Take a tourniquet to the supply chain if you like, but order pads will still be scorching hot at CIROBE, the indomitable remainder and promotional book fair that hit the Chicago Hilton from Oct. 25 – 27. “Our best show yet,” crowed a show spokesperson, and indeed, no amount of inventory management can seem to…Continue Reading
The words “disaster,” “nightmare,” and “terrifying” pop up when talk turns to the company-wide software systems that several large US publishers began to adopt in the last decade. In this article James Lichtenberg, President of consulting firm Lightspeed, LLC, finds that the dot-com boom may be over, but for some publishers, the information age is…Continue Reading
Your Guide to Cost-Cutting Without Lopping Off Heads Now that synergy’s been debunked, and good old Thomas Middelhoff has been spun off, the publishing world has settled down to the rather more prosaic task of whittling away at its already bare-bones cost structure. “It’s clear there is retrenchment,” as one public relations executive says, but…Continue Reading
The Philippine archipelago may comprise more than 7,000 tiny, tropical islands, but from Manila to Mindanao, the Southeast Asian nation speaks with virtually one voice where books are concerned — and it’s in English. With a population of 80 million, the Philippines is said to be the third-largest English-speaking country in the world (after the…Continue Reading
As globalization and its discontents continue to rumble across European book markets, among those nations bidding earnestly for a share of multinational manna is that one-time world titan, Greece. Casting its former Hellenocentric viewpoint to the Aegean winds, this nation has set a steady course for cosmopolitan literary exchange — or at least that’s the…Continue Reading
Move over, Rushdie. That’s the message emanating from bustling Hyderabad, India, anyway, where a gang of literati recently met to ponder the bullish future of publishing in this nation that boasts an apparently fast-growing appetite for English-language books. Though only 2% of its population is capable of reading and writing in English, those 18 million…Continue Reading
As Field Sales Forces Retreat, Will Telereps Take Up the Slack? Opened nearly a quarter-century ago, Auntie’s Bookstore is a solid fixture on the corner of Main and Washington Streets in downtown Spokane, Washington, a bustling burg of almost 200,000 that boasts the largest book-buying population between Seattle and Minneapolis. Judging by the number of…Continue Reading
