The Future Of Publishing Blog by Thad McIlroy

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September 15th, 2009

Will Authors of the Future Need Publishers?

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

The Honest Truth About Trade Publishing

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…

September 14th, 2009

Books Face Extinction as Schools go High-Tech

Well it certainly wins the inflammatory headline of the day award. This silly article in the Boston Herald would be OK with me if it said “printed books threatened,” or something approaching that line of thought. But we are not yet referring to the woolly mammoth. Among the choice quotes: 1. ““If you look at…

September 2nd, 2009

The 10 Most-Pirated eBooks this Year

Courtesy of freakbits.com comes this perhaps authoritative list of the 10 most-pirated eBooks of 2009. The results are calculated from BitTorrent downloads. As FreakBits notes, “The list shows us that illicit book downloads are not yet threatening the bestselling authors you’ll find in the New York Times list…In fact, most books that are downloaded on BitTorrent…

August 21st, 2009

The Penguin Building in NYC has a Bedbug Infestation

And now for something a little lighter… According to The New York Observer, based on a report in Gawker, “(Penguin) management sent a memo out to staff yesterday warning them of ‘an insect issue in certain areas’ on several floors. Staff were instructed to vacate the building by 1 p.m. today and not return until…