We’ll confess that this week’s exchange between MacKenzie Bezos and author Brad Stone only makes us more interested in Stone’s appearance at Digital Book World next January, as part of a block of programming focused on analyzing Amazon. This new page at the DBW conference site provides an overview of the Amazon-focused sessions, and also highlights two other “featured blocks” of new material. In response to suggestions from some of the C-level people who serve on the DBW advisory council, we’re featuring four sessions that present a structure view on “change management” (created with the help of consultant Carolyn Pittis, […]
Book Fairs
Everything Amazon and A Lot More
There’s a lot of discussion about Amazon in the wake of Larry Kirshbaum’s departure from the publishing division in January (much of it completely wrong, as we noted Friday), and following the release earlier this month of Brad Stone’s book THE EVERYTHING STORE. January’s big fifth annual Digital Book World conference will feature a prominent morning block of presentations and discussions about Amazon on its second day. Stone will be among the presenters and analysts, with sessions including a close look at Amazon’s financials, and insights into their less-publicized inroads into library and educational markets. Those timely panels are just […]
People, Etc.
Webb Younce has joined Thomas Nelson imprint Nelson Books as associate publisher/executive editor, filling the role previously held by Bryan Norman. He and is wife are relocating to Nashville. Most recently he was at Free Press, until it was disbanded as a separate Simon & Schuster unit in 2012. At Fodor’s Travel, Arabella Bowen has been promoted to the newly created position of vp, editor in chief. Skyhorse will launch a new library-focused imprint, Carrel Books, in fall 2014, with an initial list of 20-30 titles annually in categories such as medicine/health, history, biography/memoir, and business/careers. The imprint will be overseen […]
Attendance Slides At the Still-Giant Frankfurt Book Fair
The Frankfurt Book Fair is a mammoth show by any measure, though by the organizer’s own numbers trade visits continue to decline modestly year over year. FBF officials say that 142,921 people were present during the first three trade show days, and a total of 275,342 visitors were logged over all five days (with the German public attending the final two days). Both counts are slightly below last year’s numbers, and the fair’s attendance peaked in 2008 — with just under 300,000 total visitors, and a claim of 186,240 trade visitors for the entire fair. It’s a little confusing lining […]
People, Awards, Etc.: Munro, Charkin, Levinson, Potter Postage, and More
Vintage is reprinting a total of 100,000 copies across their backlist of 14 story collections by Nobel laureate Alice Munro. Random House Canada ceo Brad Martin told the Globe and Mail, “As far as we know, we have stock of all of Alice’s active titles,” though booksellers were light on copies and ran out quickly. Indigo placed “nice, substantial orders” for fresh inventory. You can read (or hear) Munro’s short phone call interview with the prize organizers here. She said in a written statement Thursday: “This is so surprising and wonderful. I am dazed by all the attention and affection that has […]
Dohle Commits to Print, Scaled Innovation, and Alignment with Retail Partners
In introducing Penguin Random House ceo at a public forum at the Frankfurt Book Fair Wednesday, Frankfurt Academy head Holger Volland noted that they previously featured multiple heads of houses in a group. “Since Markus Dohle now equals five ceos,” Volland quipped, “we have replaced them with him.” Meanwhile, the always low-key and optimistic Dohle celebrated the completion of the merged company’s first 100 days together — which has been the opposite of a political leader’s first 100 days. “I wanted to make it the most boring merger in the history of corporations — because in essence what we do […]