TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics » publishing industry

The Problem with Children’s Books: A Parent’s Perspective

Joanna Cabot — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 19:04:10 +0000

We recently had our Family Day long weekend, and the Beloved and I spent some of it at the home of his sister. She’s the mother of a toddler and a newborn, and while we were visiting, the subject of books came up. I enjoyed having the opportunity to pick the brain of a parent [...]

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A Radical Proposal: Let’s Make Books Fun Again!

Joanna Cabot — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:00:28 +0000

I read a lot of news stories as part of my work for TeleRead, and lately, I’ve noticed that many are dominated by a decidedly gloomy tone. Apple gets sued. Readers get sued. All five of the big publishers get sued. Then there are the copyright squabbles, the fair use disputes, author’s rights, reader’s rights, corporate [...]

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2013 Meeting Guide: At the publishing industry trade shows, hope and opportunity spring eternal

Aggregated Content — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 21:54:39 +0000

By Eugene G. Schwartz Where is the book industry going; what will my workplace and career opportunities be like; what do I need to know to keep up with the times? Or, in a more cosmic vein, what does the future hold? In an effort to answer these questions, publishers have settled each year into [...]

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Ignore the Doomsayers: The Book Industry Is Actually Adapting Well

Aggregated Content — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 19:45:58 +0000

Numbers show that the publishing industry is handling the rise of e-readers better than what folk knowledge might suggest. The fall publishing season is in full swing. There can hardly have been a year with more luminaries atop both the fiction and nonfiction bestseller lists; J. K. Rowling, Michael Chabon, Ken Follett, Junot Diaz, [...]

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Mike Shatzkin warns against letting bookstores fade away

Chris Meadows — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:15:00 +0000

What will the publishing industry look like if all physical bookstores go the way of Borders? Publishing-industry observer Mike Shatzkin doesn’t know, but he thinks publishers shouldn’t want to find out for as long as possible. Some publishers report that the growth rate of e-book sales seems to be tapering off, However, other publishers report [...]

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Publishing industry may not be falling apart after all

Chris Meadows — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:41:22 +0000

Is publishing doomed? Writer Janni Lee Simner has posted an essay to her LiveJournal looking at the idea going around “that Right Now is the moment that publishing is falling apart.” She is rather skeptical, because she’s been hearing how much better things were "5 or 10 or 15 years ago” for as long as [...]

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Survey finds publishing industry revenues and sales up since 2008

Chris Meadows — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 04:48:04 +0000

Is the impending doom of the publishing industry being overstated? That’s what a New York Times article contends with data from a survey released Tuesday that purports to show the publishing industry’s revenues and sales grew overall from 2008 to 2010. BookStats, a comprehensive survey conducted by two major trade groups that was released early [...]

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Borders closure heralds uncertainty for publishing industry

Chris Meadows — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:07:22 +0000

What is the loss of Borders going to mean for the publishing industry? There are a number of prognoses, ranging from “probably not much” to “gloom, doom, and dogs and cats living together”. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but it’s interesting to look at all the predictions. Former Borders UK chief Philip [...]

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Jürgen Snoeren: Publishing industry should focus on core competency

Chris Meadows — Wed, 18 May 2011 15:54:36 +0000

One view of the future of publishing, which I’ve brought up here a few times, is that publishers need to begin reaching out directly to consumers. On FutureBook, Amsterdam-based publishing exec Jürgen Snoeren disagrees, suggesting that in the rapidly changing publishing environment, publishers need to focus first on their core competency—producing excellent content. Snoeren points [...]

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More raids in price-fixing probe. Publishers “explain” high ebook pricing

Andrys Basten — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 00:45:44 +0000

The title should read, “…try to explain” the fixed higher-pricing of e-books. See earlier article here on the raids. The Guardian has a piece today on the raids, which includes quotes from some publishers trying to explain or defend the fixing of pricing so that prices are generally much higher and must be the same [...]

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Publishing in the social world

Joe Wikert — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:50:05 +0000

I spent most of last week at our Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. If you missed it, you’ll find all of the video for it here. I came away from it with two things in mind. First, Google is under attack from every angle. Sure, they’ve felt competitive pressures before but whether it’s from [...]

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Authors and ebook problems: expanding the net of responisbility

Rich Adin — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 13:33:35 +0000

I recently complained about production problems in two new novels I purchased in ebook form – Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings and David Weber’s Out of the Dark — both from TOR/Tom Doherty/Macmillan (see On Books: Brandon Sanderson and David Weber — 1 Up, 1 Down and The Problem Is: Publishers Don’t Read eBooks!). [...]

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Two views of the future of publishing

Chris Meadows — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 11:15:00 +0000

The Guardian’s Books Blog had a pair of interesting articles touching on the future of publishing yesterday. First, Robert McCrum talks about a recent debate on the future of publishing held by the Free Word Centre, with representatives from Google, the BBC, and publishers Faber and Canongate. (A representative from Amazon had been scheduled to [...]

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Can the publishing industry adapt to the Internet?

Chris Meadows — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:30:18 +0000

Nic Boshart, the Digital Services Coordinator at the Association of Canadian Publishers, has an interesting editorial at The Literary Platform about the Internet vs. bookstore dichotomy, and what the publishing industry can and should do to win back the public’s hearts and minds. Boshart writes of the closing of one of Toronto’s largest remaining independent [...]

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E-books cause publishers to cleave to tried-and-true authors and series

Paul Biba — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 06:21:31 +0000

That’s the title of an article in The Vancouver Sun. Serial-type books are what is attracting publishers now, the article says: With book sales stagnating in recent years, the nascent e-books market has thrown the industry into turmoil. In response, large publishers are taking fewer financial risks and betting more of their dollars on established [...]

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