HarperCollins UK CEO Victoria Barnsley has warned the industry is not likely to return to pre-recession glory after figures released by Nielsen BookScan for the first 24 weeks of the year, revealed a fall in the total value of book sales of 5.7% and eight of the top 10 publishers saw a drop in sales in 2010: “Our business needs to change, regardless of whether there is a recession or not. The economic situation has merely hurried the process along . . . To be honest, I don’t anticipate the market ever returning to pre-recession levels in its current form.” […]
Marketing
Online Reading
At noon today Stephenie Meyer‘s novella THE SHORT SECOND LIFE OF BREE TANNER will be readable online for free.Bree Tanner site The New Yorker has three stories from their new 20 under 40 issue–by Gary Shteyngart, Salvatore Scibona, and Rivka Galchen–available at open online links. And the editors of the magazine discuss their choices here. “What we have tried to do, in selecting the writers featured in this issue, is to offer a focussed look at the talent sprouting and blooming around us. These writers (stories by eight of them appear here; twelve more will follow, one at a time, […]
Buzz by the Numbers
As you consider this year’s “official” Buzz Panel books–and all the other titles clamoring for buzz on the show floor during BEA–we thought it would be interesting to take stock of the performance of last year’s selections. Bear in mind that part of the point of the panel is to shine a light on a broad selection of books of potential merit and audience appeal that might not be top-of-the list sure things. So absolute sales numbers are not the only measure of success. But by most yardsticks, nearly all of the books featured last year met with some kind […]
eNews: Bookmasters Launches Conversion and Distribution; Goldberg McDuffie Starts Digitally-Focused Consulting Group
The BookMasters Group is starting CONVERSO, designed “to make the digital production and distribution process simple and more accessible for small and mid-sized publishers.” They say they will provide digital distribution to “more than 40 digital outlets” and promise “a better deal on revenue-sharing and conversion than competing offerings.”ReleaseList of distribution partners Goldberg McDuffie Communications is launching a new division, GMC Consulting, designed to “help authors, agents and publishers develop creative strategies to meet the challenges of the digital era.” Led by the agency principals Camille McDuffie and Lynn Goldberg, they aim to “help build platforms for authors, developing marketing […]
Briefs
Finally, a day this week without headline news… Among other items, the schedule for this year’s PEN World Voices Festival has been announced. Slate has an interesting video on how easy, and inexpensive, it was to schedule a 30-second ad to run on national television via Google’s TV advertising program. The point is that you can reach television-scale audiences for hundreds of dollars and up. (Starbucks ad must be endured first….)Slate Consistent with their previous position, the Authors Guild advised members regarding recent amendment letters from Random House and HarperCollins “appear to be going to virtually all authors who have […]
New BEA Program will Connect Authors to Readers Across NYC
BEA officially announced their plans for the “New York Book Week” concept that has been under formulation for some time, designed “to expand on the presence of BEA in New York by making even more authors available to the community” at “a wide range of author events at various literary venues.” The idea is to help connect many of the authors who come to New York for the convention to readers and fans as well as to members of the trade. Participating authors already include Lee Child, Jonathan Franzen, Ira Glass, Sara Gruen, David Means, Edmund Morris and Scott Turow. […]