The Machine, the Reader and the Community

Feb 2, 2014 | Events

In a discussion on new directions in publishing technology for CCC’s RightsLink Forum, a panel of experts observed that “the machine is the new reader” and they considered the implications for their businesses. “We’re seeing the dawn of the age [when] people really...

Lending E-Books Gets Going

Jan 31, 2014 | News

The digital revolution in publishing doesn’t play favorites. When it comes to e-books, change has come for author, publishers and libraries alike. Once upon a time, libraries were about access to books – period – and in that line of work, they held a monopoly....

Examining New Business Models

Jan 26, 2014 | Events, News

Until very recently, the core business model of publishing was in a steady state. Indeed, it was so for a couple of hundred years – Publishers acquired copyrights, sometime risking cash to do so by paying in advance; they printed books; and they sold them. Yet in...

BookCon Comes To BookExpo

Jan 24, 2014 | News

As bookstores face up to the challenge of digital distribution, book publishers are conceding that so-called sales to “the trade” are giving way to a straight-to-consumer pitch. For booksellers, a response is to use digital to their advantage. At BookExpo America, the...

Publishing’s New World

Jan 19, 2014 | Podcasts

In scholarly publishing, adoption of an Open Access business model entirely redraws the map. All at once, customer service for authors swells from a tiny island to continental proportions. Rivers of subscription revenue may run dry, but they are replaced with...

Print Fights On, Lives Another Day

Jan 17, 2014 | News

The Digital Book World Conference marked its fifth anniversary this week. With the selection of Jeff Bezos biographer Brad Stone as a featured speaker, show organizer Mike Shatzkin made plain the central role of Amazon in today’s book world – digital or otherwise....

Best of BTB: India’s Publishing Show Is Globalocal

Jan 12, 2014 | Best of VOC, International

With the seventh-largest national book publishing industry on earth, India annually produces nearly 100,000 books – its English-language book production places third, only behind the US and the UK. In New Delhi this coming February, the German Book Office’s...

Barnes & Noble Has New CEO

Jan 10, 2014 | News

The door has opened on a new year – and for Barnes & Noble, the understandable preference is not to look back but to look ahead. In a week that saw B&N’s one-time flagship store shuttered in Manhattan’s Flatiron District, there was much news from the retail...

The New Editors

Jan 5, 2014 | Podcasts

What is an editor? That question, posed at a roundtable discussion at the recent PubWest Conference in Santa Fe, elicited surprising new answers. In the digital age of publishing, the job description for “editor” is shifting, morphing, and growing larger, agreed...

Best of BTB: New World of Books

Dec 29, 2013 | Best of VOC, Events, News

The arrival of the iPad in 2010 is hailed as the dawn of the “tablet era.” It’s also the genesis of a federal price-fixing lawsuit that has entangled Apple, and many of the country’s largest book publishers. That case, and its aftermath, holds serious implications for...