Tag Archives: Microsoft

Thrilling Ebook Sales? Mirabile Dictu

Like most publishers’ ebook expectations in this deflated era of digital publishing, Seven Stories Press had fairly unspectacular ones. They dutifully digitized their files. They hung out their e-shingle. They even wrangled a way to sell ebooks directly from their site. And the results trickled in. “Tiny” is the word one executive used. Even Noam…Continue Reading

Tablet PC: The Ebook Savior?

It was not so long ago — well, 2000, actually — that the age of ebooks ascended upon us, an era that would, as the AAP and Andersen Consulting then dreamily proclaimed, be “a significant opportunity” for the book biz, devouring almost 10% of the total consumer publishing market by 2005 and bloating into “total…Continue Reading

The Undead E-Book

Ebooks are: (a) dead (b) undead (c) other. If you answered “all of the above,” you are more correct than you know. As spring turns to summer, not just the trees but oddly enough ebooks — through whose black heart the New York Times drove a stake last fall — are sprouting. Palm, which has…Continue Reading

Sealing Up Digital Rights

Now that a flock of formerly high-flying technology vendors has gone down in flames (Reciprocal and Digital Goods: remember them?), it may seem odd that a 50-person business based in London should be winging toward the publishing sector. But that’s just what SealedMedia is doing, having scored $16.5 million in a third round of funding…Continue Reading

Book View, April 2002

PEOPLE Laurie Brown is leaving FSG, where she was SVP, Director Sales & Marketing. Her duties will be assumed by Jeff Seroy and Linda Rosenberg. . . Gary Gentel has been named VP Sales, Trade Division at Scholastic. He was most recently with Dorling Kindersley. . . John Schline has been made SVP, Corporate Director…Continue Reading

The Seybold Scuffle

As panelists brandished tablet-sized, next-generation Nokias (“wireless ebooks will be a reality in 2002,” one e-prophet intoned) and others dusted off vintage ’90s web nostrums (“go where the traffic is”), there was also some refreshing digital realism on hand for the Seybold Seminars at the Javits Center on February 21. While much time was spent…Continue Reading

Book View, April 2001

PEOPLE Gene Brissie, previously Editor in Chief at Prentice Hall Trade Publishing, has left to become a partner with Bert Holtje in the James Peter Associates Literary Agency. . . . Some changes in the S&S group: BJ Gabriel has been named VP National Accounts, with responsibility for sales of all S&S products, including adult…Continue Reading

The E-Publishing Dealscape 2000

This was supposed to have been the year of the e-book, though judging from the hype and early sales, it might be safer to call it the year of the book, period. After scanning the evolving e-publishing landscape, PT’s panel of industry experts has selected the most interesting electronic publishing events of 2000, offered herewith…Continue Reading

Digital Reference, En Garde!

“The one thing we know is that information is now ever-present and therefore, in a sense, valueless,” says Kemp Battle, partner in the investment and consulting firm Tucker Capital. And that explains in a nutshell the challenges currently wracking the boardrooms of the world’s reference publishers, who, with their multi-volume encyclopedias and high-price-point dictionaries, are…Continue Reading

A View from the Bridge: Notes from the New-Media Database

As part of a continuing effort to chart the ripples of the industry’s sea change, PT has conducted an informal survey of more than 150 new-media companies that are staking claim to traditional publishing territory. We’ll have more to report from our research in the coming months, but first, here’s a brief snapshot of the…Continue Reading