Fifty Shades of Grey made a huge impact on the publishing industry — but its impact may be more lasting than you know. This genre-bending best-seller isn’t really a romance novel, but it’s been generally treated as one by the …
The American Library Association (ALA) is planning outreach activities for the next few months. In particular, we will have a policy presence at Book Expo America (BEA) this year. The Association of Authors’ Representatives is organizing a panel on ebooks …
The publishing industry is going through “atomization,” according to industry consultant and DBW partner Mike Shatzkin. He writes in his latest blog post at The Shatzkin Files: Soon — in the next 5 or 10 years — every university (perhaps …
This is Part 1 in a series on e-book distribution to schools. See Part 2 here. Digital books are triggering tectonic shifts in education. One of the most fundamental, yet seemingly invisible, shifts is happening in the back rooms of …
When you hear the term “loss leader” you think of grocery stores and discount warehouse chains. You don’t think about technology or publishing. Until now. Amazon recently announced price cuts on its Kindle Fire Tablets. The lowest priced model was slashed …
My subconscious purses her lips and mouths the word ‘‘ho.’ I ignore her. –Anastasia Steele in Fifty Shades of Grey (E.L. James) I don’t know how to answer your comment about feeling like a whore. I know that’s not what you’ve written, but it’s …
Welcome! This is an informal blog that will chronicle a book promotion for my novel The Frog Prince taking place March 14 and 15, 2013. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to read my blog “THING 3. Prostitute Your …
Today’s kids are eager to use technology, so when their school day includes digital tools, they are more apt to approach their assignments with enthusiasm. But educators who want to include digital learning tools to their classes face a few challenges. Challenge …
This past week was a busy one for Allison Dobson, vice president and digital publishing director at Random House’s new digital imprints Hydra, Alibi, Loveswept and Flirt. Hydra came under fire starting last week when the Science Fiction & Fantasy …
Indie author Marie Force debuts on the NY Times e-book bestseller list on 10 March at #6 and the combined print/e-book list at #11 with her indie-published book, “Waiting for Love,” book 8 in her popular McCarthys of Gansett Island …
In mythology, a hydra is a serpent-like beast with many heads. And when you cut one head off, it grew two more. It also had poisonous breath and acid like blood. So why would you name a publishing imprint after …
Since the summer, ebook price have been on a roller-coaster ride, lurching up and down due to competition between retailers, holiday promotions and, most notably, new contracts between major publishers and ebook retailers precipitated by U.S. Department of Justice actions. …
Customer feedback, accurate contact information, and conversion statistics are essential consumer data for publishers. Publishing insiders speaking at our Digital Book World 2013 Conference + Expo in January called out those three sorts of data as essential. Businesses and publishers …
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 …
Most people know that downloading copyrighted information without paying for it is against the law. But millions of people who are otherwise totally law-abiding have at one time or another illegally downloaded a copyrighted digital file. How serious is this problem …
Younger teachers use technology in their classrooms with more confidence than teachers aged 55 and older, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project in collaboration with the College Board and the National …
A new report released by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project shows that though digital tools are widely used throughout U.S. schools, teachers who serve the lowest income students have more difficulty using digital tools effectively. “Digital technologies …
Without quality assurance, good ebooks can be, well, useless. Recall Hachette’s formatting error last fall, which left J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy unreadable on Kindle. And, other popular titles, including Dan Simmons’s The Terror and Stardust by Neil Gaiman, have …
Lost in the debate about cannibalization, pricing, terms of access and the like between publishers and libraries is the rather basic question of how libraries can become a more significant source of revenue for trade Ebooks. One way to sell …
iPads are entering schools more rapidly than any other technology in recent years. A million iPads were sold to the K-12 market in the month of June 2012 alone. More K-12 school boards, administrators, and IT departments answering “yes” to …
Gamification is one of the hot new concepts in children’s enhanced ebooks. The general idea is simple: To get kids to eat their broccoli (i.e., read books), let’s put some cheese on it (make them fun — cheese on broccoli …
The Change Agents is an occasional series spotlighting the work of of people inside Big Publishing who are confronting disruption with creativity, and helping their respective companies adapt, adjust, innovate, and reinvent. Read the anchor post here. If you’re a publisher …
The library community has enjoyed a productive and respectful relationship with Random House and Penguin for many decades, notwithstanding the conflict over ebooks of late. They are suppliers and we are customers, of course, but they also believe in core …
Disclaimer: This is just one guy’s opinion about publishing start-ups in general. I could be wrong, of course. In addition, I don’t mean for this to be taken as a negative outlook (or positive one) for any start-up in particular. …
When the American Library Association announced its 2013 book award winners Monday at its midwinter meeting in Seattle, the Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children was awarded to This Is Not My Hat, written and …
by Beth Bacon The first three decades of the twenty-first century will go down in history as the years that changed education forever. And the transition is full of turbulence. Right now, in 2013, the United States is just about in the …
At Cool Gus Publishing, we’ve just brought on board our second NY Times Bestselling author, Jennifer Probst, in a three book deal, launching her new Posse series in November of this year. We’re very excited about this and it’s caused …
by Beth Bacon As popular as tablets are in education, netbooks are predicted to be the computing device most frequently purchased by the education market in 2013. In the coming years, however, tablets such as Apple’s iPad, are going to …
Related: What Authors Want — Understanding Authors Priorities in the Self-Publishing Era One thing I hear a lot these days is that “self-publishing” is a misnomer. The reason? There’s no way that one person can do everything necessary to properly and …
At the recent ALA Midwinter Meeting in Seattle, we talked about the idea of a national ebook club. Eric Hellman, President of Gluejar and a member of ALA’s Digital Content & Libraries Working Group, summarizes the idea in a post …
by Beth Bacon One million iPads. That’s the number of tablets Apple sold to schools and colleges in the year before the current school year. It’s roughly double the number sold in the education market during the previous year. In …
There have been some fantastic reflections of late on the emerging powerhouse that is the “hybrid author”. One of my recent favorites is Jane Friedman’s interview with CJ Lyons. Lyons discusses her experience on the fronts of traditional publishing (big …
One of the best things about launching a new business is not having to do things simply because “it’s the way they’ve always been done.” More and more, I see, both in theory and practice, the idea of community building …
