Author Archives: Lorraine Shanley

If You Can’t Put ‘Sex’ in a Title, Try ‘Startup’

Every publication tries to live up to its name and PublishingTrends.com is no exception: our focus is on industry trends.  In a recent People Magazine on what’s “In” and “Out,” we talked about how YA novels are moving from an obsession with vampires and werewolves, to one with angels and demons.  Over the years, we…Continue Reading

BISG’s Making Information Pay Conference: Beyond “Business-as-Usual”; The Age of Big Data

Book Industry Study Group‘s Angela Bole, welcomed attendees to the May 3rd conference at the McGraw-Hill Auditorium, which focused on how to capture and use data in both print and digital book marketing and sales.  Despite a serious subject, the day’s presentations managed to be both accessible and entertaining. First up was Jake Freivald from Information Builders, who talked about how…Continue Reading

London Book Fair 2012: Digital Minds the Gap

The Digital Minds Conference on April 15 had an impressive number of attendees, given that it took place on the Sunday before the London Book Fair.  Conference Chair, Evan Schnittman, still listed as Bloomsbury in the program (he officially starts at Hachette Books Group on April 30) emceed the event.  Pottermore‘s Charlie Redmayne gave one…Continue Reading

SWIPE 2012: Tablets Command Attention

At SWIPE, the Magazine Publishers Association conference on “tablets, e-readers and smartphones,” held at the Grand Hyatt on March 20, tablets dominated the discussion.  Not surprisingly, the “new iPad” was the focus of much adulation – especially given magazine publishers’ delight at how well ads looked in the pixelated screen.  But there was also concern…Continue Reading

Reading Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine: How Creativity Works

With this post, PublishingTrends.com begins a regular column in which it reviews, explicates and excerpts books that we think will resonate with people in the business of publishing and media.   Jonah Lehrer‘s Imagine: How Creativity Works is being published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on March 19, and already has enormous coverage, most notably in the Wall…Continue Reading

Taking the Tactical Approach: Tools of Change and Publishers Weekly’s Executive Roundtable

Tools of Change co-hosted a TOC Executive Roundtable with Publishers Weekly on Monday that was attended by about seventy industry insiders.  Moderated by John Kilkullen, formerly of Nielsen and IDG, it began with Magellan Media Founder, Brian O’Leary, offering a thoughtful argument for the industry to tackle the large issues confronting publishers in a large…Continue Reading

Publishers Launchpad at DBW

Over the three days of Digital Book World this week, 12 startup companies were given a chance to strut their stuff in a series of sessions called Publishers Launchpad, which had new companies pitch their business ventures in short presentations back-to-back.  The first session was part of Monday’s Publishers Launch Children’s Publishing Goes Digital conference,…Continue Reading

Send Your Emails at Lunchtime, and Other Direct Marketing Tips

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) just released the 2011 Edition of its Statistical Fact Book. Now in its 33rd year of publication, the book reflects changes in direct marketing, this year focusing more closely on the mobile market. Some key findings: While ereaders were marketed in 2.5% of the mobile campaigns in 2010, that number…Continue Reading

TOC 2011: From Publisher to Reader, Direct

On the opening day of this year’s Tools of Change, O’Reilly VP Online, Allen Noren, kept the audience glued to their seats for two hours, revealing his secrets of “Building a Successful Direct Channel.” Noren began by explaining the need to ask a lot of questions before beginning to sell direct.  The answer to ‘What…Continue Reading

Do Cookbooks Need Apps?

This morning Lynn Andriani, who oversees PW‘s Cooking The Books e-newsletter, moderated a cookbook panel that brought out an SRO crowd, and uncovered some surprising areas of agreement and disagreement among the panelists. These included Clarkson Potter‘s Doris Cooper, EatYourBooks.com‘s Jane Kelly, Cookstr‘s Will Schwalbe, and Bruce Shaw from the Harvard Common Press. Everyone agreed…Continue Reading