In concert with today’s Digital Book World event, Inkling formally announced a program they have had running for some time now, what they call their Content Discovery Platform. A “way for publishers to make digital books more discoverable and profitable,” Inkling is making any books within their format to be fully indexed and searchable via Google, like any other web content. Search engine discovery leads to free samples and a system to purchase small slices of book content at modest prices. The next phase, “the big how-to-get-it-into-our-platform question,” will be addressed in a second announcement next month at TOC. CEO […]
Archives for January 2013
DBW: Executive Doubts About Transition So Far; Kobo Stats
James McQuivey from Forrester Research kicked off this week’s Digital Book World with his third annual survey of the views of 55 publishing executives on the pace of digital change. While a majority of executives still expect to succeed in the digital transition, only 34 percent said “my company is stronger today because of digital.” Forty-five percent of those surveyed thought “ereaders will soon be irrelevant” though McQuivey said, “I’d warn you not to take this too seriously yet. The people who bought them first still read them the most.” In one odd result, even as all actual sales data […]
More Data and Insights from Publishers Launch Children’s
Our Publishers Launch conference Children’s Publishing Goes Digital on Tuesday was a terrific event, and we’ll have more of our own to share from the presentations later in the week. (Our first report from Tuesday is here.) In the meantime, you can check out a long overview from Shelf Awareness, a piece at PW on the Bowker/Bookigee data, and multiple pieces at DigitalBookWorld.com, including one on Peter Hildick-Smith at Codex Group’s data on how and where children and parents discover books.
People, Etc.
Grand Central publisher Jamie Raab has been promoted to president (from executive vice president). CEO David Young wrote to staff: “In Jamie’s two and a half decades with the company, she and her team have created a diverse publishing program that spans just about every genre – commercial fiction and literary novels, celebrity bios and serious politics, business, romance, humor, and lifestyle – putting real muscle behind the campaigns and making GCP a fixture on bestseller lists.” He added, “Jamie is a brave and brilliant publisher, a trusted leader in the company, and an impassioned champion of authors. Here superb […]
Kids Retain Strong Preference for Print, As Influence of Online Bookstores and Friends Rises
Bookigee founder Kristen McLean and Bowker executive Carl Kulo kicked off this morning’s Publishers Launch conference Children’s Publishing Goes Digital with updated data findings from fall 2012, the latest installment in their ongoing analysis of the purchase and discovery of children’s books. McLean underscored the overall stability of the children’s book market: As to “the fear–that we were going to lose readers” with the rise of other electronic media, “there’s no data we’ve seen to support the idea that kids are reading less, and we’ve seen some data to support the idea that kids are reading more. We really believe […]
National Book Awards Will Announce Longlists, Expand Judging Pool
In a move hinted at just prior to last year’s event, the National Book Awards will now announce a longlist of 10 books in each of four categories before being whittled down to the traditional five finalists, the AP reports. The longlists will be announced on September 12, with the shortlists to follow on October 15 and the awards themselves on November 20. In addition, the National Book Awards will also expand its judging pool to include critics, booksellers, and librarians. Grove/Atlantic CEO Morgan Entrekin and National Book Foundation board member told the AP the foundation is “borrowing some of […]