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In recent months, the double-digit sales growth of e-books in English has begun to plateau, but since the Spanish-language book market tends to be around three to five years behind the English-language market, e-book sales of Spanish books in the U.S. are just beginning to gain traction. Publishers of Spanish books based both in the U.S. and abroad are positioning themselves to benefit from the hoped-for uptick in sales.

I'm continuously struck by the discombobulated nature of discussions about publishing. This haze is a problem, because if you can't have a well-structured and properly framed discussion, you can't solve problems. Publishing is littered with problems, and solving these problems should be the primary aim of any "disruptive" publishing enterprise.

All of the innovators interviewed in this section, whether from trade, academic, or independent publishing, have joined the digital revolution and are pushing the industry into a sustainable future, exploring new products and services, and adapting to disruption.

When new communications media emerge, the typical pattern has been to simply put old content into the new format. I would argue that the most effective use of any medium is achieved only once the unique characteristics of that medium are fully grasped.

The international media company Bertelsmann invested heavily in expanding its businesses in 2013, as the company increased its revenues, operating result and Group profit. Investments in implementing the Group's strategy amounted to €2 billion, including financial debt assumed, up from €655 million in the previous year, and its largest sum since 2005. Group profit increased by 42 percent to €870 million. This is the highest Group profit since 2006, and is well above the latest expectations.

The e-book is not going away - and that's not a bad thing for books. 

Ever since the advent of the Kindle, a doomsday cloud has hovered over the world of book publishing, a portent that the rise of the e-book will mean the fall of the print book, and eventually the end of any good literature at all.

Even with recent optimistic forecasts for the future of books, the underlying assumption driving the conversation is still that technology and traditional literary reading are somehow incompatible, different ways of life.

Oyster is the self-proclaimed "Netflix of books" - an apt description, easy enough to explain to friends and family.

But has the casual reader heard of it yet? Chances are probably not. Subscription numbers are not public but a glance at the number of Facebook app users is telling.

Thanks to the internet, it has never been easier to steal other people's work. There's also a high risk you'll be found out. So why do it? Rhodri Marsden goes in search of a little originality.

It's not that hard to think of something totally original. If you don't worry about it being any good, it's easy. "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously," was Noam Chomsky's spirited attempt in his ground-breaking 1957 book on linguistics, Syntactic Structures.

The world of publishing was once the preserve of very large organisations, huge publishing houses with massive production infrastructures and costs, that kept smaller niche publishers on the fringes, struggling for a tiny share of the market.

Now, with the advent of digital publishing technology, the growing popularity of e-books, and the flexibility of print on demand that eliminates many of the cost challenges of volume print runs, the publishing business has played nicely into the hands of the small, home-based publisher.

Much of the publishing industry is not in a data-first mindset asserts Tom Davenport in a recent article dubbed "Book Publishing's Big Data Future".  Although Davenport criticizes the publishing industry as a big data underachiever, he admits that's in part because publishers have traditionally worked through intermediaries to reach consumers. But that dynamic is changing.