Revenue

PRH unveiled a new author portal to better serve its authors, but too few publishers are supporting their most valuable resource.

This new world of publishing now allows authors to make many publishing choices after they finish a book. That's a great thing compared to just ten years ago.

Now an author can go the old traditional route, they can go full indie and do everything. Or they can publish somewhere in the middle, taking responsibility for all the work, but hiring out parts, or all of the tasks needed to be done.

To grow amid new & emerging technology, reinvention is key. Here’s a few creative ways publishers can develop new revenue streams.

The publishing landscape has changed rapidly over the past decade. With more and more brick-and-mortar bookstores closing their doors, today's marketplace can seem intimidating and discouraging to publishers. But take heart!  Readers are still interested in books and are showing interest in using electronic devices as their reading platforms, so the good news is that those collections of titles gathering dust still hold value, and technology might actually facilitate increased revenue.

In this episode, Scholarly Kitchen chef and scholarly publishing business consultant Michael Clarke looks at some of the growth engines-from new end-user products and services to new business models to mergers and acquisitions-that companies in scholarly communications are tapping as their traditional individual and institutional subscription businesses cope with flattening prospects.

Another spring book season has come to pass, and with it another set of factual mini-scandals. Earlier this month, the New York Post found major inaccuracies in Primates of Park Avenue, Wednesday Martin's "study" of Upper East Siders and their wife bonuses, prompting Simon & Schuster to slap a quick disclaimer onto its best-seller. A Salon.com writer found that a key statistic in David Brooks's The Road to Character was badly mangled and wrongly sourced. (Random House will correct it in future editions.)

Sales of children's books are at an all-time high, yet it is harder for publishers to reach young readers, says the owner of a literary agency that represents more than 200 children's illustrators and writers.

Vicki Willden-Lebrecht, founder of London-based The Bright Group, said funding cuts at schools and libraries has meant there are fewer books than ever on display, making it harder to reach families that do not normally buy books.

"The saddest thing is often there isn't a showroom for books

Last week FutureBook asked, how big is the self-publishing market? The simple answer is that only Amazon knows. The more complex answer is that it is big enough - and growing.

Porter Anderson and I used various approaches. We asked some of the stakeholders for their estimates, and then ran an open survey to see if the indie hive-mind would coalesce around some numbers. Separately, as part of a wider piece on how traditional publishing was weathering the digital storm, consultant Mike Shatzkin offered his own number.

Nihar Malaviya, EVP and COO of Penguin Random House U.S., argues that despite the rapid evolution of digital technology and the rise of ebooks, publishers' core role as content curators has not changed. What digital technology has transformed is how publishers interact with and market to consumers. It is an area of massive opportunity

In the world of disruptive innovation, customers aren't just people who pay you money for whatever physical stuff your business shovels out the door.

Traditional publishers would never think this way, but authors are their "customers" because authors are seeking someone to provide the service of replicating their books and effectively moving those books into the stream of commerce.

The mega-selling 1% of authors are the most profitable customers for the services provided by publishers. They will be the last to go in part because, like the best customers of any business, they get the best deals.