Lest you think that last month’s announcement of Amazon’s new heavy-hitting team of Kindles means it has a monopoly on the market, Kobo has come out swinging with the news of its Vox tablet. Playing up the more social aspects of the ereader, Vox offers social media features that make sharing while reading all the [...]

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A new horse entered the e-reader race this past month, creating intrigue, though not a lot of fear, among its competitors. The iRiver Story represents the first e-reader that is integrated with Google eBooks, which gives it a bit of clout. But while the iRiver Story’s HD display with eInk technology helps ranks its screen [...]

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“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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Distribution 2009

Laura Hazard Owen | June 2009

Though nobody’s immune to the bad economy, distributors haven’t taken as much of a hit as other groups in publishing this year. “It’s easier in this economy to be working with a large distribution group,” says Eugenia Pakalik, Director of Sales and Marketing Distribution Services at Norton. The ideal IPM client, says Jane Graf, Director [...]

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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 [...]

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Whether it is the best of times for the publishing industry, or the times that try publishers’ souls, depends on whom you ask, and of course, what you really want to know. But there’s little doubt that these are the best of times for anyone who wants his or her oeuvre to be published. The [...]

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The New Guard

December 2006

Publishers Saunter Into the Online World of Books to Movie Tie-In Marketing EMarketer estimates that by the end of this year, spending for online video advertising will increase by 82.2% to $410 million. Something of a wunderkind in 2006, online video has received an enormous amount of press lately – most notably due to YouTube [...]

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There may have been no mega-hit property at this year’s Licensing 2002 International show — notwithstanding the media hootenanny over Lemony Snicket — but even in this somewhat gun-shy climate, which saw licensing industry retail sales dip 4% last year, deals were being dialed up at the Javits Center on June 11-13. First in line, [...]

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Heads Up, Frankfurt

October 2001

Fortunately, just a few cancellations have affected this month’s Frankfurt Book Fair — as publishers rethink travel plans in the wake of September 11 — leaving most everyone’s Palm Pilots overbooked in typical fashion with meetings and soirées. To help liven up those long Buchmesse trudges, PT’s advance foreign rights team has rounded up a [...]

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