All Episodes
Looking on Bright Side of Book Business
If winter is for pessimists – all grey and cold and bleak – then summer certainly is season for sunny dispositions. In August, though, the publishing business has seemed frozen as if in mid-January. The source of the polar vortex, of course, is the ongoing slugfest...
Up Against Amazon
In the book world, telling horror stories about Amazon is a common enough way to pass the time at conferences and receptions. The details may vary, but the plot is the same –Amazon eats publishers for breakfast. What dramatically changed this summer, however, is not...
The Book Fight of the Century
In one corner: the scrappy contender whose strongest punch is a blow to his opponent’s appetite for power and profit. And in the other corner: the towering heavyweight champion who wants to pound the contender’s prices to the mat. “I think these fighters are dancing...
Bringing Up Bookworms
As foundational as it is to our lives, reading is not natural. Reading must be learned, and that means it must be taught. Whether a child enters through the printed page or a digital screen, the world of words promises rich rewards. Author of Born Reading: Bringing Up...
Escape from Amazon
It sounds like the title of a summer blockbuster movie. Trapped in the e-commerce jungle, the denizens of the book world dream of liberation, even as they while away the time weaving fantasies of an alternate universe: a place where Amazon plays nice; a place where...
Rules for the Publishing Road
According to urban legend, a fundamental rule in Italian driving states, “It doesn't matter what’s behind you.” At a time when the road ahead is shrouded by fog, does it matter what’s behind us in publishing? Writer and start-up advisor Craig Mod believes the book...
Amazon to Publishers – Spread the Wealth
We’re fighting for you. That’s what Amazon told authors this week as the public battle between the retail giant and Hachette Book Group continued. In a post on Amazon’s Kindle Forums, the Seattle company says consumers should pay less for e-books, and authors deserve...
Robots Go To Journalism School
In science fiction, robots make lightning fast calculations and have superhuman strength. From "Forbidden Planet" to "2001: A Space Odyssey," the robots of cinema have played a wide range of roles – as friends and as enemies to humankind. But of all the wonders robots...
The Wheels of the Amazon Bus Go Round
If the book business were a big yellow school bus, the driver would be a bald fellow wearing a wide grin. More even than before, Jeff Bezos and Amazon have the wheel, while publishers and authors hang on for a rough ride. In particular, speculation about the end game...
Ending World War Copyright
The creative industries – and the technology companies that carry their content – may share a common customer, but little else. Where it comes to copyright law, their differences have often flared into open war. Technology companies dream of rewriting copyright law to...
Amazon A Busy Negotiator
When Les Moonves, President and CEO of CBS Corporation, the owners of Simon & Schuster, let slip that the Big 5 house was in pricing talks with Amazon, the media world did its best to react with shock. Any expression of surprise, however, could only have been for...
Copyright and the Aereo Decision
In one corner stood the leading US television broadcast companies together; and in the other opposite corner facing them alone was Aereo, a well-funded startup company that was offering paid subscribers the ability to watch broadcast television in almost-real time...