News and opinion on the changing world of book publishing
Cindy Peng | August 2010
In this age of undead Bennets and robo-Karenina, a different kind of mash-up is on the literary horizon: cross-vertical social media. Startups like GetGlue, LivingSocial, and Blippr are all-in-one social media hubs for a user’s complete entertainment discussion needs: books, films, TV shows, music, even beer and wine. Cross-vertical referrals match books with films or [...]
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Laura Hazard Owen | July 2010
The 3 million iPads sold as of June were a major topic of discussion at two conferences this month: The Big Money’s Untethered 2010: Profitable Media in the Tablet Era, and the Digital Publishing and Advertising Conference. Untethered was aimed more directly at book publishers, and its “Future of Book Publishing” panel included publishing head [...]
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July 2010
PEOPLE Jonathan Karp is now settled in as EVP and Publisher of the Simon & Schuster trade imprint. Karp, who succeeds David Rosenthal, came from Twelve, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group that he founded in 2005. A new Publisher for Twelve is actively being recruited. Isabel Swift, who was Editor Emeritus at Harlequin, [...]
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May 2010
Take a look at BookScan’s bestselling juvenile titles for the week ending April 25: an astounding 73% were titles from one of several series. But these are not your Baby-Sitters’ Club of yesteryear: “Harry Potter turned the whole paperback series notion on its head,” says Megan Tingley, SVP, Publisher, Little Brown Books for Young Readers. [...]
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Laura Hazard Owen | March 2010
“If you don’t eat your own children, someone else will”: That’s how Michael Mace, Principal of the Silicon Valley–based Rubicon Consulting, began his presentation, “Check Out My Scars: Seven Lessons from the Failure of E-Books in 2000, and What They Mean to the Future of Electronic Publishing,” at the 2010 O’Reilly Tools of Change for [...]
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February 2010
People Roundup Lots of movement at Barnes & Noble: Liz Scheier has joined Barnes & Noble.com as Editorial Director, working with publishers to create “unique, exclusive content digital opportunities throughout our digital distribution platforms, including in store programs” and reporting to Theresa Horner, VP Digital Products. She was most recently Director of Publishing Relations at [...]
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January 2010
Peter Hildick-Smith is Founder and President of the Codex Group. 2009 will be remembered as the beginning of the digital tipping point for book publishing, the year our industry took its turn as the last of the major media to enter the digital transition, following in the highly challenged footsteps of the music, newspaper, magazine, [...]
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Laura Hazard Owen | December 2009
“I don’t know why, but there are often naked persons in French comics,” said Sylvain Coissard of the Sylvain Coissard Agency. He was one of the panelists at the French Publishers’ Agency’s “From Bande Dessinée to Graphic Novel: Drawing Two Traditions Together,” which took place in November at NYU’s Maison Française. Coissard was speaking about [...]
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September 2009
PEOPLE ROUNDUP As summer wanes, change remains the constant: Former Simon & Schuster President of Sales and Distribution Larry Norton has joined Borders as SVP, Merchandising and Distribution, reporting to EVP Anne Kubek. Norton will lead the merchandising team and will work out of his Connecticut home. Earlier it was announced that Dave Marsico has [...]
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August 2009
PEOPLE ROUNDUP Rodale CEO Steve Murphy is leaving the company and will be replaced by Maria Rodale, who also continues in her role as Chairman of the Board. Don Linn, SVP and Publisher of the Taunton Press, is leaving to launch a digital publishing house, Quartet Press. Linn will have principal responsibility for Quartet Press’ [...]
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