Marion Maneker, columnist at The Big Money, responds to Penguin CEO John Makinson’s WSJ OpEd. He makes the point more clearly than I’ve yet seen it that the book industry suffers from “oversupply and too much risk.” It’s not digital per se that is the real problem; but digital just makes it easier for others [...]
There was a big dustup between Macmillan and Amazon over ebook pricing this weekend. Here is Macmillan CEO John Sargent’s take. And Amazon’s announcement that they were backing down. And Charlie Stross’ great outsider’s view.
Whoever won, ebook pricing is a hot, tough topic. I’ll guess this chess match isn’t over yet, so we’ll [...]
Canadian book retailer Indigo launched Shortcovers, a great mobile reading app and ebook store, at the beginning of 2009.
At the end of 2009 Shortcovers changed into Kobo (one presumes to better capture the international market?):
We have changed our name from Shortcovers to Kobo. Kobo is an anagram of the word “book” and we [...]
Writer Joe Konrath, who publishes with Hyperion has some Kindle books published by his publisher; he owns electronic rights to some back-list titles, and he self-published those to Kindle. He’s got a post with some interesting discussion about the value of publishing, royalties etc in the age of the ebook, but more interesting I think [...]
I was on a panel the other day about ebook pricing for O’Reilly’s Tools of Change for Publishing, Online Conference. Included in the panel were: Michael Tamblyn, VP Sales at Shortcovers; Trip Adler CEO Scribd; Neelan Choksi, CEO Lexcycle/Stanza. And the panel was moderated by Joe Wikert, Publisher at O’Reilly.
If you attended the event, you [...]
On a recent trip to the UK I spent a lovely day wandering around Hay on Wye, global book mecca born of the imagination of bookseller Richard Booth. Booth opened his shop in 1961 in the old fire station; more bookshops followed, and Hay now has more than thirty of the things, along with a [...]
Henry Baum of Self-Publishing Review interviewed me the other day about Book Oven. With Henry’s permission, I’m reposting the whole thing below.
Self-Publishing Review: So how’s the site work? What do people do once they create a project and how can writers contribute to other writers’ projects?
Hugh McGuire: Firstly, we’ve just launched and we have [...]
OK this is a little bit strange. I was happy to find Nicholson Baker’s “Human Smoke” on Shortcovers. I was unhappy to find it costs $20.99 which is more than I’m willing to pay for an ebook (especially one that I more or less rent from Shortcovers).
Luckily, I noticed I could buy a hardcover version, [...]
Pimp My Novel is a great blog by a publishing insider about the twisting and mysterious backroads of the business-end of the publishing business. Here s/he talks about remainders, pulping, US tax codes, and the 1979 US Supreme Court decision in Thor Power Tool Company v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue:
You might already see the [...]
The ebook space heats up:
Barnes & Noble … announced today the launch of the Barnes & Noble eBookstore, the world’s largest eBookstore, on Barnes & Noble.com, enabling customers to buy eBooks and read them on a wide range of platforms, including the iPhone and iPod touch, BlackBerry® smartphones, as well as most Windows® and Mac® [...]
