Across the publishing industry, all the players are proudly declaring independence. Authors have cut ties with publishers and agents and found success in more than “50 shades.” Determined to survive in their brick-and-mortar forms, “indie” booksellers are fighting for...
Courtrooms, like football fields, are stages for transformation. At times, opposing sides clash over principle. Otherwise, they fight for profit. There are good guys, and there are bad guys, umpires, and cheerleaders. At the conclusion of such contests, we hardly...
In a famous case, Sherlock Holmes seemed to meet his demise. Yet the character survives, and for a detective 126 years old, he manages rather well to this day in part because of an apparent quirk in copyright law. One scholar, though, wants to put an end to Holmes as...
Last month, the Federal Trade Commission declined to take up antitrust charges against Google. The decision disappointed not only Google’s competitors, who charge the Internet search giant with monopolistic practices, but also consumer advocates who say that its...
At the Tools of Change conference for 2013, to paraphrase William Gibson, the future is already here – and it was pretty evenly distributed among the many panels and workshops. Publishers and their technology vendors were focused this week on conversion and...
Across all types of media, the onslaught of digital disruption typically prompts a defensive reaction. Publishers struggle to maintain their legacy business models, even as they must build out new models that are sustainable and scalable. The digital challenge is...
Publishers and authors who want to sell their books in the Digital Age need to learn a new language: Metadata. It sounds like a computer language, and in a way it is, but metadata is much more. It’s as old as the ancient library of Alexandria, Egypt, and as new as the...
It’s the Tao of Publishing in the Digital Age – the way to success flows from reconciling the combating forces of destruction and renewal. Put another way, satori is possible in a world of both clicks and mortar. James McQuivey, vice-president and senior analyst...
As infinite in variety as cooking itself, cookbooks touch on every aspect of the culinary arts. Cookbooks are simultaneously reference works; do-it-yourself manuals; and cultural Bibles. More than merely recipe collections, the most successful are literary and artful....
The Super Bowl it’s not – librarians and publishers clashing over e-book lending policies may never attract million-dollar advertising packages or superstar singing acts. But at the American Libraries Association midwinter meeting this week in Seattle, the contest...
