Publishing

Our Futures in Publishing after the Digital Transition

Last week, James McQuivey, VP and Principal Analyst of Forrester Research, shared results and anecdotes from the Digital Book World/Forrester 2010 Publishing Executive Survey in a video (embedded below). The survey was about the attitudes and opinions of publishing executives regarding the digital shift in publishing. And although it revealed a great deal of enthusiasm for digital, there were some details about the transition that deserve a closer look.

The Revolution Will Be Open and Accessible!

On the trade side, we often forget that the shift to digital is affecting academic publishing as well. Recently, there’s been a lot of debate over how to handle journal publication and access to research. The business model is changing there too, as was evident during Open Access week, a global event, now in its 4th year, which promotes Open Access as a new norm in scholarship and research. I attended one of its events in Guelph that had me yearning to work on campus with academics.

Are Hardcovers Outdated?

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda is a runaway bestseller. I’ve seen it consistently rank as a top fiction title in bestseller lists for months. At first, I didn’t know much about the book, and like many I wondered how it managed to build up so much speed.

An article in The Globe and Mail on Monday tried to demystify this phenomenon.

Something for the Ladies

We in book publishing know that women make up a large majority of our market, but what do we do to cater to them? There are many ways for a publisher or bookseller to keep women in mind, but to cover them all today would be excessively long. You’re all busy people, I know. So I’ll focus specifically on packaging in this blog post.

Anthologize: Making Web-First Workflow Even Easier for Publishers

Anthologize grew out of One Week | One Tool—yes, one week—a project of the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University.

So, what’s all the fuss about? This is the extra step that’s been needed to make it extremely easy for any publisher to implement web-first workflow : all you need is WordPress and a plugin.

The Fight Over Formats: All or Nothing

Random House and the Jackal are going at it and I can’t blame them. They are fighting over some very valuable territory. We’ve all read lots about trying to claim backlist ebook rights, about the conflict of interest in becoming an agent-publisher, about single-channel exclusives being a bad idea, blah, blah, blah. This turf war has raised a bigger problem:

Does it make sense to separate ebook rights from print rights?

It doesn’t—at least not if you’re the one who only has print. Here’s why.

Give the Backlist a Chance

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. This has me thinking about backlist. We spend a lot of time talking about the future and worrying about the frontlist, but what can set a publisher apart from the rest is a profitable backlist and arguably what can set a bookseller apart from the rest is thoughtful curating of backlist titles.

Say Hello to the Copyright Modernization Act

New copyright legislation is always a big deal.  Not only does it stand to impact most of our daily lives, whether we’re loading music to listen to on the bus or trying to read a new ebook , but it is also an industry game-changer. For book publishing, a “copyright industry” that’s also trying to bridge the gap between print and digital, the current Copyright Act (unchanged since 1997) is sometimes like the little brother on crutches who can’t keep up when all we want to do is run towards the ice-cream truck (play along with me and imagine that the ice-cream truck is the exciting world of digital distribution).