All Episodes
Indie Publishing: Who Holds the Power?
Once upon a time, authors and publishers – along with readers and booksellers – knew their separate places in the book world, and stuck to them. The distribution of power was uneven, maybe even unfair, but the pecking order seemed to make sense. Then, the revolution...
The Case For Libraries
Publishers bemoan the dwindling of retail space, but they could just be looking in the wrong place for shelves to display their titles. An abundant supply of shelfspace exists in the 16,000 public library branches in America, according to David Vinjamuri who teaches...
On Double Duty: Open Standards & Open Access
In laboratories and universities, Open Access can make for a two-headed menace. Funding mandates for publishers and authors that require Open Access policies feed one head of this double dragon. Compliance reporting obligations for institutions feed the other. “We...
Rights On The Money
In the book world, the shoeboxes are legendary. They are where so many authors’ contracts and other legal instruments often ended up – an ad hoc filing system that worked reliably well, at least in the days before digital. Rights and permissions staff long struggled...
Amazon V. Books, Round 2
In one corner, the publisher – a world champion, and over nearly two centuries of existence, the original house for Mark Twain, the Bronte Sisters, and Agatha Christie, among many others. In the other corner, the online Leviathan that dominates the digital...
Best of BTB: They Know What You Read
Earlier this month, Rakuten -- Japan’s e-commerce giant, akin to Amazon in the US – announced it would acquire Cleveland-based Overdrive, a supplier of digital content to libraries. In January at the Digital Book World Conference, Overdrive’s David Burleigh and Kobo’s...
Book Buying By The Numbers
What’s black and white and read all over? A survey of consumer book-buying habit just out from the Nielsen Market Research. This week, the book world began poring over the findings, covering everything from shares of print and digital sales, to preferences for digital...
IBPA Pub-U Is On A Mission
Once upon a time, authors and publishers, along with readers and booksellers, knew their separate places in the book world and they stuck to them. The distribution of power was uneven, maybe even unfair, but the pecking order seemed to make sense. Once upon a time is...
Salinger And the Public Domain
The legal definition of “public domain” is property that is available or accessible to the public, such as a National Park. In copyright, “P.D.” refers to inventions, writings, recordings or photographs not protected by intellectual property law. Often enough, the...
The Shape Of User Demand
Along what once was called the information superhighway, platforms and technologies are the vehicles and the roads. These together require smooth-running traffic patterns. Just as railroads run alongside rivers, and thoroughfares line up with but never cross airport...
Book Business On A Trampoline
The business of books has more ups and downs than a kangaroo on a trampoline. This week, the Association of American Publishers StatShot program released final numbers for reported sales in 2014; Barnes & Noble also reported its third quarter earnings. The figures...
Publishers Forum “Reconstructing Publishing”
For reasons both challenging and exciting, the digital transformation of the book industry has closed the spaces separating competitors and colleagues across the spectrum of media. Indeed, the annual Publishers Forum bears a name that somewhat obscures its ambitions....