIX distribution for all publishers. “Amazon is the 800-pound gorilla, of course, and they get the first new-title feed. Although ONIX is supposed to be a universal format,” Creesy notes, “some users are demanding customization. Amazon, apparently for copyright concerns, limits book-review excerpts to 20 words. As a consequence, we prepare the review element in ONIX in two versions.”
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.