FutureBook

We would all not survive the year 2012. But, since you're reading this, the opposite is true. Of course, The Mayan calendar with its predictions inflated to mythical proportions, was pure nonsense. That I use this moment however to prelude my plea, is because I did expect last year to be the beginning of the end for the book as we knew it. That was however not quite the case. It has no doubt that our industry suffered a severe blow by the bankruptcy of one of the big Dutch distributors: Libridis. One that has had (or will have) a huge impact on some of the Dutch publishers. Read more »

Back in the nineteen sixties when publishing was still the tweed jacket and pipe sort of business that it is still often portrayed as being; the tawdry process of making money was regarded with some suspicion. It was a life style choice for academics manqué attracted by the combination of long lunches and the publishing of low selling literary works untainted by popularity. Read more »

I’m going to call you Mr Dickens. I’m going to call your book/product Oliver Twist. For the purposes of debate you’re a brand new author with a brand new book. No one, in short, has ever heard of you. You arrive, in the shiny Soho offices of an advertising agency, with a heavy heart. Having looked at your Amazon KDP report last night you have realised that, despite being published for two whole months now, you have only sold two copies. You bought one and you’re fairly certain your doting Aunt Agnes in Market Harborough bought the other. Read more »

There have been a couple of articles over the last few days voicing a proposition that seaped out of the Book 2 Camp ‘unconference’ (don’t get me started)  that discoverability isn’t a problem for readers, it’s a problem for publishers.

Well D’uh. Quelle surprise mes amis. What you gonna do for your next trick? Knock up a few hundred words on the pope being a catholic? (he is still a catholic right?) Read more »

The last time I wrote something for Futurebook it was to discuss the Stephen Fry app, which wasn’t really a success for me. I did however end up greatly enjoy the audiobook read by Stephen Fry himself. The novel format (I’d include narrative non-fiction like biographies) is a format that we are used to. Even though the style changes and a few clever writers can stretch the beginning, middle and end formula, but mostly it remains unchanged.  Read more »

The relationship between publishers and readers continues to evolve at a bewildering speed.

It could be argued that until very recently publishers had almost no relationship with their readers at all. The entire supply chain of the publishing industry was set up around a premise that essentially ignored the end user (the readers) and mistakenly identified the means of distribution (the booksellers) as their key relationship. Read more »

What a tangle: Amazon has received a patent for a system for selling “pre-owned” digital files, opening the way for a secondary market in ebooks - and putting the electronic cat amongst the analogue pigeons. Read more »

As our industry becomes increasingly hybrid – ever more digital, yet still significantly paper-based – the necessity to innovate is a growing problem for publishers. With revenues squeezed by falling prices and decreasing margins, innovation becomes more vital than ever: if we are to survive, publishers need to find new methods of working, new types of product, and new ways of reaching our audiences. Read more »

A long, long time ago - well, about four years ago, but back then people were still saying things like “ebooks will only ever make up 1% of the market” and other stuff which now looks a little odd - I suggested looking at the idea that using a book as a data set for research using data analysis tools, and then using the results to create digital tools such as algorithms might be a new derivative use subject to the usual rules of copyright ownership. Read more »

We've "lost".

In the race to find the “interactive storytelling” Holy Grail, we’ve been well and truly beaten.

We have been beaten by a digital games publisher who based their model on licensed IP, and a comic book company. Read more »