Random House Inc.

DailyLit.com, a Web site based in New York that currently offers a free service allowing users to read entire books via e-mail and RSS installments, recently announced plans for aggressive growth. DailyLit currently allows visitors to sign up to receive more than 370 classic and contemporary titles, free of charge, in installments designed to be read in less than five minutes. The contemporary titles used are available via Creative Commons, a non-profit that offers an alternative to full copyright, built within current copyright law, that allows you to share your creations with others and use music, movies, images and text online that’s been

The large New York publishing firms might have been forgiven, in early 2000, for taking little or no notice of a slim volume of Bible commentary put out by Multnomah Publishers, a small religious publishing house based in Colorado Springs. The book, which analyzed an obscure Old Testament passage as a sort of self-help guide to releasing “God’s favor, power and protection” through prayer, was bought up by large evangelical churches and began to be talked about online and in so-called “small group ministry” sessions around the country. One year and 4 million copies later, everyone in the publishing world had heard of

HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, one of the five largest book publishers in the world and a subsidiary of News Corp., is strategically focused on a digital evolution that will shape the company’s goals and mission in the future. The foundation of this evolution can be traced back 10 years to when Jane Friedman was hired as the company’s president and CEO. According to Friedman, in the past 10 years HarperCollins has increased profits by more than 1,000 percent and its total revenue went from $600 million to $1.3 billion in 2006. The company publishes an average of 4,300 titles globally per year, with 3,100 employees

In Part I of this series, I described how supply chain thinking can be applied to business and career decisions. Correctly identifying your “value proposition” is the key to being able to diagram where in the chain of buying and selling relationships you can be most effective. Building on your core competencies, and recognizing that you need to manage your supply chain relationships becomes the business proposition. Chances are that when you first examine your supply chain, you will find that you have been a slave to it, rather than a master of it. I also noted that by rethinking and realistically recasting your

In the months following the Sept. 11 attacks, museum admissions declined sharply, exhibitions were cancelled, and in the turbulence, administrators began examining whether they could continue to publish books as a result. Today, “there is generally a very optimistic feeling, which is not to say it’s easy. It’s still very difficult, but it’s an exciting time, and I feel really good about our future,” says Yale University Press Publisher Patricia Fidler. “No one was saying that a few years ago.” Currently, her art and architecture division publishes 120 books annually, of which roughly 60 percent stem from Yale’s museum partners. Stephanie Medlock,

Random House Inc. and Lantern Books were recognized for their achievements in environmental sustainability, taking home the first-ever SustainPrint.com Leadership Awards in book publishing. The awards were presented Mon., March 5, during a special reception at the Book Business Conference and Expo, held at the New York Marriott Marquis, Times Square. The SustainPrint.com Leadership Awards recognize book and magazine publishing companies for their achievements in environmental sustainability. Fast Company magazine and the National Wildlife Federation were recognized as magazine publishing leaders. The awards are presented by SustainPrint.com—a Web site developed by Book Business and Publishing Executive magazines to provide a central location for

We’re just back from the 2007 Book Business Conference and Expo and planning for next year’s event. If you missed this year’s conference, check out some of the highlights on pages 10-14. It was humbling to be a part of this gathering of brilliant publishing minds, both speakers and attendees. But with this year’s conference frenzy winding down, we head into another busy and exciting time of year, with our Gold Ink Awards competition. If you’re not too familiar with the Gold Ink Awards, it’s the nation’s most prestigious print competition, founded 20 years ago, to recognize the finest in print production. We receive

On Wednesday, Oprah Winfrey announced on her TV show that Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” published in 2006 by the Knopf Group of Random House Inc., is her second book club pick of the year and just her third overall selection since September 2005 and the controversial “A Million Little Pieces” by James Frey. Oprah’s Book Club was established in September 1996, and since then, her selections have pulled some obscure works onto best-seller lists. However McCarthy’s book is a relatively safe bet for Oprah, already receiving much national acclaim. “The Road” is on the USA Today Bestseller List, a National Book Critic’s

Random House posted a 6.5 percent growth last year, according to 2006 sales data released Wednesday, during a press briefing in Berlin, by its parent company, Bertelsmann. Random House sales jumped to $2.5 billion last year, helping the New York-based publishing arm of the German media conglomerate to raise its operating profit 9.6 percent to $242 million. In a letter written to Random House staff, Peter Olson, Random House chairman and CEO, said the company’s fiscal performance “is especially impressive for having been achieved against the backdrop of a sluggish international book marketplace, a slightly unfavorable foreign exchange rate due to the dollar’s ongoing weakness against

Choosing a cover-material supplier or deciding to switch to a new provider can seem like a game that we don’t know how to play. Knowing what materials are available and which would work best for the look and feel you are trying to achieve for your next book project can be tricky ... and even risky. A bad decision can break a book—after all, aren’t books judged by their covers? Fortunately, representatives at most cover-material companies are available to walk you through the process helping you discover what qualities and features are most important for your needs. “So many questions have to be