Marketing

Do you know your ‘ABY’ from your ‘G-canon’? How are you with ‘retroactive continuity’ (‘retcon’)? What are ‘Infinities’? What is the EU? (clue: it has nothing to do with Brussels) and what were ‘the returns of the Jedi’? To step into the world of Star Wars publishing is to enter a very particular universe, one…

I have to admit to feeling a bit of skepticism (if not downright cynicism) when my Facebook feed started filling up with posts from the Penguin Hotline, promising me individualized book suggestions to make my holiday shopping as easy and stress-free as possible. So I decided to take it for a test drive.

The circumstances surrounding every selling situation are different, but there are two parts essential to them all: substance and process. Substance is made up of objective elements such as price, terms and shipping costs. Process is the path you take from your initial meeting to the close. One of the costliest mistakes in negotiating a…

Call me an old cynic, but sometimes it seems like the entire internet is conspiring to a) get me to read My Struggle and b) to distract marketers from a simple, demonstrable fact: Email marketing is (or can be, properly pursued) the cheapest, most effective, measurable way to sell just about anything, including (and perhaps…

When Ron Boire was growing up on a dairy farm in upstate New York, helping out around the property for $2 an hour, he saw new books as an out-of-reach luxury. From Our Advertisers “We didn’t have any money, and my mother was a voracious reader,” he said. “I remember telling a friend, when I…

The chief executive of publisher Faber & Faber has challenged the book publishing industry to respond to the rapid increase in smartphone use, particularly by young readers. “Perhaps in the 21st century the zero-law of publishing will be understand mobile. Because without expert understanding of it, we may not be able to create the new…

How is book publishing divided today? Let’s not count the ways. Outsiders looking into this beleaguered industry, however, might be surprised at the reticence many authors and publishers can have about each other. Maybe about being around each other. Meeting each other. Talking more than friendly chitchat or cover design with each other. Make no…

NEW YORK—November 30, 2015—Barnes & Noble, Inc., the nation’s largest retail bookseller and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today announced that the most spectacular Cyber Monday deals* for holiday shoppers are all online at BN.com/cybermonday, including unbeatable offers on books perfect for everyone on customers’ lists. They include a special…

Cookbook publishing goes back centuries, and so far has been surprisingly little altered by the digital transformation that has shaken up other areas of publishing. Cookbooks continue to see strong print sales, not least due to their popularity as gifts, and remain a bright spot on many publishers’ financial reports. Despite this, the limitations and…

Are you familiar with the “smiling curve” phenomenon? The details are provided here, but the short explanation is that a smiling curve depicts the value-add potential for each stage of an industry. For example, in the publishing space, you have three stages of content: creation, delivery, and discovery. Those three stages are illustrated with a…