You could call them secret shoppers. Like the plainclothes informants who check out department stores for a lapse in customer service, publishers who slip on authors’ shoes return from their writing experience armed with anecdotes and tips that market research can’t devine. What many intelligencers see shocks them. Even thirty-year publishing veterans see their industry [...]

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Watch Your Backlist

November 2005

Publishers and Booksellers Re-Assess Their Backlists, Stocking Deeper, While Printing Less, Plus: Looking Beyond the Shelf Backlist has always been a cash cow for those willing to milk it. Publishers have long tried enticing booksellers with annual promotions, Buy-Now-Pay-Later deals, Just In Time Inventory and the like – all with the hope of boosting their [...]

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Used Blues

July 2004

Used Books Become Newer Every Day, To Many Publishers’ Dismay Days before Bill Clinton’s My Life went on sale last month, a handful of shrewd and Internet-savvy book buyers were auctioning off their copies of this “rare” edition on eBay – and promising to ship the book the day it hit store shelves. That number [...]

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iPod Nation

April 2004

Sleek, Digital Audio Players Could Be ‘Cable TV for Books’ The book-on-tape is a dying breed. But another analog-era ending is no tear-jerker for the audiobook industry, according to publishers and retailers who are witnessing an array of new audio formats such as MP3 CDs, digital downloads, and even satellite radio feeds that are swiftly [...]

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Book View, February 2002

February 2002

PEOPLE Steve Parr has been named CEO of Abrams, following the departure of Mark Magowan and Alan Rutsky (along with two dozen others) at the end of the year. He was most recently with Emap. . . . After 14 years at Harcourt, Louise Pelan, VP and Publisher of Children’s Books, is taking early retirement [...]

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