The evolution of ebooks into a mature market in the US was evident on the second day of DBW last Thursday, as the focus turned to nuanced questions of how to boost sales of titles in a crowded marketplace, as well as publisher experiments in selling direct to consumers or in international markets. On a price promotions panel Thursday afternoon, Rachel Chou, chief marketing officer at Open Road, described how the market has changed, saying that price used to be the primary tool a publisher had to drive ebook sales, and running a discounted price promotion on a title two […]
Book Fairs
Real Data On Print Sales In the eBook Era — And the eBook Plateau
With overall ebook sales for most publishers at a point of stasis for now, the Digital Book World conference commissioned Jonathan Nowell at Nielsen Book to provide a closer look at how the rise of ebooks has affected what sells in print form. A number of Nielsen’s data points stand in contrast with popular assumptions. (You can view the full set of data slides here.) Hardcover sales are seen as being most vulnerable to cannibalization by lower-priced ebook editions — but Nowell indicated that hardcover fiction sales have eroded less than trade paperback sales since 2009. Their quiet PubTrack Digital […]
DBW: It’s Almost Here
If you’re still getting around to finalizing your plans for this week’s big Digital Book World events, here is the registration link to use to still secure a 10 percent discount off the posted individual conference and Total Access Pass ticket prices. (And remember that onsite prices starting tomorrow will be higher than the pre-show prices available through the end of the day today.) We kick things off tomorrow with the full-day Publishers Launch Kids — the full schedule is posted here — and DBW is running their focused workshops at the same time. (Children’s publishing people have lots of options: You can […]
Free, and One More Chance to Save
As we noted earlier in the week, in advance of Tuesday’s packed Publishers Launch Kids conference we have a free PDF with background essays on three of the topics to be explored in more depth at the show (including the first part of Play Collective’s data on the ereading habits of children ages 2 to 13). But there won’t be much more that’s free on the way — neither Launch Kids nor the main Digital Book World events will be streamed or podcast; the way find out what’s happening is by joining us at the show. The full program is […]
Launching with Kids, Then the World
Just as children’s and YA sales led the industry last year, next week’s big conferences start with our one-day Publishers Launch Kids conference, the opening event of Digital Book World, on January 13. For the fourth year in a row, Launch Kids is the biggest professional event specifically for children’s book publishers (and children’s content digitalists). Once again the program is overstuffed with more than 30 speakers from across the children’s content world — from top publishers (Susan Katz at Harper Children’s; Barbara Marcus at Random House Children’s; Suzanne Murphy at Disney; Dominique Raccah at Sourcebooks), major educational platforms (Chris Palma […]
The Biggest Show of the Year
Convening next week from January 13 through January 15 at the New York Hilton, Digital Book World is certainly the biggest show of this new year and given our best-ever lineup of speakers, it could stand for a while as the year’s premier conference. Right before the holiday break we noted the addition of Keith Moerer, who manages the iBooks Store business for Apple worldwide, as the final keynoter on Wednesday. Alongside Kindle executive Russ Grandinetti that gives DBW conversations with top executives from the two largest ebookstores. Those main stage keynotes also feature top publishing executives (Harper ceo Brian Murray; HMH […]