The Future Of Publishing Blog by Thad McIlroy

Addicted to Change

October 23rd, 2013

Addicted to Change

Like most tech-dominated industries publishing is addicted to change. This addiction even has a scientific name: neophilia, in contrast with neophobia, a condition more traditionally associated with publishing (I chuckled when I read in the Wikipedia entry: “Neophobia is a common finding in aging animals…”).

September 16th, 2013

4,000 Tweets

The other night I noticed that I’d hit 4,000 tweets. Never thought I’d do it. I signed up for Twitter both reluctantly and cynically. I thought it was just a compressed means of notifying the world of what I’d had for breakfast. I already used Facebook to spread that important news. Now with three years…

September 3rd, 2013

Amazon’s Kindle MatchBook is Brilliant

O.K., the blog title is hyperbole. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity was brilliant. Bundling print and digital books is an idea that’s been floating around. But it’s exciting to see Amazon put its heft behind the concept. Now we can declare bundling as a growing part of how we transact publishing. Newspapers and magazines have given the…

August 10th, 2013

Google’s New “In-Depth Articles” Feature a Boon to Book and Periodical Publishers

Google just announced that they will reward the authors of the very best in-depth articles on popular search topics by highlighting the top three in page 1 search results. Google offers a range of sample topics in its announcement: censorship, Gloria Steinem, Lego, the NSA, the United Nations, and Taylor Swift. I’d bet that the criteria is…