Back at Olympia for a second straight year, the London Book Fair opened Tuesday in familiar form, similar to last year’s show. The special above-ground train that is supposed to connect London’s tube directly to Olympia is still out of commission (fortunately it was a good morning for a leisurely wall). The hotel-style nomenclature, with its Grand Halls and galleries, remains in place, and the International Rights Center is still situated on another floor where elevators are maddeningly slow and the stairs up and down can be crowded. The wifi is still free and still works, automatically reducing one of the biggests […]
Book Fairs
London Book Fair Deal Trends: Fewer Big Bets, With Children’s Ahead and Nonfiction Down
With the Bologna Book Fair over and the London Book Fair set to begin next Tuesday, April 12, it’s time for our first review of dealmaking trends (with an update Tuesday morning). Total domestic deals in the five weeks prior to LBF (starting March 7) are down modestly right now but should rise some by our final count. But one clear market shift is evident: A year ago Little Brown UK executive David Shelley told The Bookseller nonfiction was “the new black,” with those deals surging to a new pre-Fair high, but this year the opposite is true. Even though nonfiction gains […]
DBW Highlights: Women & Publishing, Finance, Tech
Digital Book World’s second day of main stage presentations concluded with a panel discussion on women at the intersection of publishing, finance, and technology. Moderator Charlotte Abbott led off by reciting a number of alarming facts about the paucity of women in executive positions, the gender and diversity gap, and other matters (“On the bright side, there aren’t many instances of harrassment in publishing, at least that I know of”) before turning the conversation over to Sourcebooks ceo Dominique Raccah, NetGalley president Susan Ruszala, Penguin Random House senior director of apps channel Katherine McCahill, and DeSilva+Phillips managing director Joanna Herman. […]
DBW: Galloway Says Expect Thousands of Amazon Stores; Data Guy Fills In Sales Gaps From Indie Publishing World
NYU Stern School of Business professor and entrepreneur Scott Galloway presented an updated version of his popular talk on the second day of Digital Book World on how the Four Horseman of the digital age — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google — are each on unstoppable trajectories towards becoming trillion dollar market-cap companies (led by Facebook). Of particular note in our community, Galloway noted “ecommerce is a great business as long as you work for Amazon; for everyone else it’s a s—– business.” By his count “51 percent of all growth online goes to Amazon.” Look forward, he said with confidence, […]
Ingram at DBW: “Transformation Is Not Just A Slogan”
Ingram Content Group ceo John Ingram led the “transformation” keynotes at Digital Book World on Tuesday, just days after the announcement of ICG’s deal to acquire the Perseus Distribution business. On the broader theme, in which new business now generates 44% of ICG’s profit versus 13% in 2005, Ingram said, “Transformation is not just a slogan…. It really is about cultural change within the organization. In our case, it was consciously saying we’re going to give up some control, because we want to be more innovatie, since those things are directly in conflict.” On the Perseus deal, “Maybe the second time’s a […]
Today’s Headlines On Stage Next Week — Last Call to Pre-Register for DBW
We couldn’t get a more timely program for you for next week’s Digital Book World, as Ingram Content Group ceo John Ingram is one of lead keynoters in our track on the meaningful corporate transformations still under way — as ICG confirmed their deal to purchase Perseus Book Group’s distribution lines. It’s a move that Ingram himself said shifts their “center of gravity … away from our roots as a wholesaler” and “supports Ingram’s transformation to a more comprehensive provider of global publisher services with a compelling offering in physical and digital distribution.” Yesterday’s other main story was Barnes & Noble’s […]