FutureBook

There’s been a great deal of discussion recently about how well – or otherwise – the publishing trade is adapting to its digital future, embracing change, disrupting its own business models before others come along and do it to us, and so on. It’s a fascinating debate, but it’s notable that companies and the publishing industry are generally talked about as if they’re faceless monoliths. They’re not. They are collections of people, and the skills and experience of these people don’t seem to come in for as much scrutiny as perhaps they should. Read more »

The book publishing trade has passed the digital tipping point - no, the majority of trade publishing may not yet be electronic, but as an industry, th Read more »

Much has been made of the ongoing ding-dong between publishers and agents over certain agents' decisions to publish their clients work directly in electronic form. In March, Sonia Land, agent for the Catherine Cookson literary estate, pulled a flanker on publishers Transworld and Simon & Schuster and announced she would publish the books directly.

Let's remind ourselves what she said to the Daily Mail at the time: Read more »

As I write this, I am listening to the newest album from The Gorillaz, which was released a mere couple of weeks ago – and I didn't pay a penny for it. Well, technically I paid something for it, because I'm listening to it on Spotify, the advertising- and subscription-funded music service launched by clever Swedish geeks in 2008. Under their model, I pay £4.99 per month, in return for which I could in theory listen to 744 hours of non-stop music a month, untroubled by pesky adverts. Read more »

In the most recent Bookseller editorial, the point is made that if ebook sales are taken in to account, the book trade has turned a corner and is starting to enjoy a period of modest growth. Good news. But why are we not reflecting this new reality in our charts and publicised sales figures? There's a massive irony in the fact that there is nothing more measurable than a digital sale (trust me on this, I'm a geek), and yet we have far less published data than we do for physical book sales. Read more »

By any sensible measurement, 59p is not a lot of money. What can you get for it? A tabloid newspaper, maybe, or a bar of chocolate? The right to 'spend a penny' in some modern shopping centre or mainline railway station? None of these things is much to write home about - yet when it comes to the selling apps for that kind of low price on the iPhone and elsewhere, it seems that rational considerations don't apply. Read more »