James Sturdivant

James Sturdivant
Monday Musings: Inauguration Day Reading List | Tired of Sharing, Already?

We here at Publishing Business Today are fairly transfixed by today's confluence of the presidential inauguration and the observance of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. We get a little choked up about democracy and civil rights, so the whole thing has got us a little verklempt. In the spirit of the day, we direct you to the King Center's extensive bibliography on Dr. King, Civil Rights and Nonviolence.

Publisher Strikes a Chord With Holiday Book Marketing Efforts

Leading up to the holiday season, Thunder Bay Press (an imprint of Baker & Taylor) thought they had a hit in "The Guitar & Amp Sourcebook," a pictorial guide to over a century of axes and amps and their place in the history of rock, folk, jazz, blues and country music.

Monday Musings: Just My Cup of Tea; the Internet as Correction Machine

The Web corrects falsehoods as efficiently as it creates them. Rumors have always spread like wildfire during a crisis; it's easier today than ever before to have them debunked. It's also easy to let even the worst tragedies dim in our consciousness as new stories come down the 24-hour news pipeline.

Book App Discoverability Demystified: It begins with a good product and understanding your target audience

Experts in book app development and marketing gathered today at the Media App Summit in New York to talk tools for discoverability and profitability. Panelists stressed that discoverability begins with a quality product and understanding your target market.

"I know first-hand how painful discovery can be in the app marketplace," Matt Cavnar, VP of business development at Vook, told the audience. Publishers, he pointed out, often still have trouble getting traction for a good product in an environment where app creation has gotten easier and cheaper.

Never Mind the Big Etailers?

While no publisher can realistically abstain from the online retail behemoths when it comes to book selling, there is no reason why selling directly to consumers cannot be a viable option, especially if publishers work to build relationships with readers. In the tips below from five different publishers on how they have found success with direct selling, certain themes recur: building trust with readers, smart audience targeting and cultivating an overarching brand sensibility.

AppWatch

Ripley's Believe it or Not! has released a "container" app which works as a portal to the company's various publications and museums. If that sounds a bit dry—well, this is Ripley's, and the app (developed over the course of a year in partnership with Conjure) is anything but. Users are treated to photo galleries, Ripley's Twitter and Facebook feeds, museum information and (in the near future) downloadable magazines and cartoons. The core of the app's appeal, however, is an Image Recognition (IR) feature dubbed oddSCAN, which Ripley's intends to incorporate into all of its products.

Keeping Dr. Google Away

In an age of instant information access, professional and scholarly publishers have to get smarter when developing products to fit audience workflows. Simply having a large catalogue of titles is no longer enough; from finance to education to STM, users expect information to be tailored to their day-to-day needs and priorities. Meeting these requirements can spell the difference between a successful product and a dud.

Pulp Nonfiction

Trying to decipher paper pricing trends is like scrutinizing snowflakes—the closer you get, the more complex they seem. Still, there are a few key factors when considering the current economics of the paper business, which has been subject to unprecedented forces during and in the wake of the recent recession.

Study: Patrons not aware of library e-lending

According to a new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Foundation, most Americans do not know their local libraries offer e­books.

The report found that 58 percent of all library card holders say they do not know whether or not they can borrow e­books from their library. Surprisingly, 53 percent of all tablet computer owners, and 48 percent of all owners of e­book reading devices, do not know if their library lends e­books.