From the Harvard Business Review: How much do you read? For most of my adult life I read maybe five books a year — if I was lucky. I’d read a couple on vacation and I’d always have a few slow burners hanging around the bedside table for months. And then last year I surprised myself … Read more
From Observer.com: Over the last year, we’ve been talking to writers like A.G. Riddle who have been making a more than comfortable living selling e-books directly to readers on Amazon. That’s why it’s always seemed a bit strange to see media accounts reporting on the shrinking market for e-books. News outlets like The New York … Read more
From ZDNet: Amazon’s Alexa is the brain of its Echo and digital assistant efforts, and the company is rapidly beginning to distribute the technology into other products At the Consumer Electronics Show 2017, it’s clear that Amazon aims to put Alexa everywhere. Google will also look to embed its Google Assistant everywhere too — in … Read more
Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, wrote The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. The book, published in 2006, began as a Wired article in 2004, well before Kindle ereaders existed and indie writing took off. Some of Anderson’s theories have been disputed, but authors like Joe Konrath are examples … Read more
What percentage of total book sales will be hardcopy in ten years? Most people agree that Big Publishing has a big advantage in the hardcopy/physical bookstore ecosystem (more like a lock than an advantage), but that’s an expensive distribution network, particularly when you consider returns from bookstores to publishers. What is the overhead and capital … Read more