Andrew Brenneman

Big ideas are new ideas. Big ideas are bold ideas. Sometimes big ideas are small ideas. Often, big ideas seem wrong at first glance because they present such a different way of doing things. 

These are the types of ideas we’ve tried to capture with the Book Business Big Ideas Issue. Industry thinkers -- and readers and supporters of Book Business -- contributed mini-essays, exploring what they think are the imperatives for a thriving, progressive, effective book business.

A book is a book is a book—is it not?  Not in the hall at the former Church of Christ, Scientist, now turned into the magnificent home of the Internet Archive on Funston Avenue at the edge of the Presidio in San Francisco. The Archive, established in 1996 with the goal of offering permanent access to records that exist in digital format, is the venue for the annual Books in Browsers conference, which took place on October 24th and 25th. This reporter attended this year for the first time, and had her mind blown.

The year 2013 will be known as that in which the current cycle of digital transformation will draw to a close. Those organizations that will execute significant changes to core business functions in order to realize new digital opportunities have already done so, or at least begun. Those that have not begun these changes are unlikely ever to do so.

The new edition of Book Business magazine should be on its way to you — and can also be accessed online, in a full-featured digital edition or via your iPad through our app— was a lot of fun for us to put together. We've got an interview with Matthew Quick, author of The Silver Linings Playbook. We talk to Matt about the publicity process for his debut novel that was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film. We've also got a piece from one of our personal heroes, the great Bill Kasdorf, that demystifies the EPUB 3 ebook file format and helps ensure you're putting it to its best use.

This month's edition of Book Business magazine—here in all of its digital glory—features a sprawling examination of the many ways ebooks have transformed book publishing. Think of John Parson's "The Year of Living Digitally" as your crib-sheet to the digital disruption and how publishers can adapt to new delivery methods and business models. While Parsons digs into the data, bestselling novelist Susan Isaacs, in an exclusive interview with Lynn Rosen, waxes on the myriad ways the industry has changed from the author's perspective.

Notice anything different? Welcome to the newly redesigned February issue of Book Business magazine. This month features our special report on branding in book publishing, with strategies for niche publishers, general interest publishers, b-to-b publishers and beyond.

Lynn Rosen and J.S. McDougall talk to Penguin Classics, Chronicle, McSweeney's, Chelsea Green, HarperCollins Christian, O'Reilly, Harvard Common and Wharton School Publishing to get at the secret sauce of publishing house and brand, and why creating symbols that signify quality content is more imporant than ever before.

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