A local restaurant owner uses this tagline to promote his small chain of (of course) steak houses. This kitschy slogan made me think about traditional publishers and their value proposition: selecting manuscripts and turning them into books that people want to buy, and doing this consistently. In a way, they stake their reputations (brands) on [...]
There are complex brand issues that emerge from the “author-as-brand” versus the “publisher as brand” evolution (assuming the publisher was ever really the true brand). To me the central question is: What’s the relationship between the author’s brand and the publisher’s brand? In what model might they coexist in the marketplace? Hold that thought.
At the [...]
One of the themes mentioned by just about every keynote speaker at the O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference last month in New York was Digital Rights Management (or DRM). This is software that prohibits unauthorized copies of media (songs, e-books, etc.). Cory Doctorow of boingboing.net fame gave an impassioned keynote titled “Digital Distribution [...]
We at Creative Byline subscribe to many newsfeeds, blogs, and newsletters about publishing and writing. As a result, we come across many interesting perspectives and new insights about the business. Here are a few from the last week or so:
On her blog, Gretchen McNeil featured an interview with agent Ginger Clark about the trends in [...]
Here’s another theme from the O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference last month in New York: E-readers. New versions were demoed and, the day before the conference, Amazon had announced they would start delivering the updated version of their popular Kindle Reader. There have also been many articles and blog posts declaring the “death [...]
February 20, 2009 – 10:16 am
I attended the O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference last week in New York. It was well attended by an interesting mix of old-world publishing types and new-media technology types. There were a lot of predictions and pontifications, but some common themes emerged. I’ll share a few of them—at least as I saw them—over [...]
September 24, 2008 – 10:56 am
Most of our blog posts have been about Creative Byline, but we see ourselves as just one example of many technological shifts that have had–and will continue to have–a dramatic impact on book publishing. Here are a few thoughts on one of those shifts:
Over the past month I’ve had a few “aha” moments regarding technology [...]