There have been two great and thought-provoking and much commented articles recently on the subject of new book discovery: 1. Discovery is Publishers’ Problem; Reader are Doing Just Fine by Guy Lecharles Gonzales 2. Is the Book Discovery Bubble Ready …

I am always a bit skeptical about consumer surveys, because they paint too rosy a picture. Consumers are more likely to state that they might buy something at a certain price when asked versus when they have to part with …

Some thoughts from the UK on the Penguin-Random House merger: – Random House Penguin can also be abbreviated to “Ruin” (credit to Ben Evans, a media and telecomm analyst from Enders Analysis for that one) – MacMillan + Hachette = …

Oyster, a start-up from New York announced earlier this week that it had raised $3 million from blue-chip venture-capital investors to create a “Spotify for ebooks”. The book industry took notice and some commentary was quite negative, as in “how …

It’s not true that all publishers don’t like working with start-ups, but as the founder of one such start-up in the publishing world, Jellybooks, I can tell you firsthand that what might seem like a home-run partnership doesn’t always come …

Like most Londoners I spend a lot of time on the London Underground or “tube” as it’s affectionately known (“metro” or “subway” to most Americans). In fact most Londoners spend 30-60 minutes each way commuting to work by tube. Digital …

Madeline McIntosh, COO of Random House (US) provided many interesting insights at the IDPF conference, organized by Bill McCoy during BEA12, but there were two comments that really stood out: 1. What is the goal of removing DRM? What would …

I was reading a great article by Joel Gascoigne on the “Happiness Advantage” at and this brought to mind how Amazon out-competes publishers and other book retailers (no matter what you think about devices and DRM). Joel cites a great …

At Jellybooks, a start-up focused on exploring, sampling and sharing books, we are always thinking about how readers discover and share new books. Recently, I had an online debate with others around the question “what is discoverability?” Here some personal …

First a bit of background: The DRM technology used outside Apple and Amazon is Adobe Content Server (ACS), currently in version 4.1. This DRM technology is used by Barnes & Noble, Kobo (but not in all scenarios, i.e. not for …

Last week’s Pew study on e-reading gave publishers some hope that consumers might be ready for enhanced e-books. I’m not so sure. If the enhanced e-book is the future, then why is (almost) every enhanced e-book start-up either bankrupt, struggling …

What could the actions of the Department of Justice mean for e-books? Here’s a breakdown with some scenarios as I understand the situation.   Apple’s Agency Model Publishers selling through Apple can only do so through an agency agreement (a …

Some have discussed how Amazon has been disintermediating publishers with its various initiatives. What we witnessed today was the biggest disintermediation ever. We are now seeing an author selling direct to readers without being locked out from the world’s major …