In the publishing world, regime change is underway. It’s not happening in Tahrir Square or even in Times Square. The old is giving way to the new in the virtual square, and players like Ingram Content Group have declared themselves on the side of the new regime. In his role as Ingram’s Chief Content Officer, [...]
PW’s Week Ahead 02.17.12
Organized by the iconoclastic technology publishing house O’Reilly Media, the annual “Tools of Change” conference has offered a staging for what PW’s Andrew Albanese calls, “a classic clash of traditional publishing institutions and new technology.” Albanese tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally, “There was a real sense that the publishing business is now a digital first game—even [...]
BTB #280: The Tablet Generation
The world’s first generation of tablet-using children is toddling toward day care, pre-school, and kindergarten with their e-readers tucked into their backpacks. These kids and their e-book usage habits may have a great deal to tell a generation of publishers who only thought an apple was something you brought to school for the teacher. “Children [...]
PW’s Week Ahead: 02.10.12
Every spring and fall season, Publishers Weekly selects a dozen or so authors with promising debuts in fiction. It’s a rather coveted distinction—any new author, especially in fiction, fears being lost in the onslaught of the season’s titles, so to get singled out in the months leading up to their pub date can mean a [...]
BTB #279: Publishing University Arriving in San Francisco
For almost 30 years, the 3,000-member Independent Book Publishers Association has focused its efforts on the success of emerging and experienced publishers through education. For 2012, the IBPA has moved its annual Publishing University event to the West Coast and arrives at the Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf Hotel in San Francisco on March 9 for two [...]
BTB #278: Going Mobile in 2012 – Five Things To Know
The infiltration of mobile technology into every nook and cranny of our professional and personal lives is irrefutable and irreversible. Very likely, you are hearing this podcast as played through a mobile device, even while you stay current with e-mail and check the latest stocks or sports scores. And in this election year 2012, voters [...]
PW’s Week Ahead: 02.03.12
They sell books, don’t they? This week, Amazon and Barnes & Noble make news over which books they sell – and which ones they won’t. And a new entry in the fantasy genre, Rose Fox tells us, finds Hurricane Katrina unleashing magical forces as well as meteorological ones. “Ever since Amazon began expanding its publishing [...]
BTB #277: A Book Apart
If you attend a publishing conference these days, you’ll hear about curation, a critical element in publishing that puts someone else – usually an editor – in the driver’s seat, deciding what you will read. Now comes BookRiff, a Vancouver based start-up that wants to make you the creator. As CEO Rochelle Grayson tells CCC’s [...]
PW’s Week Ahead 01.27.12
Returning from ALA’s midwinter meeting, which included the annual presentations of the Caldecott and Newbery prizes, PW’s Features Editor Andrew Albanese notes the number of issues facing libraries these days —from budget stress and complex technology, to copyright and legislative issues. “But no issue has loomed larger for libraries than the lending of library e-books,” [...]
BTB #276: Publishers Face Future With Growing Concern
This morning, on opening day of the 2012 Digital Book World Conference + Expo, James L. McQuivey, Ph.D., Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, detailed a survey of publishing executives that sees declining enthusiasm about their business chances in the e-book era. “People are generally optimistic still, but that optimism is waning,” McQuivey [...]
