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...
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 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...
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” For book publishing, those lines ring true in any era, but especially our own. Books today compete against a wide spectrum of entertainment, and the time we have to devote to reading is under more pressure than...
Even as librarians rewrite the definition of what makes for a library in the 21st century, they are also redrafting their job descriptions. Along with the academic degrees and professional training, librarians in 2015 should know how to party—at least if they choose...
In publishing circles, the best friend a book can have is someone who will talk about it – a bookseller, for instance, as well as a member of the media. With newspapers giving up on book reviews, television and radio hosts have taken up the slack – much to the relief...
Europeans love their bookstores, and European legislators help to keep it that way with laws across several countries that equalize the cost of print and digital editions. While one result of such legal price-fixing is that physical bookstores will survive,...
Asheville, North Carolina – renowned for its arts community and often cited as one of the happiest places in the US – welcomes five hundred booksellers and a record number of publishers and their authors early next week for the 10th anniversary of the American...
Politics makes for heated conversations. Any warmth will be welcome in Chicago in late January, though, where the American Library Association is holding its annual Midwinter Meeting. There, the race for ALA President is underway and promising to be generate...
In this week’s State of the Union address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, President Barack Obama promoted the value of education and entrepreneurship as well as pledged a response to global warming. But a major plank in the speech specifically singled out a...
