Wow. If any house was going to escape the sippy-hole that is succession planning in Canadian publishing — I thought Raincoast would do it. Looks like they are throwing weight from the airplane. I am sure it is a good business decision…
Penguin Canada to Distribute Bloomsbury::
I recall seeing a story recently about how the UK is retaining Commonwealth rights, annoying publishers in Australia and the like. Now the UK houses are moaning about US houses retaining ebook rights. From bookseller.com…
Amazon and Sony have both committed to the PA that they will protect territoriality, and the school that says you can’t [...]
Yesterday I posted about turning your book commercial into a small tutorial — ads as content. I don’t think I was clear on that point. Teach me, please.
These two examples came over the transom. A business book in manga — looks like a hit — and a-little-too-long teaser ad.
Companies get skills-focused, instead of customer-needs focused. When [companies] think about extending their business into some new area, the first question is “why should we do that—we don’t have any skills in that area.” That approach puts a finite lifetime on a company…
From Business week via Radar
Mitch Joel just posted a great video from Common Craft called Podcasting in Plain English. It reminds me of another video series Mitch put me onto last December — also on youtube. I shared that series with colleagues at work because I thought it was a brilliant way to do book promos — give me [...]
I was annoyed when someone jacked my copy of the Economist from my mailbox. It was the issue about food inflation (sounds fun when you think about it). I was keen to learn more about how the food pinch was causing riots in far away places. Then I read someone jacked a whole truck load [...]
I started reading Michael Hyatt’s blog a year ago. I even passed around his system of managing email to colleagues. The tone of his writing was always positive and friendly. But blogging in good times as a CEO is a breeze. Blogging in bad times is when you test your mettle.
When Michael’s company, Thomas Nelson, [...]
One of the things I learned from reading Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation was what a kinshp there was between Walt Disney and Ray Kroc — the life force behind MacDonalds Corp. Both were geniuses marketing to kids.
Hook em early, get them for life. Diabolically brilliant.
Audible has learned that lesson too. They have launched Audible [...]
I have missed two TOC conferences so far, but I am gradually catching up with the New York presentations.
If you don’t have the patience for powerpoint I recommend the TOC blog. It has the insight of Radar, specifically tailored to our industry. Check it out. It won’t be a secret for long.
Fans are looking for tour and next release dates — but that is not all you should deliver.
Ethan Kaplan (someone I’ve been following since Mesh07) espouses his philosophy on artist websites. His lessons are easliy transferable to author sites. Two of my takeaways:
Be open. Don’t be precious with the user experience. Use Drupal. Don’t use [...]