The Future Of Publishing Blog by Thad McIlroy
September 19th, 2009
A colleague of mine who is a noted Canadian historian, and a prolific writer, asked today what makes a great web site for an author. So I began an exploration: Most publisher websites for authors are pathetic, placeholders with short bios and links to books. A case in point is Canada’s “most venerable” old publisher,…
September 17th, 2009
A subject which receives far too little coverage in the great eBook orgy is just how much is lost in the conversersion from books-on-paper to eBooks in one of the many eBook formats. What is lost: nearly every visual element, from typeface choices to page design. As this May 2009 article on Wired.com states: “Ultimately…
September 16th, 2009
This is the VERY obvious title I’ve pulled from a good ZDNet blog by Larry Dignan today. Tonight I wrote to the Wall Street Journal reporters on the story (as there was no room for commenting): “My first thought was that Adobe needed to spend a bunch of that cash they’ve got lying around to…
September 15th, 2009
A good follow-up to yesterday’s post about Daniel Menaker’s post on trade book publishing comes from Nathanial Bransford’s popular blog (81 comments so far on the entry). Titled, of course, Will Authors of the Future Need Publishers? Bransford makes several important points. 1. Book sales are off 2.5% for the year as of July, compared to…
September 14th, 2009
Those in the business recognize a distinction between trade publishing (i.e. books of general interest sold through regular retail and online outlets) versus, for example, educational publishing (books for schools and higher education). We don’t hear much about the great bestsellers in educational publishing (although I can assure you than many earn both their publishers…