Strauss Consultants, Inc.

62% say Twitter is a Fad - Huh?

admin — Mon, 10 May 2010 21:54:10 +0000

Mike Shatzkin, who is always informative as well as entertaining opened the annual BISG Making Information Pay seminar with some results from the survey they sent out to publishing professionals.

62% say Twitter is a fad, soon to pass

More than 28% say the same about crowdsourcing

75% say that marketing becomes more about digital marketing, web analytics and publishing in vertical niches.

What was interesting to me was that he says that Big publishers will only employ marketing for single titles and megabooks. no great surprise here - which makes self-publishing more than a viable option these days.

My new company - Books to Market -

just launched. hope you will check out the website.

bookstomarketnow.com

2of13 - Making Information Pay 2010 (Mike Shatzkin, Idea Logical Company)

View more presentations from bisg.

Publishers Weekly Gets Sold

admin — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:03:53 +0000

Publishers Weekly has been acquired by PWxyz, LLC, a newly formed company headed by one-time PW publisher George Slowik.
The acquisition includes the Web site Publishersweekly.com and Publishers Weekly Show Daily. The new company will retain all of PW’s editorial, art, and advertising employees and the magazine will remain headquartered in New York City. Cevin Bryerman will stay as publisher with Jim Milliot and Michael Coffey serving as co-editors. Slowik ran PW in the late 1980s and early 1990s, leading the publication to record profits despite a poor economy. John Poulin, CEO of PW’s former owner Reed Business Information, said, “Given George’s history with Publishers Weekly, we believe this will be a great match.”

This could give PW the shot in the arm it needs with an owner who hopefully understands how publishing has changed. I would like to see more about the self-publishing process and programs offered from various publishing houses.

Just as publishing needs to undergo a radical change - so too does PW. I wish them every success in the world.

B&N “moves in with Lynch” Names him CEO

erica — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:48:47 +0000

In a surprise move, Barnes & Noble named William Lynch, president of the company’s Web division, as chief executive, replacing Steve Riggio, who will remain as vice chairman.

Some industry analysts were surprised that Mr. Lynch had been promoted so soon. It is “the corporate succession equivalent of moving in with someone a week after the first date,” said Michael Norris, senior analyst at Simba Information, which provides research and advice to publishers.

In a statement, Len Riggio said: “Given the dynamic nature of the book industry, William is uniquely qualified to lead the company’s transition to multichannel distribution and drive the continuing expansion of our e-commerce platform, eBooks and other digital content and products.”
When you look at the book market, physical books will continue to be the dominant format that consumers buy — they value having the object,” Lynch told Reuters in an interview, though he said that attachment was weaker for the mass market paperbacks segment.

The company, which has 723 general retail bookstores and operates 639 outlets through its college bookstore subsidiary, is unlikely to open new locations. Mr. Riggio said that in the next two years, “the net number of stores will not change much.” After that, he said, “we will have to see.”

This is a bold move for B&N as Lynch is the first person outside of the Riggio family to be named CEO since Len Riggio bought B&N in 1971. I am glad Lynch acknowledges that print is still the dominant form. While e-book sales are increasing exponetially print books still remain the lion’s share of a publisher’s’sales.

B&N adding new ereader for IPad

erica — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:37:12 +0000

B&N announced on its blog B&N blog
that it will soon have an eReader for Ipad that will give customers access to more than 1 million books. The Ipad will launch on April 3rd.

ChangeWave polled more than 3,100 U.S. consumers in the first half of February. They asked whether they were considering purchasing an e-reader in the next 90 days. 40% said they planned on purchasing an iPad, 28% said Amazon’s Kindle, 6% said they would buy a Barnes & Noble Nook and 1% for the Sony Reader.
The Director of Research at Changewave said “Amazon and the others are not going to just sit there and twiddle their thumbs, they’ll react,” he said during an interview Friday. But if they don’t, and the iPad is as successful as the ChangeWave poll indicates, he added, the Kindle, Nook and Sony Reader could find themselves playing catch-up.
In my opinion consumers are going to want to carry one multimedia device for their phone, music, reading needs, and computer applications. Otherwise we might need a moving van to go to the store.

Publishing Conferences of Note

erica — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:41:04 +0000

Making Information Pay 2010
Date: Thursday, May 6, 2010
Time: 8:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ET
Location: McGraw-Hill Auditorium, NYC

URL: http://www.bisg.org/mip

Publishing Business Conference and Expo
Date: March 8–10, 2010
Location: Marriott Marquis Times Square, NYC
URL: http://publishingbusiness.cvent.com/EVENTS/Info/Summary.aspx?e=1af1c1c1-b104-4d22-9da1-3f27bb48a3e9

BISG & NISO at ALA Annual Conference
Date: June 25, 2010
Time: 12:30 p.m.–4:00 p.m. ET
Location: American Library Association Annual Conference, Washington, DC
URL: http://www.bisg.org/events-0-511-bisg-niso-at-ala-annual-conference-2010.php

Healing Arts for Haiti

erica — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:22:36 +0000

If you live in the New York City Area - I urge you to go to the Hyatt Regency Grand Ballroom at Grand Central Station on Friday Feb. 12th.

Every dollar raised will be donated to UNICEF, directly helping rescue and relief efforts in Haiti.
And we get to enjoy masssage,yoga, acupuncture and a 75% off sample sale of beauty products.

Friday, February 12th, 2010
Noon - 8pm

Grand Hyatt - The Grand Ballroom

109 E. 42nd St
at Grand Central Station

New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association asks Publishers to keep Reps in the Field

erica — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:03:22 +0000

The Board of Directors of The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association has written an open letter to Publishers and asked them not to cut Reps
It does seem to be a self-fulling prophesy. Publishers are cutting field reps because of dwindling sales with independent bookstores. However sales are likely to fall even further if you don’t have a person helping the buyer make sensible decisions for their store. It baffles me that publishers are cutting their sales staff now when a sale is even harder to come by. Until the day everyone is set up for web presentations there is nothing that replaces the face to face, deeply personal relationship that the sales rep has with the buyer.
The letter from NAIBA describes the situation perfectly:

We are alarmed with what appears to be a trend in the sales division of publishers–the removal of field sales reps to independent bookstores. This draconian move against our bookselling segment will be responsible for the disappearance of book culture.

Field sales reps are a crucial part of our business. Each regional independent booksellers association and Publishers Weekly honors an outstanding field rep each year. We can’t think of another publisher position that gets this recognition. We devote countless hours at conferences refining the sales rep/bookseller relationship. They are that crucial to us.

Restricting field reps to large stores will give publishers a skewed view of what is a very diverse world–independent bookselling. Sales reps take the time to know our stores, what our customers like, and what is on our shelves. They are the industry worker-bees, travelling the region, taking ideas and trends and pollinating other stores. We learn about other stores from them, what others are reading and loving; what is selling; marketing tips; event ideas; what the publisher is doing; and what authors have books coming out in the next season. They make fans for authors out of our frontline booksellers. They cut through the catalogs to make sure we carry what we’ll be able to sell, and their endorsements are why we buy what we might have ignored.

These reasons are why cuts in field sales reps devastate us. Have you really thought about what this stricture will mean to you? Fewer book sales. Without a doubt, we are not ordering as much through telemarketing. We are definitely not focusing on your backlist through tele-sales, and we definitely miss titles from the frontlist. We also don’t buy as much direct, which makes independent bookselling a less profitable business. The vicious cycle is that we buy less because we don’t have sales reps, and then you devalue our business because we aren’t buying as much as we used to.

We understand the corporate need to save money. There are more efficacious and less exclusionary ways to cut your budgets. You know what they are because independent bookstores have been telling you what they are for years. Cut multiple ARC mailings. Do away with promotional gimmicks that go from mailbox to garbage can. Consider publishing fewer titles, fewer hard covers, fewer copies. Take a hard look at celebrity advances.

We exist to sell your books, those unique and hard to place titles, not just the established authors. Field sales reps are the tools we need to do that for you. As much as you would like to think a tele-salesperson is doing the same job, you are sadly mistaken. A field sales rep is far more than a person filling in an order form.

Don’t cut our lifeline to your books.

The new Ipad is up

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:52:48 +0000

http://www.apple.com/ipad/

Personally I liked the name Islate better but who am I to quibble with Microsoft.
iBooks
Here’s the books component:

“The iBooks app is a great, new way to read and buy books. Just download the app for free from the App Store, and you’ll be able to buy everything from classics to bestsellers from the built-in iBookstore. Once you’ve bought a book, it’s displayed on your Bookshelf. To read it, all you have to do is tap on it and it opens up. The high-resolution, LED-backlit screen displays everything in sharp, rich, color, so it’s very easy to read, even in low light.”
I’d love to know what people think of it.

My first Video

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:51:09 +0000

Things are so intense in the world today that I decided to do something fun. I created a video at Animoto It was easy. I uploaded my pictures from my vacation with my dog Izzy and my cousin and her dog in Vermont and then I uploaded a song. I could not upload from my Itunes library as you can only upload MP3’s so I used their collection. I will keep working on it.
But in the meantime it was incredibly easy. They give you a free 30 second video and then charge for anything beyond that. I can start embedding this in promotions and marketing plans now. Very cool, Animoto!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Becca Stevens is awesome!

admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:26:37 +0000

I had the opportunity to spend some time this weekend with Rev. Becca Stevens. She is an Episcopal Priest who founded Magdalene House, a two-year resident community and safe haven for women from the streets who are drug addicted, into prostitution, live in dire poverty and have criminal records. She is currently on an 8-city Prison Tour to visit women behind bars to share with them the message of hope and love as a powerful force for change.It coincides with a book she wrote for Abingdon Press, called Find Your Way Home

Then, there’s Thistle Farms, the nonprofit business operated by Magdalene House residents. Thistle Farms products are handmade, natural bath and beauty products, and the women are involved in every step from their making to their marketing and selling. I attended a house party in New York City and when two women from Magdalene told their stories - there was not a dry eye in the house. When she spoke at Christ Church on Sunday I began to believe that this woman is descended from the angels. She is one of the most inspiring people I have ever met.

I hope you will check out Thistle Farms - www.thistlefarms.org and buy lots of products. Its okay to buy hers books too You will be contributing to an organization that really helps women and saves lives. As for me - I hope she starts a New York Branch because I will be the first in line to volunteer.