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Archive for the ‘Industry trends’ Category.
A few days ago, Seth Godin, marketing guru and best selling author, decided to part ways with his publisher, Portfolio, to self-publish. So, why did Seth decide to self-publish? And more importantly, how much money does he stand to make?
So, why did Seth decide to self-publish?
Continue reading ‘How much will Seth Godin earn by self-publishing?’ »
A question that has been playing on my mind for sometime. Authors and writers have depended on publishers for production, printing, distribution, marketing and promotion of their content. However, the rise of the digital market is challenging the traditional author-publisher relationship.
The traditional relationship between authors and publishers centered on the capital outlay required to create, print and sell books. Publishers would provide authors with advances, bear the expenses of producing, printing, distributing, marketing and promoting the books. Proceeds from the sales of the book were largely the publisher’s and a portion of it goes to the author as royalty. The value of the publisher, thus, centered on printing and selling the books.
Google has the answer to a lot of questions we ask. And looks like it has the answer to this one too.
The company has been trying to digitize books through its Google Books initiative for a few years now, so it is surprising that they didn’t answer this question at the outset.
How did they do it?
Continue reading ‘Google this: Number of books in the world’ »
A few days ago, I came across an interesting write-up on the top 50 publishers across the world. The list, compiled by Rudiger Wischenbart, provides great insight on how the world’s biggest publishers performed in FY09.
All charts are based on aforementioned list.
Continue reading ‘The top 50 publishers: How they fared in 2009’ »
As a market to sell in or as a destination to outsource to, businesses across the world have been fascinated by China. The Chinese economy has relied heavily on exports – mostly contract manufacturing. Contract manufacturing here is a loosely used term. It encompasses everything from shoes, clothes, books, computer peripherals to machinery, heavy fabrication, automobile parts etc. It would be safe to assume, that every product out in the market has a Chinese contribution. Services might take longer to make a significant contribution to the economy, but once the population overcomes language issues, revenues from services are likely to increase.
This week, I came across an article that mentioned a few numbers about the publishing industry – which I think is indicative at best. While the numbers might be debated upon (and that would be welcome), it does not discount the fact that China is a strong contender – as a destination to outsource printing and as a potential market to sell in.
The iPad is still making the news – a search on Google News for the keyword ‘iPad’ returned close to 19,000 articles for the last month alone. The iPad, since its launch 80 days ago, has already sold three million units and shows no sign of slowing down. Like it’s other products, Apple has managed to create a strong market buzz for the iPad.
Recently, I had the chance to get my hands on an iPad – and I was impressed. The few minutes I had with the device left me appreciating the effort Apple has put into the device. The interface, driven by a touch screen, is remarkably easy to use and it makes it all the easier to access the web or play games. But what really caught my eye was the e-book experience. The book (if I remember correctly, the free copy of Winnie the Pooh), looked great – so great that I can imagine myself using it for all my reading. I can’t help but wonder if more like me are considering the switch?
