Trajectory’s mission is two-fold, says co-founder and chief content officer Scott Beatty. “The Trajectory mantra is ‘Be Available -- Everywhere. Be Discoverable.’” The startup is achieving that mission through global distribution partnerships with thousands of book retailers and distributors and through its algorithms, which analyze the semantics of a book and relate it to other…
When I meet with publishers I always ask them about the biggest problems they face in today’s market. One of the most popular answers is “discoverability.” Most publishers fret about getting lost in a sea of other books and promotional campaigns. Life seemed much easier in the brick-and-mortar days. A publisher simply paid a retailer…
It’s easy to think that today’s ebook is as good as it gets. Publishers are mostly satisfied with the current print-under-glass model and, unfortunately, flattening (or declining) ebook sales trends aren’t likely to drive investment in digital innovation. What if readers could help drive some of that innovation in the future? Here’s why that’s a…
Despite Oyster’s recent closure, subscription models are far from dead. On Wednesday, two companies announced new multimedia subscription platforms. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt shared news of its Curious World platform, a subscription service that provides interactive learning to children through ebooks, videos, and games. Disney too made headlines with the launch of its DisneyLife platform, a…
You’re probably pretty happy with Google search today, right? It’s incredibly fast, extremely reliable and almost always delivers the desired results. What more could you ask for? I think the problem with today’s search solutions is that we’ve limited them to what’s online. If the content has a web address and it’s been crawled by…
Despite advancements in technology and access to information, literacy remains a huge issue in K-12 schools throughout the world. “Reading achievement is persistently low,” says Todd Brekhus, president of myON™. “Only 35% of all fourth graders, 36% of eighth graders and, 38% of twelfth graders read proficiently.” To help students overcome these literacy challenges, myON,…
The news from Oyster Books was disappointing but hardly surprising. They recently announced plans to “sunset” the service in the coming months, a fancy way of saying their all-you-can-read experiment is over. It’s unfortunate, as I believe there are both a market demand and a viable business model to be found for book subscriptions. I’ve…
Oyster was a great purist reading experience for its customers but it was a deeply flawed both as a product and a business model. Being US-East Coast-centric, it was taking on Amazon’s more sophisticated readers who expect the widest possible selection of books just a click away...
Scan today’s news and you’ll undoubtedly see plenty of stories about how the majority of content is being consumed on mobile devices. In fact, you’ll probably use your own mobile device when you do that scan. Like many of you, I read all my books on a tablet and most of my short-form content on…
Amazon just introduced Amazon Underground, a platform where paid apps are free. It’s a model that will be disruptive for ebooks too.
