Another milestone for online publishing company SAY Media, just weeks after it had announced that Time Magazine publisher Kim Kelleher would be coming on board as president in September: today it confirmed that it has raised $27 million in funding, which it will use to make acquisitions and enhance its publishing platform.
The round was led by new investors New Enterprise Associates, Shea… → Read More
For decades, publishing consisted of two distinct landmasses separated by a deep, impassible chasm. On one side you had kids from Yale who became Associate Editors at the big six – the big houses – and then brought in their friends to write alternately blissful and horrible prose. Then, on the other side, you had everyone else. With the rise of the e-book market, however, a land bridge is growing… → Read More
Old media, some think, is headed for the graveyard, and they’ll be damned if it takes young and cool new media with it. But it ain’t dead yet, and some growling comments made today by Rupert Murdoch, the CEO and chairman of News Corp., underscored how it will continue to keep on ticking for some time still.
In a conference call today to discuss the confirmation that News Corp. will, in fact… → Read More
The Association of American Publishers released a report today that shows that ebooks have beaten hardcover revenues for the first time. Ebook revenues topped out at $282.3 million YTD while hardcovers hit $229.6. Almost exactly a year ago the tables were turned with ebooks hitting $220 million and hardcovers brushing past $335 million.
The only growth in hardcovers is in the young… → Read More
I’m a full supporter of e-books, e-book devices, and agree (mostly) with this excellent WSJ assessment by Rob Reid of the the e-book business. In short, Reid points out that 10 years ago this month the music industry began prosecuting its users and implementing draconian DRM to stave off an impending piracy revolution. That was the year Napster closed shop and pirates, however briefly, lived in a… → Read More
The Google Books project (just today pared down a bit) always impressed me with its sheer scope. Offering modern e-books is all well and good, but that’s more of a business problem. It’s the scanning and free availability of thousands upon thousands of old books that struck me as a worthwhile endeavor.
But publishers and booksellers have been wary of the service, knowing that Google is a fan of… → Read More
It seems it’s a big news day for eBooks and eTextbooks. Google is winding down its eBook service for indie publishers, while Apple and top publishers are the subjects of domestic and European probes into eBook price-fixing.
On top of that, Boston-based educational startup Boundless Learning, which is trying to offer students an open alternative to textbooks (and even eTextbooks), is itself on… → Read More
Over the past few months, Graphicly started to abandon its vision of becoming the “iTunes of comics” and instead focused on digital publishing tools for comics and other image-heavy books. Today it’s fully committing itself to that strategy, shutting down the comic store apps that it offered on both iPhone and Android.
CEO Micah Baldwin says that decision reflects the difficulties of launching… → Read More
Many magazine publishers see the iPad as their salvation. Five of the big ones (Conde Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp., and Time Inc.) banded together to create a joint venture called Next Issue Media, and today the company is launching its Android app.
CEO Morgan Guenther (formerly president of Tivo) says that despite all the excitement about bringing magazines to tablets, the current system… → Read More
A milestone today in the world of publishing, as Pottermore.com, the site dedicated to all digital things Harry Potter, opened for business as the exclusive distributor of Harry Potter e-books and audiobooks. This marks the first time that a major author has ventured forth to offer e-books directly to the public, bypassing publishers’ sites and online bookstores in the process, to allow readers to… → Read More
ShareThis, the company behind the ubiquitous sharing widgets of the same name, is rolling out a new way for publishers to see how their social sharing strategy stacks up — and it’s sharing a list of the top publishers in two categories.
ShareThis first announced its Social Quality Index back in November, and it’s going live for publishers next month. The SQI assigns each publisher a score… → Read More
Pearson has been taking some decisive steps into using mobile to grow its traditional publishing business. And today sees a new chapter in that strategy: Puffin, the children’s division of Pearson imprint Penguin, has signed a worldwide deal with UK-based mobile games developer Ustwo to develop e-books based on Ustwo’s psychedelic Whale Trail mobile game, which features a whale called… → Read More
France has developed something of a reputation in trying to tax larger companies on the Internet to use the funds to help out smaller players. The latest development in that scheme: a proposal to tax large booksellers to help French independent bookstores impacted by the rise of online giants like Amazon.
This is a development on a model that has seen proposals to tax online ads from the likes… → Read More
Apple was surely riding high after the announcement of their new iPad yesterday, but that doesn’t mean that everything is OK in CA if a Wall Street Journal report published today holds true.
According to “people familiar with the matter,” Apple along with HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Group, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan are on the verge of being slapped with a… → Read More
Random House, the world’s largest publisher of the kinds of books you and I read, has made some adjustments to the way it sells e-books to libraries. Notably, they have tripled the price of many titles. Librarians across the country are expressing their discontent.
The changes were telegraphed by an announcement a month ago that suggested prices would be going up soon, and most expected… → Read More
Pearson, the owners of Penguin, the Financial Times Group and a number of education imprints, has made some significant strides into digital with e-books and apps, but it is always on the hunt for more.
So today the publisher is announcing that it is expanding one of its newer ventures, Plug & Play, which offers its copyrighted material via APIs to third-party developers: it has signed a… → Read More
It’s been said before, but it needs saying again (and again and again): PRINT IS DEAD. Across the publishing industry, year-over-year declines in revenue, subscriptions and circulation, are well documented. Yes, there have been a few quarters of blood stanching flatness (yay!), but – you heard it here first (or few weeks ago from The Annenberg School, or over the summer from Clay Shirky) –… → Read More
Say you, like me, wrote a book about the two Lithuanian lovers who find themselves trapped in a basement and have to solve mysteries and learn magic to escape the traps set by them by an evil wizard robot using their brawn, brains, and a little sultry lovemaking. How would you publish and sell it?
Presumably you would visit the Kindle, B&N, and Apple book stores and upload it, making it… → Read More
According to GoodEReader, Amazon is planning to open a retail store in Seattle this year where they will sell Amazon-exclusive books and, more importantly, Kindles of all kinds. While this looks to be more of a pop-up retail presence than a fully-fledged store, if I were in publishing I’d be circling the wagons right now.
To be fair, Amazon’s own publishing offerings are pretty wonky so far. → Read More
Nobody wants to be told that their business model is obsolete. Ask Kodak. Or Hollywood. And the publishing industry is slower on its feet than most. Bookstores don’t want to believe that they’ll ultimately lose 75% of their pre-e-book business to that scourge plus Amazon delivery. (I’m assuming e-book market share will eventually plateau somewhere north of 50%.) Meanwhile, publishers cling to the… → Read More
While we’re on the subject of publishing, Sarah Lacy found a great monologue on the current state of publishing and how, in short, Amazon is tearing old publishing houses a new one.
Publishers, like music producers, don’t make money piddling around with 50 mid-list books. They make money buying (for millions) and selling (a few) books by human black holes like Snooki and the Kardashians. They… → Read More
Two years ago New York Times food critic Amanda Hesser and her co-founder Merrill Stubbs launched Food52 to collect and test recipes in an effort to crowdsource a cookbook. It took 52 weeks to research and write the cookbook, but another full year before it was published. By the time they finished their second cookbook (yet to be published), they were convinced there had to be a better way. And… → Read More
With the launch of the Kindle Fire tomorrow, I thought it would be fun to write a little bit sci-fi and imagine what the publishing market will look like in the next ten or so years. I’m a strong proponent of the ebook and, as I’ve said again and again, I love books but they’re not going to make it past this decade, at least in most of the developed world.
As we well know, ebook sales are now… → Read More
When not destroying the heartland and ripping down the fabric of small town America, Wal-Mart likes to give back to the community. For example, the Arkansas Boys and Girls Club of America, got a $10,000 grant from the giant to buy books, magazines, and most notably, Kindles.
There will be 50 Junior High and High School children involved in Bright Spot. This reading center will contain not only… → Read More
With the announcement of the $99 Ocean Reader Copia Tablet we are entering familiar territory. As you probably remember, netbooks went through the same race to the bottom as ebooks and this Ocean Reader is the first of the lot to hit our shores with any fanfare.
While I’m sure a mention in the WSJ is fairly important, the Copia and the Alex and the Farfenugen or whatever is next to ride down the… → Read More
Virgin is looking to expand into the publishing market with a new magazine called “Maverick” that targets the upscale international audience with content on entrepreneurism, technology and travel. The kicker is that Maverick will be an electronic magazine only, first available on iPads and later available on iPhones and Android devices. Unlike other magazine ventures — like WIRED’s dead tree… → Read More
I’ve been thinking a lot about the world that my kids will soon live in. Books will be like vinyl records – clever and beloved artifacts of an analog age, hoarded more for reasons of nostalgia and scarcity than value. I honestly think that the book I’m working on now will be the last physical book I produce and that future books – if anyone lets me write them – will… → Read More
The NYT has a report on ebook pricing for the iPad, saying that Apple may charge $9.99 for popular titles, just like everyone else in the free world.
While most prices will be higher – it’s an iPad! Why go slumming? – popular books can hit the $9.99 if need be. Apple takes 30 percent of the sale while the publishers take 70 percent. → Read More
Whenever companies do something inexplicable, the nerd in me always comes back to that scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind when Richard Dreyfus keeps building models of a mountain, culminating in a huge, muddy mess in his kitchen. Throughout it all he keeps saying “This means something.” Well, the latest molehill into a mountain is the move by Time Inc. and Conde Nast, among… → Read More
In an effort to beat this Kindle horse closer to pulp, I present an excellent essay by Ed Champion, a guy who knows publishing. He points out that the publishing industry is stuck in one or two models that just don’t work and things need to change. First, he brings up three interesting examples: Valve offering its hit Left 4 Dead for half-price over President’s Day Weekend and improving sales… → Read More
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