Welcome to the ETC Press. The ebook marketplace is a long way from settled. When we put on conferences, we sometimes book speakers because of who they are, or who their company is, but we also do our best to make sure the content of their presentation will be useful to our audience.
So I had booked Matteo Berlucchi, the CEO of the British ebook startup Anobii, to speak at last January’s Digital Book World 2012 some months before the event for two reasons. For one, I had met Matteo at our Pub Launch London conference last June and he impressed me. And, in addition, his social-network-conscious ebook retailing operation has three major houses — Penguin, HarperCollins, and Random House — as investors. A couple of weeks before DBW 2012, we got on the phone with Matteo to learn what he wanted to talk about.
That’s when he told me he’d call for publishers to give up DRM because, as he saw it, their doing so was the only way he could compete for Kindle customers. But, of course, Matteo wouldn’t have been doing something like that without the knowledge of his owners. Digital Reading: Getting Agile About Books. Last week I had the opportunity to moderate a webcast titled “Agile Content Development for Book Publishers.”
We had less than an hour to explain, demonstrate and sometimes defend the agile methodology in its use for books. We certainly didn’t have time to question, even redefine, our end product; the book. But if agile book development catches on, we will have to do it. This season, more than ever, the book development process is under review. At a Womens’ Media Group members’ gathering last week, guest speaker Carolyn Pittis, HarperCollins SVP for Publishing Transformation, discussed re-examining the internal processes publishers have long used to create and publish books.
Agile methodology comes from the world of software development. What agile development provided was a way to work in short “sprints,” resulting in “iterations”—versions of all or part of the product—for testing and feedback from “stakeholders,” a group that included the end user or the funder. Creemore’s Curiosity House Bookstore & Gallery to close.
Big Publishers, Big Books, Little Data - Is Big Data the Key for Publishers Long-Term Success? Is Big Data the Key for Publishers Long-Term Success?
Eric Schmidt, the Chairman of Google is fond of stating, “Did you know that every two days as much data is created as was created since the dawn of civilization until 2003?” Most of the publishers I speak with each week are astounded when they hear this. They immediately stop and think about how big these numbers really are. Then, just as quickly, they forget about it. They dismiss the implications for their businesses – and get back to their daily to do lists.
This is a serious mistake. Big data has been a topic of conversation in the news and web publishing arenas for quite some time. However, when it comes to ebooks, big data continues to be an extremely quiet topic. How does big data apply to ebooks when the primary sources of the data (the reading apps) are typically unwilling and uninterested in sharing it? This is absolutely a loaded question – but it is one that must be asked. Related Posts: » May Newsletter Curiosity House Books & Gallery. The Final Chapter The past six months have been a rollercoaster ride for the staff and partners of Curiosity House.
In November of 2011, we learned that the building which houses our business had been sold and that we would not have an option to renew our lease. Catherine and Miriam were also committed to taking their lives into new directions, which would allow more time for family and travel as well as volunteer and artistic pursuits. To that end, we have spent the past 6 months working hard to find affordable new rental space and energetic new owners to take up our mission of connecting our customers with the best possible offerings in the world of books and local art. Unfortunately, our efforts have not been successful and we are saddened to announce that Curiosity House Bookstore & Gallery will be closing its doors at the end of May.
Publishing Studies at the University of Stirling.
Services. Organizations. Book technologies. Surveys and data. Online articles. Social network sales. Booksales. Booksellers.