It’s just possible that vanity presses — or print-on-demand subsidy publishers, as most prefer to be called — may be improving their reputations and, in some cases, even gaining respect among traditional publishers. Not only is the list of self-published books that have been picked up by traditional houses growing, but the vanity presses are…Continue Reading
With Academic Sales Dwindling, University Presses Target the Trade Market With “tectonic changes” rocking the university press empyrean — a withering library market which once scooped up 750 copies of just about every title; steadily shrinking subventions; plunging public funding; and redlining revenues that, one director says, “keep going through lower floors than anyone knew…Continue Reading
While many university presses have embarked on a soul-searching jag as they try to reconcile their lofty mandates with low-life financial reality, the folks at Harvard Business School Press appear anything but confused. “We are not a university press,” says David Goehring, newly appointed VP and Director of HBS Press. “You could say we’re a…Continue Reading
John Wiley & Sons publishes the #1 seller in travel guides (Frommer’s), one of the leading franchises in consumer technology (Dummies), and what it calls the bestselling cookbook brand in the world (yep, Betty Crocker). Bolstered by the acquisition of Hungry Minds two years ago — which dropped all three of those blockbuster brands into…Continue Reading
With trusty correspondents fanned out over the big-box landscape this October, word comes back that while bestsellers and brand names are alive and well, who controls those brands varies depending on the venue. At Sam’s Club, for instance, the publisher of record for Williams-Sonoma is Simon & Schuster (The Williams-Sonoma Collection), while at Costco, it’s…Continue Reading
Online Learning’s 600-Pound Gorilla Tangos With Textbook Publishers The University of Phoenix, an Arizona-headquartered, for-profit institution offering degrees in adult-education staples such as business administration and information technology, may seem an odd candidate to be turning the world of higher educational publishing upside down. Yet as the nation’s largest accredited university — 163,627 current students…Continue Reading
People Mary Albi has been named VP Sales & Marketing in the New York office of the Continuum International Publishing Group. She was most recently VP Sales & Marketing at Phaidon Press . . . Roy Levenson has been named VP Finance & Operations at Barnes & Noble Publishing, reporting to Alan Kahn. He was…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Between the Random/Ballantine merger and the “Voluntary Retirement” package, insiders say that the total number of exiting employees is cresting thirty, including Howard Weill (Hweill@optonline.net), Mike Moran (mmoran123@aol.com), Ivan Held (IvanHeld@yahoo.com), Dan Rembert (Drem3ert@earthlink.net), Kathleen Spinelli (kspinelli@ mac.com), Susan Gilmer (susan@gilmer.com), Barbara Greenberg, Erica Muncy, and editors Tracy Brown (Tracy_Brown03@msn.com) and Dan Smetanka. The…Continue Reading
Call them what you will — “print-on-demand subsidy publishers” or “glorified vanity houses” — the three leading POD publishers are subtly rethinking their roles in the realm of pay-to-play publishing. Collectively, iUniverse, Xlibris, and 1stBooks Library are banging out some 20,000 titles per year — with that market growing 40% or more annually — and…Continue Reading
“Best of times, worst of times” was the Dickensian scenario facing representatives from more than 50 publishing houses who hunkered down at the first Management Forum for Independent Publishers, hosted April 4-6 by NYU’s Center for Publishing. At the top of the agenda? “The economy, the economy, the economy,” chanted Center for Publishing Director Robert…Continue Reading
