MP3 Audio Is the Next Big Thing. Unless It’s Audiobook Suicide. The average Los Angeles motorist now spends 136 hours per year sitting stock-still in traffic, according to the landmark Texas Transportation Institute study, and audiobook publishers are thrilled. Indeed, the apocalyptic fate of our nation’s highway infrastructure is rehearsed by audio industry brass with…Continue Reading
PT’s Savvy Commentators Ponder the Fallout from Another Year in Publishing As we surveyed the smoking turf from another twelve months in the book business, it struck us that this year’s pinnacles and pratfalls were decidedly in the eye of the beholder. We asked a number of savvy publishing personalities to offer their take on…Continue Reading
The words “disaster,” “nightmare,” and “terrifying” pop up when talk turns to the company-wide software systems that several large US publishers began to adopt in the last decade. In this article James Lichtenberg, President of consulting firm Lightspeed, LLC, finds that the dot-com boom may be over, but for some publishers, the information age is…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Two major magazine publishers announce new hires: Linda Cunningham, most recently Publisher of Questia Media, has been named Editor-in-Chief of Meredith Books in Des Moines. . . Sara Levinson has been named to the newly created position of President of the Women’s Group at Rodale. She will oversee magazines, books, and websites in this…Continue Reading
Your Guide to Cost-Cutting Without Lopping Off Heads Now that synergy’s been debunked, and good old Thomas Middelhoff has been spun off, the publishing world has settled down to the rather more prosaic task of whittling away at its already bare-bones cost structure. “It’s clear there is retrenchment,” as one public relations executive says, but…Continue Reading
The Philippine archipelago may comprise more than 7,000 tiny, tropical islands, but from Manila to Mindanao, the Southeast Asian nation speaks with virtually one voice where books are concerned — and it’s in English. With a population of 80 million, the Philippines is said to be the third-largest English-speaking country in the world (after the…Continue Reading
Look out, Moscow: there’s a new book fair on the block. That’s the word on the street, anyway, as this month’s 15th Moscow International Book Fair hits the town from September 4-9. The venerable Russian institution, expanded this year with a rights center and expected to grab record attendance atop the most recent wave of…Continue Reading
