Category Archives: Featured Articles

Taking on E-Book Bestsellers

In November, the New York Times announced that it would begin publishing e-book bestseller lists (fiction and nonfiction) in early 2011. “We wanted to be able to tell our readers which titles were selling and how they fit together with print sales,” said Janet Elder, NYT Editor of News Surveys and Election Analysis. The tracking…Continue Reading

Bestselling E-Books, 2/1/2011

Methodology: We calculated each title’s points score based on its position on the respective e-book retailer’s top sellers list, that retailer’s market share, and the average sales ratio between each title in the print book hardcover fiction lists for the past 20 weeks (based on Nielsen BookScan data). Market share was tricky to calculate, especially…Continue Reading

Agents & E-Books Exclusive Survey Preview

The Idea Logical Company and Market Partners International recently conducted an anonymous, invitation-only survey of U.S. literary agents on the subject of e-book royalties, and many chose to comment on each question.* 135 agents took the survey. The findings—along with the reactions of seven publishing CEOs, who often questioned the agents’ contentions—will be presented by…Continue Reading

Holiday Books Survey Results Are In

For more results from this survey, check out Book-Giving Etiquette Guide and I Love You, Keith Richards. “My siblings assume that every book I get is free, so they expect books AND a ‘real present.’” “Any time I give a book, I fear it will be assumed that I did not pay for it, so…Continue Reading

Survey Results: Book-Giving Etiquette Guide

For more results from this survey, check out Holiday Books Survey Results and I Love You, Keith Richards. As we mentioned here, our final survey question was about issues of book-giving etiquette. We included a couple of prompts to get our respondents going, but were still surprised by the many thoughtful answers we received. It’s…Continue Reading

I Love You, Keith Richards

For more results from this survey, check out Holiday Books Survey Results and Book-Giving Etiquette Guide. When asked to list the books they are giving as gifts this year (whether they’re schnorring, swiping from work, or buying), respondents were extremely forthcoming—ditto when asked to list the titles they hope to receive themselves. A * indicates…Continue Reading

Marmite, Maturalism, and Mangification: What Publishers Can Learn from the World of Trends Research

In a recent interview, Random House CEO Markus Dohle said he is “convinced that publishers have to become more reader oriented in a marketing and trend finding/setting way rather than in a direct to consumer selling way.” The tricky part: How can publishers be trendspotters? In this two-part series, we will try to address that…Continue Reading

Conferentially Speaking

The 3 million iPads sold as of June were a major topic of discussion at two conferences this month: The Big Money’s Untethered 2010: Profitable Media in the Tablet Era, and the Digital Publishing and Advertising Conference. Untethered was aimed more directly at book publishers, and its “Future of Book Publishing” panel included publishing head…Continue Reading

Now in Hardcover: The Series in 2010

Take a look at BookScan’s bestselling juvenile titles for the week ending April 25: an astounding 73% were titles from one of several series. But these are not your Baby-Sitters’ Club of yesteryear: “Harry Potter turned the whole paperback series notion on its head,” says Megan Tingley, SVP, Publisher, Little Brown Books for Young Readers….Continue Reading

Lessons From The Mobile Plunge

Differentiation and budgeting are key to successfully entering the booming mobile app marketplace, said panelists last month at the Publishing Business Conference’s “Making the Most out of Your Mobile Opportunity.”