A challenging economic situation. Cover prices up; consumer spending habits down. Consolidation of distributors; retailers flexing muscles. Traditional media expensive and fragmented; new media baffling and unproven. Add a new political administration on the horizon, natural disasters creating additional uncertainty, and domestic terrorism threats dominating the news. Ask yourself: is this the environment to inspire…Continue Reading
It’s over, tape worms. Audio Renaissance published its last cassette this year: Janet Evanovich’s Lean Mean Thirteen. Random House Audio reports a format breakdown of 85% CDs and 15% digital downloads, with tape sales negligible. Retailers don’t sell cassettes, duplicators don’t duplicate them, and publishers don’t produce them anymore. Audible.com, often considered the benchmark of…Continue Reading
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Tagged Ana Maria Allessi, Association for Downloadable Media, Audible.com, Audio Publisher Association Conference, Audio Publishers Association, Audio Renaissance, Backstories: Tales from Behind the Mike, Beth Anderson, David Sedaris, Detroit News, Dickens, Don't Know Much About History, Griffin Technology, HarperCollins, HarperMedia, Harris Interactive, iAmplify.com, iTunes, Janet Evanovich, Lean Mean Thirteen, Louis L'Amour, Madeline McIntosh, Mary Beth Roche, Michele Cobb, Moby Dick, Murray Hidary, NPR, Penguin, Random House Audio, Siemens, Sony Reader, Steve Jobs, The Secret, This I Believe, TuneFlex, Ward's Auto Interiors Show
“Intellectual Bestseller” may sound like a contradiction in terms for the U.S. book market, but Russia’s literary tradition of complex allegory and existential musing is still going strong. Cheap romance novels and Lord of the Rings knockoffs haven’t faltered (whatever happened to censorship?) – but Russian book prizes are what make or break many of…Continue Reading
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Tagged Aleksander Troitsky, Alexei Ivanov, Amphora, Arkady Babchenko, Big Book Award, Boris Pasternak, Cheap Porn, Daniel Stein, Danielle Steel, Dmitri Glukovsky, Dmitry Bykov, Elena Kostioukovitch, Gallimard, GLAS, Goumen & Smirnova, Grove Atlantic, Harper's Bazaar, Houghton Mifflin, How Putin Became President of the U.S.A: New Russian Stories, I Love You, Ilya Boiashov, International Rossica Translation Prize, Julia Goumen, Lena Koposova, Lenin, Limbus Press, Linda Michaels, Liudmila Ulitskaya, Lord of the Rings, Metro 3033, Natasha Perova, National Bestseller, Neither Do I, Nina Lugovskaya, Northwestern University Press, NYRB, One Soldier's War in Chechnya, Popularnaya Literatura, Seven Stories, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Sonya Adler, The Diary of a Soviet Schoolgirl, Times Literary Supplement, Way of Murrie, William S. Burroughs
During summer’s first month, the much debated future of publishing was, well, debated some more at venues across the country. The much-reported O’Reilly Tools of Change conference in San Jose, featured an array of stellar presentations running the gamut from “the book is dead,” to “the book is gloriously alive!” Back east, software producer Klopotek…Continue Reading
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Tagged Adobe, ALA, Coca Cola, Dane Neller, David Lipsey, Digital Asset Delivery, Disney, Espresso Book Machine, Google, HarperCollins, Jason Epstein, Kevin Flannery, Klopotek, Marianne Nebel, Maricopa County, Mechanism for Unlimited Metadata, Mercedes Benz, Mitch Grossman, New York Public Library, Norton, O'Reilly Tools of Change, On Demand Books, Pearson, Random House, SAP, Science Industry and Business Library, Vince Benenati
Imagine attending the Direct Marketing Days NY conference at Javits, and finding out that the thumping music, whirling characters and international crowd are there for Licensing Show, not the lettershops and list brokers. But whatever DMD Days doesn’t have, it can claim to have a corner on e-commerce. This was not always so: for years,…Continue Reading
International buzz is building over Mizé, the Portuguese novel by Ricardo Adolfo that appeared last year from Dom Quixote. Berlin Verlag recently nabbed German rights and in a hush hush deal, film rights were just sold to a major film company, so far nameless. Rumor has it the location will be changed from Lisbon to…Continue Reading
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Tagged Alexandria Cavelius, Antonia Kerrigan Agency, Bengt Nordin, Berlin Verlag, Bernat Fiol, Bridget Jones's Diary, Call Me Princess, David Safier, Dom Quixote, Gesche Wendebourg, Gimmyoung, Just One Life, Kristina Krombholz, Lousy Karma, Mize, Nobel Peace Prize, Rafto Prize, Rebiya Kadeer, Ricardo Adolfo, Rowohlt, Sara Blaedel, The Stormer of the Sky
It’s July and publishing folk the world over have settled back down now that the spring trifecta of book fairs—London, Bologna, BEA—has passed. The jury’s still out on which one––including Frankfurt of course––wins the rights race, and, as usual, there’s been plenty of speculation. But as big book fair chatter continues, another conversation is ramping…Continue Reading
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Tagged Abu Dhabi, Alexandre Vasconcelos, Anjali Singh, BEA, Bengt Nordin, Birgitta Jacobsson Ekblom, Bloomsbury, Caderno, Cairo International Book Fair, Donadio & Olson, Farley Chase, Festa Literaria Internacional de Parati, French Embassy, French-American Foundation, German Bo, Goteborg, Grove Atlantic, Houghton Mifflin, Ira Silverberg, Lance Fensterman, Liz Calder, Mark Linz, Morgan Entrekin, Naguib Mahfouz, Patrick Nolan, Penguin, Peter McGuigan, Rudiger Wischenbart, Sharjah, Terra di Libri: Books of the Lands of the World, The American University in Cairo Press, Thomas Minkus, Turin Bookfair, Umberto Eco, Waxman Agency
Welcome to America would have made an appropriate slogan for this year’s annual Licensing Show at New York’s Javits Center. The 27th edition proved to be bigger, badder and more overwhelming than the last: complete with a free thong giveaway, real live penguins and Disney characters galore, exhibitors went to extremes to get their brand…Continue Reading
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Tagged Andy Mooney, Big Tent, Bonnie Bryant, Charles Riotto, Chorion, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Discovery Kids, Disney, Emily Strange, Eric Carle, Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg, Gail Carson Levine, Happy Bunny, Harvard, International Licensing Merchandiser's Association, Javits Center, Jim Benton, Judi Barrett, Licensing Show, Linda Lovelace, Little Miss, Miffy and Friends, Mister Men, Olivia, Ordeal, Random House, Rizzoli, Roger Hargreaves, Saddle Club, Sony, UglyDolls, Very Hungry Caterpillar, Yale
The distribution terrain underwent a few sizeable rumbles last year, not to mention the major quake of the AMS bankruptcy that sent PGW flying to Perseus after a tussle with NBN, resulting in Perseus’ coopting of the indie publisher distribution biz. As the dust settles, smaller distributors are poised to grab the trickle down of…Continue Reading
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Tagged Action Philosophers, Amber Allen, AMS, Antique Collectors' Club, Avalon, Berrett-Kohler, Biblio, BISG, Chris Hart, Chronicle, Consortium, Dan Farrell, David Steinberger, Davida Breier, Disney, Donnelley, Eric Kampmann, Eric Kettunen, HarperCollins, Hay House, Hudson Hills Press, Hyperion, Ingram, IPG, Julie Schaper, Karen Cross, Mark Suchomel, Midpoint, NBN, Perseus, PGW, Random House, Susan Reich, Trafalgar Square, Weinstein Co., Zenoscope
Six-hundred year-old businesses are not rolling stones. Moss gathers. And in book publishing, no stone has thicker moss than the one representing the complex pathway that every single book follows as it moves from printer and manufacturer to ultimate consumer. (And, unfortunately, sometimes back again.) While a picture may be worth the proverbial thousand words,…Continue Reading
