Peter Brantley runs a newsgroup to which he feeds interesting links (interesting to the bunch of publisher, web 2.0-type people that go onto the Reading 2.0 list he curates). Peter mentioned my Digital Book Pricing blog on Friday, and there followed a burst of highly opinionated and expert views, about 30 emails by my count, some of them lengthy and thought-out. Some of these postings may go on to the web, in which case I will link to the record. … Keep Reading
Page 203 of 279
Book prices are much influenced by the cost of production. Magazines are different, the most successful magazines have their size limited by the quantity of advertising that they can attract at an appropriate rate. For this reason, very large fashion magazines can be priced quite low on the street. Book publishers will say that they price to ‘the market’, and it is a naive mistake to suppose that one can publish profitably be achieving adequate margins at 5, 6 or … Keep Reading
If you value your position in the market it may be a mistake to control too much. Amazon’s eBook system the Kindle does not allow the user to purchase eBooks from suppliers other than Amazon. The Kindle rather tightly controls the environment in which eBooks can play. Sony has a rival eBook reader, which seems to be very similar but may have been losing ground to the Kindle. Perhaps the realisation that they cannot beat the Kindle at the game … Keep Reading
The Exact Editions platform has worked on the iPhone from the start. Here is a shot of a search on a Berkshire Publishing title, The Berkshire Encyclopedia of Extreme Sports
Notice the search terms highlighted in blue. But the iPhone has some peculiar features and the question is ‘How much should a platform which addresses the universal web try to accommodate the peculiar strengths and limitations of the iPhone?’ Especially since it seems quite likely that Apple will soon produce … Keep Reading
We have developed an e-commerce service for Profile Books who do a series of books sponsored by The Economist. It is a great series with concise and highly informative coverage of key management and business topics. For some reason the title which particularly caught my fancy was The Economist Guide to Management Ideas and Gurus. I am a sucker for quick guides to gurus and key ideas. It is a very well written and clear book. The style is … Keep Reading