June 2010
5 posts
5 tags
Richard Nash weighs in on publishing's identity,...
OK, so it wasn’t in fact tomorrow when I supplied my discussion of what a two-sided marketplace entails. As we all know, executing plans takes priority over talking about them, so some plans had to be executed, sorry for the hold-up!
It in fact proved to be a useful little gap, in that during the intervening time, two very interesting items appeared on the Internets. The first exemplifies the...
5 tags
Declaration of rights: The author lays his cards...
Publishing is the last genteel media business. How can you tell? It’s in the contracts.
Outside of adaptation sales, most authors will never see a half-inch thick set of the onerous, even punitive, terms that are the norm in film or music production. My first contract with a small Canadian press was three pages. One day, not long after signing, my dog literally ate it. The publisher gladly sent...
5 tags
Richard Nash weighs in on publishing's identity,...
Odd as it sounds, let’s perhaps avoid making this print vs digital conversation. Though the transition to digital methods of creation, transformation, distribution and consumption of media is not at all a red herring, it is also not always the best lens through which to look at the changes in producer and consumer behavior. For one, the digital transformation of publishing is now already...
5 tags
Publishng: Thoughts on Transparency,...
During the team’s last conference call, we were talking about transparency—about how much of the backstage business of our publishing venture should be carried out in public. Should the process of this book coming together be, in effect, a reality show? At some point I blurted out, “I mean, does anybody really give a shit about this stuff?”
This got a laugh, but I should...
9 tags
Is this a crisis of identity or an identity...
The three most significant conversations that I had during and/or leading up to BEA this year were:
First, about strategy. And, more specifically, about the gaming industry and how they’ve moved (or are in the process of shifting) from charging everyone for software to giving out software for free, then using their now wired consoles to glean data about usage. As people try out a new...
May 2010
8 posts
2 tags
Publishd
How to Navigate The Confusing Digital Book Landscape by Sarah Weinman at Daily Finance
Let’s Try Un-Remarkable by Don Linn at Bait ‘n’ Beer
What Web Media Can Learn from Print by Bud Parr at Reading and Writing in The Age of Sand
Richard Nash on a new business model for Publishing at The Literary Platform
Richard Nash advocates death of copyright at Mobylives
5 tags
Publishng: Ami Greko on PR and Marketing
PR campaigns for books are getting complicated.
The main goal is the same as it ever was: to sell books. What’s becoming painfully clear is that we don’t exactly know what coverage it is that does that.
To all of the talented publicists out there who just yelled, NPR! The New York Times! Good Morning America!, and all the authors who started yelling, Oprah!—I know. These are...
5 tags
Experiential Reading by Sarah Jae-Jones
I may or may not be one of the few optimistic people left in the industry who is optimistic about the future of publishing. Perhaps this is a function of someone green enough to be hopeful or perhaps it’s the function of being incredibly shortsighted. Regardless, I’m someone who believes that the general desire for long-form fiction and nonfiction will overcome whatever format (e, print, some...
4 tags
Publishng: Meet our Author, Brian Joseph Davis
On Being Publishd by Brian Joseph Davis
When I first met Publishr team member Ami Greko, I had just finished doing a reading from the pastry counter of McNally Jackson in New York. The reason I was perched above a Plexiglas display full of tarts was that my laptop’s audio-out line was not long enough to reach the bookstore’s PA system from the podium. The situation was kind of Kraftwerk meets...
8 tags
Overlapping Blueprints: A multi-layered approach...
In a recent webinar organized by OCLC, Laura Dawson presented a very simple, yet essential definition of metadata: “Metadata is data about data.” In this equation, the latter ‘data’ refers specifically to the content of a pBook or eBook. The former ‘data’ is a collection of certain pieces of information about the content that we use to categorize, place, shelve,...
2 tags
Publishd
The changing role of marketing in a consumer-driven world at O’Reilly
Why is Google Going into Bookselling? at The Big Money
Scribd begins conversion from Flash to HTML5 at TeleRead
Where Marketing, Mission, and Marajuana Meet by Kate Rados at Huffington Post
The Lazy Medium: How people really watch television at The Economist
6 tags
Publishng: Thoughts on transparency and an agenda
This week, as the project continues to evolve, I’ve been thinking a lot of about transparency. What types of things are appropriate to talk about? What things are off limits? Is transparency a singular notion in the heads of many, or is there some universal accepted definition?
In the end, I do believe that each of us is comfortable with sharing at different levels. All this to say, there...
4 tags
Mountains of Data by P. Bradley Robb
Touch a word and gain real-time, global context - that’s the promise of the connected, next-generation eBook. That promise highlights major difference between print and digital books. The advance isn’t in the file format, but rather the level of access, the malleability of a story, the interconnectedness of everything. And the means to achieve that future isn’t through...
April 2010
13 posts
2 tags
Publishd
Digital revolution is not the death-knell for traditional publishing at Quill and Quire
Making literature great at Magellan Media Blog
eBooks and The Downfall of Literature: The Great Debate - Round I at An American Editor (See also subsequent posts on topic)
McGraw Hill Professional Adds Custom eBooks at Publishers Weekly
What Publishers Today Can Learn From Allen Lane: Fearlessness at...
3 tags
Publishng: The Team
It’s with great pride and happiness that we come to the time to finally announce the team who will be working on our Publishng project. I thought a lot about who would be on the team, and how we would all contribute. I also thought hard about how to announce who was contributing to this project. In the end, it came down to transparency. I have not emailed anyone about this. I have not...
8 tags
The Proverbial Sex Reassignment Surgery: what this...
Forget the words “print” and “digital” even exist. Now, what is the transition in publishing really about? Publishing is, and has been for many years, a B-to-B business. In fact, the walls of the publishing house have traditionally been closed off to anyone without an in. On one end, we have agents who work as buffers to the outside world, so we are not required to...
2 tags
Publishd
Transmedia Requires New Breed of Writers, Publishers at DigitalBookWorld
Publish or Perish at The New Yorker
The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta Needs a Calculator, not an E-book Reader at bnet
Michael Tamblyn: Lessons Learned from Shortcovers and Kobo at Blip.tv
Will eBooks Be the Downfall of Literature? at An American Editor
1 tag
Publishng
Today is calm for Publishng. In fact, today is the last calm day for Publishng.
Right now:
The dream team is assembling. Details on this starting next Thursday.
I’ve been working hard on identifying author/project.
We’re about to kick this project into high gear.
Check back next Thursday to kick off the Publishng project.
6 tags
Rethinking the Marketing Mix: Metadata as...
During this past ISBN Hour on Twitter (every Friday at noon Eastern), I was discussing the use of metadata as SEO. Along with Andy Weissberg at Bowker, I’d just given a presentation about this subject at Digital Book World’s Digitize Your Career editorial and marketing forum, and I was digesting what we’d discussed for those who couldn’t be there.
And one publisher asked me if I felt that a good...
2 tags
Publishd
#Failure by Dan Wagstaff at The Casual Optimist
Response to above: The Internet as Relief Valve at Ditchwalk
Why Publishers’ Brands Matter at The Scholarly Kitchen
See in all directions by Brian O’Leary at The Magellan Media Blog
HTML5 for Publishers by Keith Fahlgren at Threepress Consulting Blog
1 tag
Publishng
First and foremost, I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has expressed support for Publishr and our eBook project. There has been much attention paid to this project and many people have expressed interest in contributing. I am certain that with the many talented people who are going to contribute to this project, we are truly going to create something in which we can take incredible...
7 tags
What an eBookstore could (and should) be: Data...
Direct-to-consumer sales is something publishers have never done right. Most publishers’ websites provide an inferior user-experience as an eCommerce tool through either substandard platforms or not understanding how to sell books to readers. Amazon’s pricing matrix undercuts almost every publisher who sold their books online at full retail price, so what would entice a consumer to buy...
2 tags
Publishd
Publishing Interview: Don Linn at Huffington Post
The Digital Advantages for Small Publishers at Digital Book World
The End of History (Books) at NYT
Serious disruption just over the near horizon at The Idea Logical Blog
Unintended consequences at Magellan Media Blog
6 tags
Announcement: Publishr becomes a publisher
There are many voices in this industry, it’s one of the things that makes us great. Recently, however, it seems that we have been doing things as they have always been done and “innovating” by way of least resistance. We have become content with talking about making eBooks and not actually making eBooks.
Digital publishing cannot continue to exist in a vacuum. Publishr is proud...
6 tags
XML as business model: What if we simply stopped...
This past week, publishers across the board essentially told their accounts that current contracts would not be honored. Publishers leveraged Apple’s contract for the new iBookstore to strong arm other accounts to fall in line with a new model. Thus begins the Agency Model experiment. Accounts, after panicking, played along, and now everyone is (seemingly) happy. But, what exactly did...
6 tags
Publishd
Content Strategy is, in fact, the next big thing
Only Branding Can Save the eBook Industry by Jay Garmon at The New Sleekness
Countdown to Agency (and Party like it’s $9.99) by Michael Tamblyn
Point @ Publishing Perspectives: [INSERT PUBLISHER HERE]: Why Branding to Readers Should Matter to Publishers & Counterpoint @ The New Sleekness: Why Publishers Shouldn’t Brand the Brand
...
March 2010
6 posts
7 tags
Expanding the Marketing Reach: Establishing new...
New products demand new ways of thinking. Right now, most publishing houses are creating “straight conversions” of their content in order to make it available on eReader devices. Others have begun to think about functionality and how they can improve the user experience of reading eBooks. But, what about marketing having a say in product development? The current print cycle goes...
Publishd
Jason Pinter: An Analog Industry in the Digital World: Why Publishing is Embracing Social Networking
Publishing Perspectives on Author Contracts 2.0: Putting Cash Before Copyright and Control
Laura Dawson comments in PW on the metadata mix: Hooray for the ISBN
The Difference between Social Media and Social Networks (Suggested by Nic Boshart)
Mark McLaughlin: Audiences don’t pay for...
5 tags
Can the digital book compete with television? A...
One of the reasons I am such a fierce advocate of digital books is because I believe the greatest competition for books is not other books but other forms of entertainment. When every other form of entertainment is available on demand and books are not, books lose.
According to the American Time Use Survey (2008) of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans spend their leisure time as...
3 tags
Publishd
New at Publishr! Publishd features five articles, news items, essays, blog posts, and other such writing per week. Check back on Friday each week for five thought-provoking links.
Don Linn takes on the issue of financing innovation at Bait ‘n’ Beer: Risk and Return in the Time of Cholera
Unbridled Books launches subscription model
Jaron Lanier in the NYT: “Online culture is...
5 tags
Publishing + BDSM: Finding a safeword
Publishing houses were quick to recognize the need for a digital marketing force, and have subsequently been lethargic in implementing impactful changes. The one thing I hear over and over again from digital marketers in publishing is a variant of the same argument, “our hands are tied.”
“We have the ideas, but we can’t get the go-ahead to execute.”
“There’s no money in our budget to invest in...
2 tags
Welcome to Publishr
Publishr is the publishing industry’s edgy, boundary-pushing, ahead-of-the-curve, zine.
Our essays focus on frank discussion of the issues surrounding digital production, eBooks, technology, online marketing, early adoption, exploiting new tools, and the future of an industry that has not had a future since Gutenberg.
We are the new face of the publishing industry.
If you are interested...