“You don’t understand,” the three-time, big-six published author told me. “Books aren’t designed for you, the customer. Today, non-fiction books are business cards--for speaking, consulting, and deals.” I was meeting this friend for dinner in New York City and had mentioned a trend I had noticed in nearly every book I’d seen in the last year: They never say what they’re about. Almost as a rule, hardcover books (and increasingly ebooks) favor laudatory “blurbs” over descriptions--opting for short quotes from important authors, CEOs, celebrities, or media outlets to make their case. At the time, I was in the middle of designing the back cover of my own book, and being somewhat new to the game, I could not understand the benefits of doing this. Wouldn’t it be better to use that space to describe the contents of the book? Isn’t that what “customers” would want? Why bury the content on the inside? I was missing a fundamental change that has occurred in the publishing business, particularly for authors. Faced with declining sales and the disappearance of book retailers like Borders, authors have diversified their income streams, and many make substantially more money through new business generated by a book, rather than from it. Today, authors are in the idea-making business, not the book business. In short, this means that publishing a book is less about sales and much more about creating a brand. The real customers of books are no longer just readers but now include... Continue reading at 'Fast Company'
[ Fast Company | 2012-09-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that AI-generated emojis may be one of the new features Apple shows off at WWDC next month. If the current emoji library weren’t overwhelming enough (let alone my increasingly growing sticker collection both on Messages and WhatsApp), Gurman writes that the... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-05-27 11:15:26 UTC ]
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Twitter's advertising revenue is down 59 percent during a five week stretch between April 1st and early May compared to the same period last year, The New York Times has reported. It regularly falls short of sales projections, and things aren't likely to change soon (apparently despite the... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-06-06 09:25:43 UTC ]
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Wild speculation over a book known as ‘4C Untitled Flatiron Nonfiction Summer 2023’ has seen excited Swifties placing pre-orders. The bad news? It is likely not by herThe formula to a bestselling book is a mystery publishers have wrestled with for centuries. Now they may finally have their... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-05-10 03:53:07 UTC ]
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Prince Harry’s memoir has sold more than a million copies since its January release, making it the #1 book in 2023 so far. But the year is still young, and Colleen Hoover and Dav Pilkey are hot on Harry’s heels. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-04-07 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Tim Keller, whose books have sold over two million copies, is bringing four new titles to Zondervan; Tyndale Refresh signs a debut author’s guide to intentions and wellness, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-03-08 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Last year’s historical fiction was all about the 60s, baby, while this year’s features more from the 1950s, the long 19th century, and the 1970s. I have bad news for Gen-Xers and Xennials: the 1990s are now historical fiction, and there’s plenty coming out about the tail end of the 20th century... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-01-30 09:52:54 UTC ]
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First week of the controversial memoir’s sales breaks official UK records reports Nielsen, Guinness World Records and WaterstonesPrince Harry’s Spare has sold almost half a million copies in the UK in its first week on sale, making it the fastest-selling nonfiction book since records... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-01-17 16:13:57 UTC ]
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With its elegant mix of science fiction and metaphysical mystery, Le Tellier’s thriller rests somewhere between “Lost” and “Manifest.” Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-11-30 17:01:16 UTC ]
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This classic story of a single mother’s struggle against poverty, published in 1946, would become the first novel by a Black woman to sell a million copies. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-10-22 04:28:52 UTC ]
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The best-seller lists as we know them today have their roots in the Aug. 9, 1942, issue — but the Book Review has been tracking sales for much longer than that. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-10-21 14:55:10 UTC ]
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If your Kindle has ads or “Special Offers” showing onscreen, it’s because you made a deal. You chose to save money on your Kindle’s purchase price by accepting the "Ad-Supported discount (formerly known as the “With Special Offers” discount). It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2021-08-18 22:51:00 UTC ]
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Open Road Integrated Media has acquired Bloodhound Books, a U.K.-based publisher of e-books and print titles. Founded in 2014, Bloodhound has a backlist of about 600 fiction titles, and has sold approximately six million copies of its books worldwide. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-07-27 04:00:00 UTC ]
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“Human Nature” brings together the work of photographers documenting the earth’s altered landscape. It’s not all bad news. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-01-05 13:00:00 UTC ]
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On Thursday night—in the hours after President Trump’s lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell convened a press conference and laundered spectacularly-deranged voter-fraud conspiracy theories involving Hugo Chávez, George Soros, and the Clintons—Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host, said on air... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review
[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-11-23 13:19:50 UTC ]
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Hundreds of titles will flood the market because of Covid. It’s bad news for minority authors, says former Booker prize judgeOver the summer, novelist and screenwriter David Nicholls has been something of a hero. With a humorous nod to the less glamorous aspects of publishing life – hastily... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-08-16 07:29:05 UTC ]
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This article has some relatively good news and then some particularly bad news. First the good news. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-19 12:23:27 UTC ]
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Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough sold 950,000 copiesLegal attempts to prevent book’s publication failedThe bombshell family tell-all book by Mary Trump, the US president’s niece, sold almost a million copies by the end of its first day on sale and remains firmly at the top of Amazon’s... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-07-16 21:20:12 UTC ]
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Featuring the good news and the bad news from the week in books, the big titles everyone is talking about, the best reviewed books, adaptation news, and more… From Book Marks editors Dan Sheehan and Katie Yee. Discussed in this week’s episode: Haruki Murakami’s lockdown radio show Barnes &... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-05-15 08:49:00 UTC ]
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Digital publisher develops commercial break that avoids pandemic stories, as industry struggles with skittish advertisers. Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2020-04-17 17:36:26 UTC ]
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Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson's Pinch of Nom (Bluebird) has sold one million copies to date, with last week's 7,067 copies sold pushing it into seven figures through Nielsen BookScan's TCM. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-05 13:55:45 UTC ]
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