How to Sell Books That Are Good Enough to Steal
May 25, 2016 at 12:00 pm

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.…

With Online Book Sales, Time is of The Essence
May 10, 2016 at 7:00 am

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…

Semantic Tech Empowers Publishers to Repackage Content & Tap New Revenue Streams
April 21, 2016 at 12:00 pm

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…

Netflix CEO Describes Publishing’s Dilemma
April 20, 2016 at 1:48 pm

Editor's Note: This post was originally published on The Future of Publishing. Netflix released its latest quarter earnings report today. In a Letter to Shareholders (PDF), Netflix CEO Reed Hastings described the competitive landscape the company faces. In doing so he framed the challenge faced today by all publishers, certainly all book, newspaper and magazine publishers.…

12 Ways Book Publishers Can Improve Facebook Engagement
April 15, 2016 at 12:14 pm

Publishers know promoting books and authors on Facebook is smart, but it's a lot more impactful when there's high engagement from Facebook users. Why do some publishers earn 1,000 or more likes on a post while others may receive as few as 7? If you want to increase  Facebook engagement, here are 12 tips you…

How Authors & Publishers Can Maximize Online Marketing
April 6, 2016 at 12:44 pm

Mike Shatzkin said in his opening remarks at Digital Book World 2016 that publishers need to help authors with their marketing efforts. “At the very least, every house should do a ‘digital audit’ for every author they sign that includes concrete suggestions for filling in gaps and improving discoverability and engagement. To my knowledge, not…

What’s the Missing Ingredient for Unlimited Reading Services?
April 4, 2016 at 8:40 am

I’ve been a fan of unlimited e-reading services for at least a couple of years now. When Oyster Books went under I shifted to Kindle Unlimited. For short-form magazine content I use Texture, the offering formerly known as Next Issue. Prices for these services are typically in the $10-15/month range and, for the most part,…

No, Data Isn’t Killing Literary Fiction
March 1, 2016 at 2:50 pm

Sophie Rochester asks in a recent article on The Bookseller, “Can publishing keep its soul in an increasingly data-driven future?” Rochester seems to have her doubts. She makes the argument that data-driven decision making conflicts with the creative intuition of editors and authors. If all book publishers do is chase sales data, then they will…

How Scholarly Publishers Are Redefining Roles & Transforming Infrastructure to Master New Tech
February 23, 2016 at 11:46 am

Scholarly publishing is a technology business. That’s been true for some time, of course. Yet the technology-driven approach to business is profoundly and fundamentally different from traditional publishing practices. How can scholarly publishers reconcile that dichotomy? How should a publisher utilize today’s technology in order to drive innovation? Those were the questions recently put to…

Why Business Foresight is Key to Publishers' Vitality
February 12, 2016 at 4:49 pm

Last week at the Professional and Scholarly Publishers Conference -- an event hosted by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and Professional & Scholarly Publishers (PSP) in Washington D.C. -- keynote speaker Joseph Esposito posed a question that all publishers, not just those in the professional and scholarly segments, are struggling to answer. That question…