Author Archives: Lorraine Shanley

The Riyadh International Book Fair: An Inspiring Destination

The 2023 Riyadh International Book Fair wrapped up its 10-day run on October 9, after more than a million visitors had flocked to browse and buy books from the 1,800 publishers from 32 countries that exhibited.  While not as well known as Sharjah Book Fair, which begins on Nov. 1, and with few English language…Continue Reading

Just What Makes An Audiobook “Original”?

Though still a fraction of the overall book market, audiobooks continue their double-digit annual growth: the global audiobooks market is expected to reach $35.04 billion by 2030, and U.S. audiobook sales topped ebook sales for the second year in a row. At last count, more than seventy-five thousand titles have been published, a number that…Continue Reading

DBW Redux

Digital Book World is back in NYC after an absence of six years. Since Bradley Metrock bought the program and moved it to Nashville, it has evolved into a great place for publishers and vendors to see how technology is changing – and will change – the industry. From AI-narrated audiobooks to the melding of…Continue Reading

Digital Printing: The New Normal

Everyone’s looking for silver linings in their COVID-19 playbooks, and for publishers – along with their distributors and wholesalers – the answer is, paradoxically, print.  In the olden, pre-pandemic days when most books were printed offset, digital files were stored in case a book needed to be reprinted quickly. But this March, that dynamic was…Continue Reading

FutureBook Live 2018 Takes The Stage

The Bookseller’s FutureBook2018 conference began its second decade on November 30th in London’s East End with a sellout crowd of publishers, vendors and tech firms from the UK, EU and US. There were four streams — FutureBook, AudioBook, EdTech and Play — which meant attendees had to make decisions on which to choose. Thankfully, a…Continue Reading

Voice-first ups the volume on podcasts, audiobooks

Are you a good listener?  More and more people consider themselves to be, and the evidence is impressive: according to the Audio Publishers Association (APA), audiobook sales grew 22.7% with over 46,000 audiobooks published in 2017, and podcasts now total more than 500,000, up from 150,000 last year. According to eMarketer, 73 million people in the…Continue Reading

Publishing’s Next Iterations: PubTech Connect 2018

NYU’s Center for Publishing once again joined forces with Publishers Weekly on March 6 to present PubTech Connect, a day of conversation about innovation in media. While last year’s inaugural program had speakers who were less familiar with publishing, and less familiar to publishers, this year’s stayed a little closer to the base while still presenting a slew of new…Continue Reading

Social Media for Children’s and Adult Books: Who Posts Where?

Look at some of the top authors on Twitter and you’ll see that the list is pretty evenly divided between authors of books for children and adults.  Paulo Coelho weighs in at 12.2 million, followed by JK Rowling at 11.3 million.  Then a steep fall to Anthony Bourdain (6.1) and John Green (5.33), Stephen King…Continue Reading

Consumer Data at BookExpo 2017

BookExpo has been morphing into a conference for several years, with more programming taking place during the convention.  Along with a full day of events hosted by the Audio Publishers Association (APA), this year had a three-day schedule of panels focused on marketing, rights, bookselling, and, of course, books and authors. The kickoff panel, “Consumer…Continue Reading

PubTechConnect: Where Publishing Meets its Future

NYU’s Center for Publishing joined forces with Publishers Weekly on April 20th to present a day of conversation about innovation in media.  The names of the companies that presented were both impressive and less familiar to book publishing’s usual conference speakers: Vox, Quartz, Dropbox, ClassPass, and Vice were among them, though HarperCollins, Hachette, S&S were also some…Continue Reading