Marketing

A good marketing strategy defines how you will enter new markets (as described in my blog "Marketing Strategy Rules"). The next step is to decide the best way to implement that strategy, and then organize your actions to facilitate implementation. That is the process of planning.

Too many independent publishers use the Christopher Columbus method of planning. They do not know where they are going. When they get there they do not know where they are. And when they return, they do not know where they have been. This is not a good way to run a business.

Slow reading advocates seek a return to the focused reading habits of years gone by, before Google, smartphones and social media started fracturing our time and attention spans. Many of its advocates say they embraced the concept after realizing they couldn't make it through a book anymore.

"I wasn't reading fiction the way I used to," said Meg Williams, a 31-year-old marketing manager for an annual arts festival who started the slow reading club. "I was really sad I'd lost the thing I used to really, really enjoy."

When I'm out and about and recount my tour adventures to people (I can reel off my itinerary just about in my sleep at this point), the question often arises about whether all this touring is actually still useful and/or desirable in an age where so many people get their books electronically, and when one (or at least, one like me) can show up to a comic con, at which between 20k and 50k people will show up in one place, where you also happen to be. In this context, book touring can at least initially seem like

A slew of new web domains are dramatically changing the face of the Internet by providing more tailored domains beyond ".com" and ".net" that speak to websites specific interests. With this sudden rush of new online real estate, publishers can capitalize on the domain expansion to make their websites and products more accessible to readers.

The New York Times team plans to implement several changes to the book review section over the next few months.

Henceforth, The New York Times Book Review will feature twelve new best sellers lists. These new monthly lists will cover the following genres: politics, business, travel, humor, family, relationships, animals, religion, spirituality and faith, celebrities, food and fitness, science, and sports. Other additional lists will be introduced in 2015.

In 1943, in the middle of the Second World War, America's book publishers took an audacious gamble. They decided to sell the armed forces cheap paperbacks, shipped to units scattered around the globe. Instead of printing only the books soldiers and sailors actually wanted to read, though, publishers decided to send them the best they had to offer. Over the next four years, publishers gave away 122,951,031 copies of their most valuable titles.

This webinar looks into critical strategies for making digital products profitable.

In the run-up to its October 7 release, Rick Riordan’s "Blood of Olympus" was the most-talked-about book on social media in August.

Pity the poor publishing trends journalist. From time to time, maybe especially in the silly season, they'll end up writing an article about translated books and sales, jousting with the straw man that books in translation don't sell in English-language markets. And sure enough, two back-to-back articles at the end of August by Dalya Alberge in the Guardian and Steven W. Beattie in Quill & Quire weigh on this topic with a little phoning it in, as well as some surprising conclusions.