The Future Of Publishing Blog by Thad McIlroy
November 5th, 2025
Beware: This post talks about metadata for books, and it talks about ONIX, the data format used to convey metadata for the retailing of books. It would be impossible to recap the whole story of metadata for books here, except in the clumsiest of fashions, and so if this is a topic that mystifies, or…
September 18th, 2025
The Book Industry Study Group (BISG), in partnership with BookNet Canada, fielded a survey during June and July this year to better understand AI adoption in the book publishing industry. It’s the first comprehensive survey by a U.S. publishing association (see below for other studies). In a webinar, presented earlier today by BISG’s Brooke Horn…
August 18th, 2025
(First published January 26, 2025. 1st revision, February 3, 2025; 2nd revision, April 14, 2025) Third revision, August 18, 2025 (with corrections and add’l links, August 28, 2025) Also available as a PDF. This short document is intended for companies who have independently decided that they want to move forward in AI adoption, and have…
July 23rd, 2025
This morning, I was a little relieved when I first read “Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan,” (pdf) and saw that there was no mention of copyright. (The closest it comes is a mention of IP: “It is also essential for the U.S. government to effectively address security risks to American AI companies, talent,…
July 11th, 2025
The best presentation about AI and book publishing that I’ve ever “seen” is Keith Riegert’s June presentation to the U.S. Book Show in New York. (The show was a great success!) Slide by slide, 90 slides in all, Keith paints a vivid picture of AI’s applicability to book publishing today, and its plausible future within…