January 26th, 2010
“The McGraw-Hill Companies reported a 43.2% increase in fourth quarter EPS,” says today’s press release.(Log-in may be required). The big gains were in McGraw-Hill Education at 2.6% and in Financial Services at 10.6%. “Information & Media” declined by 11.4%; you’ll have to dig deeper than I have to figure that one out. The major message…
January 16th, 2010
A fine blog post from Joe Esposito that I wish I’d written…a small excerpt: Empires, by definition, begin their decline at their peak. Today Amazon bestrides the publishing world like Caesar, and it may seem far-fetched to think of this company slipping from its dominant position. There is some doubt, however, that Amazon can continue…
January 5th, 2010
OK, I’m obsessed. I just checked and I’ve written over 30 blog entries in the last few years about Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, for what I consider empty, meaningless hype around the Kindle and eBooks generally. Where is Peter Finch’s Howard Beale when we need him: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take…
January 5th, 2010
From Dublin, Ireland comes Eoin Purcell’s Blog, one of the best blogs on where publishing is heading, albeit with a primary focus on book publishing. Today’s delightful entry, “My 2009 Publishing Heroes” is to me a fine example of the web at its best. Through this blog entry I was introduced to five new thinkers…
December 19th, 2009
Gosh I do write an awful lot about eBooks, but it is the flavor-of-the-year, not just for book publishers of course, but for readers (and publishers) everywhere. Always controversial, it never fails to “make good copy,” as they used to say in the newspaper business. O’Reilly, the company; Tim O’Reilly, the founder; Andrew Savikas, a…