While C&T's niche hasn't changed in more than 25 years of publishing, the company has changed, adapting its business models to reflect a transforming book marketplace.
Janet Spavlik
Digital publishing was, of course, top of mind for many of the attendees at last week's Publishing Business Conference & Expo, as the event kicked off with a panel of book industry leaders in print-digital integration. Moderated by THA Consulting President Ted Hill, the session, entitled "The Cross-Platform Book Publisher: Reinvent Your Company," featured panelists Timothy Griswold, vice president, sales, trade and special licensing, Springer; Adam Lerner, president/publisher, Lerner Publishing Group; Deborah Forte, president, Scholastic Media; and Mike Rosiak, lead content architect, Wolters Kluwer Health—all of whom shared their experiences and insights into successfully bringing products to market in multiple formats.
Here in Philadelphia, I'm settling back into office life after nearly a week in New York City at the annual Publishing Business Conference & Expo (PBC). And while of course I'm going to sound biased, considering I'm one of the event's conference program editors, PBC is my favorite industry event. I always come home with a notebook full of inspiration and new ideas, and I always have the opportunity to meet and interact with some of the most brilliant minds in publishing.
While active with other forms of social media, I never really "got" FourSquare. When a friend told me about how businesses are involved, I became more intrigued.
While not a surprise to anyone who had followed the book retailer's recent financial struggles, the official announcement yesterday that Borders Group had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy still caused a stir throughout the book publishing industry, as publishers, retailers, authors and consumers speculated about what this development could mean for the future of brick-and-mortar bookstores.
Executives from across the education sector of book publishing gathered Wednesday, Feb. 9 at The Yale Club in New York City for Book Industry Study Group's (BISG) first "Making Information Pay for Higher Education" event. A range of speakers addressed challenges familiar to many publishers, including determining what consumers want in a print-digital integrated world and how to deliver it to them, as well as issues specific to the education sector, such as the ongoing debate over textbook pricing.
Philip Ruppel and McGraw-Hill Professional (MHP)—the publishing company for which Ruppel serves as president—arrived early to the digital party.
In late 2007, HarperCollins claimed to have published the first-ever e-book to include video. That e-book title, "Lady Amelia's Secret Lover," featured six embedded videos of the book's author.
As I write this, I am not only in the midst of Book Business production, but the holiday season as well—parties, decorating and card writing, and lots of gift shopping. In the course of my shopping, I've managed to buy a few books as presents for, well, myself. (I've been good, Santa, I promise.) I…
For those with businesses based on books and reading, it seems like a natural fit for book publishers to take up the literacy cause.
The Book Business editorial staff recently completed one of my favorite exercises: reviewing the responses to our reader survey that we e-mail annually to our subscribers.
A keynote interview about the anticipated launch of Google's "Google Editions" digital book program kicked off the Publishing Business Virtual Conference & Expo.
A box of old books dug out from my parents' garage reminded me of my favorite author as a child, Ruth Chew.
Ask a sampling of your book industry peers, and you will find that most publishing careers do not begin with an engineering degree.
Some very fond memories of my childhood are visiting the tiny, but bursting-at-the-seams-with-books independent bookstore on the main street in my hometown.