In my Pocket Reader app, I stored a September article from BBC News as much for the article’s title as its content. That title? “When Is A Bestseller Not Necessarily A Bestseller?” I think that’s been the burning question in publishing for the past ten years. Bestsellers haven’t entirely lost their meaning, but they’re not relevant the way that they were twenty years ago. Back […]
Business Musings: New Tools: Indie Publishing (Year in Review 7)
I feel like I write a version of this post every year, and I always feel out of my depth when doing so. Part of that is because we’re dealing with new tools. Part of it is because—full disclosure—I do the writing, but WMG does the publishing. Because I’m me, and endlessly curious, I find a lot of this stuff, and forward it to them. […]
Business Musings: Supply Chain Woes…Traditional, Indie, And More
This morning, a regular reader of my blog forwarded a tweet to me from a bookseller and writer about supply chain issues for books. He then suggested I blog about those issues. I had planned to, but I had a vague hope that they would improve. The bookseller’s tweet disabused me of that notion. The tweet is below. Read the thread, and note that she […]
Business Musings: BookExpo, Bookstores, and Libraries
In 2020, BookExpo finally died. BookExpo was, once upon a time, a convention for booksellers, put on by the publishing industry. Back then, it was called The American Booksellers Association Convention, and honestly, it was marvelous. If you were a book person, it was like the best place ever. Books everywhere. So many books in such large convention halls that you couldn’t see everything. You […]
Business Musings: Bookstores (2017 in Review)
It is no longer possible for an independent bookseller in the United States to remain in business based on in-store book sales alone. Okay, maybe a handful are doing it in high traffic areas with low rents, but not many at all. The old way is no longer the new way, and unless the bookseller understands that, the bookstore goes out of business.
But readers do want their paper books. And readers love browsing bookshelves. Sometimes readers “window,” meaning they look at books on the shelves, then order them online. Readers recognize that they will discover books that are new to them in person more often than they’ll discover them while shopping online. So book people venture into any place with books.
The Business Rusch: Pricing Part 2 Or (Discoverability Part 7 Continued)
As expected, I couldn’t answer e-mails or work long on my blog last week. I may take that tactic this week as well, because you folks had a much better conversation in the comments than you would have had with me involved. Besides, I don’t like talking about pricing. Yet here I go with the second part of this series. Some of you e-mailed me […]
The Business Rusch: More Distribution Changes
This morning, my iPad Los Angeles Times app informed me that the creators of the TV show Veronica Mars had started a Kickstarter project. They wanted two million dollars to jump-start a movie, using the original cast. I clicked the link to Kickstarter and donated. At the time, the movie hadn’t yet reached its goal. As of Wednesday evening, it had. I have my browser […]
The Business Rusch: The End of the Unprofessional Writer
On July 24, 2012, Canada’s The Globe and Mail published an article titled, “There Will Be No More Professional Writers in The Future.” The article cites a number of writers, from the ubiquitous Scott Turow to Ewan Morrison who, The Globe and Mail thoughtfully tells me, is “an established British writer.” Morrison says that the advances he’s received from traditional publishers have been slashed to the […]
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