Trade

Do you remember when Amazon introduced both “Look Inside” and “Search Inside” functionality for books? They were such simple yet revolutionary features at the time. Before Look/Search Inside it was impossible to do a simple flip test like you could at a brick-and-mortar store. Fast-forward to today where we take Look/Search Inside features for granted,…

You’ve been hearing it a lot lately: Print-on-demand is changing publishing. Advances in technologies have brought reduced turnaround times, lower costs, higher quality, and less risk. As a result, businesses focused on print-on-demand are emerging, including independent, on-demand-focused publishers that serve both traditional book models and a changing vanity publishing marketplace. One group that’s often…

New York, NY – May 25, 2016 – Macmillan Publishers announces the acquisition of Pronoun, Inc., a New York City–based technology company that provides digital book publishing tools, analytics, and services for authors and media companies. Pronoun’s author-focused platform encompasses automated digital book creation, distribution to major digital retailers, data-driven marketing tools, and a connected…

How do you know if what you’ve created is worthwhile? In my experience, it has to pass the “good enough to steal test.” Business owners, authors, artists, and musicians don’t like to hear this, but it’s true. The fact is the majority of goods and services produced do not actually meet this benchmark of success.…

Earlier this week Penguin Random House’s Crown Publishing Group announced the redesign of its community site Read It Forward. The site originally launched in 2008 is dedicated to helping its 385,000-plus readers discover their next book. The redesign is similar to PRH U.K.’s recent site relaunch because it also emphasizes original long-form content over a…

Now is better than later because later might never come. Among the many tragic losses related to the above wisdom, one of the most trivial revolves around the topic of shopping behavior. (Apologies to the Maharishi inside us all.) And this matters a great deal in the world of books, where we know from our…

Washington, DC; April 26, 2016 – Publishers’ book sales for trade (consumer) books from Jan. to Dec. were up 0.8% to $7.2 billion compared to $7.1 billion in 2014. Despite a slow holiday season, the year ended slightly up, with a shift in sales for format and category. Overall publisher revenue for 2015 was $15.4…

As The Guardian and other parts of the mainstream media begin to notice the month and a half old story on the Kindle Unlimited page count scam, it's time that we consider just who is being harmed. In early March David Gaughran discovered, and Amazon confirmed, that scammers were taking advantage of a loophole in how…

Henry Holt & Company has undergone a number of incarnations since it was formed in 1866, when Henry Holt partnered with Frederic Leypoldt to publish books under the name Leypoldt & Holt. For one thing, it has had a number of different names, owners, and mission. The Henry Holt that exists today began to take…

Books as a technology have been around for such a long time that it’s easy to forget that they were once major innovations themselves: Before the book there was the scroll, and the clay tablet before that, and it wasn’t until the end of the 16th century that modern indexes were invented, still largely the…