Book publishers can learn a lot from their media counterparts. As the world becomes more connected, the lines between these industries is getting blurred. Keeping on top of trends then can be really helpful, in terms of getting ideas of what can be done and what to expect in the future. Here are a few headlines from other forms of media that can help inform people in book publishing:
Music
- “Paying The Piper: Music Streaming Services In Perspective” on NPR
- “SiriusXM: A Success Story (So Why Are They Still Paying Below Market Royalty Rates to Music Creators??)” on RIAA
- “Songwriter says he made $5,679 from 178 million Pandora streams [Updated]” on ARS Technica
- “Submit Music to Independent Radio Stations, Podcasts and Interview Sites” on Indie Music Bus
- “Whitestone – The World’s First Interactive Music Platform” on Kickstarter
Movies, TV, Video
- “‘Murder, She Wrote’ Reboot in the Works at NBC With Octavia Spencer” on Hollywood Reporter
- ““Kevin Spacey urges TV channels to give control to viewers”>Kevin Spacey urges TV channels to give control to viewers” on Youtube (Telegraph)
- “BitTorrent to Add a Paywall to its Bundle Platform in September” on The Digital Reader
- “BookReels, an MTV for Books?” on Publisher’s Weekly
- “Creator & Director Anthony Wilcox Opens Up About Shield 5” on DIY
- “Dear Television” on LA Review of Books
- “Forget Binge-Watching, Try Encouraging “Binge-Reading”” on Publishing Perspectives
- “Google Unveils App Streaming: Is This the Platform That Unifies Apps and the Web?” on Battelle Media
- “Google wants you to pay $9.99 per month for ad-free YouTube” on Venture Beat
- “Harlequin Hopes to Find ‘Binge’ Readers with New E-Serial” on Publisher’s Weekly
- “How To Find and Hire your YouTube Team” on Youtube
- “In a year, Netflix’s competition shifted from Hulu to HBO to everything” on Quartz
- “Media Companies Join to Extend the Brands of YouTube Stars” on NY Times
- “Movies, music, and sports: U.S. entertainment spending, 2008–2013” on Bureau of Labor Statistics
- MUBI
- “Netflix is doing to TV what steam-powered printing did to books” on Quartz
- “The New Canon” on MetaFilter
- Out of Print
- “Publishers Should Start Selling eBooks on Bittorrent” on GoodeReader
- “Ready for Your Close-up? What YouTube Can Do for Writers” on Publishing Perspectives
- ShieldFive
- Tribeca Snapshot Shorts
- “Why Do People Talk Funny in Old Movies?, or The Origin of the Mid-Atlantic Accent” on Open Culture
- “Why I Recorded a One-Second Video (Almost) Every Day in 2015” on NY Times
- “Why publishers should embrace the film world’s enthusiasm for releasing a director’s cut” on New Statesman
- “YouTube Authors Storm the Bestseller List” on Publisher’s Weekly
- “Youtube’s pay TV service makes video-creators a deal they literally can’t refuse” on Boing Boing
Comics
- “Electricomics wants to redefine comics for the 21st century” on Wired
- “Four Risk Factors Facing the Comics Industry in 2015” on Publisher’s Weekly
- “Tokyopop Returns with New Manga, Self-Publishing App” on Publisher’s Weekly
- “Spotlight: A Poetry Comics Discussion” on The Rumpus
Games
- “Author Combines Mobile Gaming, Fantasy Fiction to Lure Readers” on Publisher’s Weekly
- “Hachette launches football ‘gamebook’ series” on The Bookseller
- “Lessons for Publishers, Amazon, B&N, Kobo from Microsoft’s Xbox DRM about-turn” on I Reader Review
- Lifeline…
- “No Man’s Sky: What’s Missing From the Universe For You?” on Movie Pilot
- “What Indie Book Publishing and Indie Game Development Have In Common” on Digital Pubbing
Education
- “The Content Industry Is Designing Anti-Piracy Lesson Plans for Kids” on Gizmodo
- “Hachette Livre Partners with Knewton to Develop Adaptive Curricula” on Digital Book World
- Inanimate Alice
- “Millions of Students Using Ebooks as Learning Tool in Schools” on Digital Book World
- Pointer
- Writers Web TV
- Typeset
News, Blogs
Ads
- “The ad blocking controversy, explained” on Vox
- “Here’s The Thing With Ad Blockers” on Wired
- “We Brought Together the Major Players in the Ad Blocker War, and Here’s What They Told Each Other” on AdWeek
- “Where Clicks Reign, Audience Is King” on NY Times
- “Why Now Is the Time for Advertising and Marketing Technologies to Converge” on AdWeek
Content
- “19 Warning Signs Your Infographic Stinks” on Kissmetrics Blog
- “Can Digital Shops Survive the Branded Content Boom?” on AdWeek
- “Content – Fresh, Exciting and Inviting” on Digital Book World
- De Correspondant
- “Digital Publishing: Your Story’s Life Span” on Editor & Publisher
- “Dutch journalism startup Blendle wants to create an iTunes for newspaper and magazine articles” on TNW
- New Historian
- “The Optimized Publisher: Social Integration” on Digital Book World
- “The Optimized Publisher: Structured Data Markup” on Digital Book World
- “Please, for the Love of God, Read This Post (Or How to Fight Content Fatigue)” on Copy Hackers
- “Publish interactive historical documents with Archivist” on Medium
- Ubu Web
Design
- Codex Press
- “Erasing Digital Publishing Imperfections from Your UX Design” on Content Standard
- “Goodbye, Native Mobile Apps” on Atavist Insider
- “How content containers can dramatically affect user experience” on Joe Wikert
- “Millennials” on The Guardian (interesting way to present the series)
- “Infographic: Who Are The Leading Digital Publishers in U.S. News?” on Mobile Marketing Watch
- “Scoop: A Glimpse Into the NYTimes CMS” on NY Times
- “What you need to know: How six publishers digest the news for readers” on Nieman Lab
- “Why digital-first designers are the future of digital publishing” on Talking New Media
Monetization
- “Buy Me a Beer: Why the “Donate” Button is Dead… Almost” on Blog Tyrant
- “Monetizing a Blog: Tip Jars and PayPal Donations” on Men with Pens
- “Setting up WordPress for AMP: Accelerated Mobile Pages” on Yoast
- “Tensorflow and Monetizing Intellectual Property” on Stratechery
- “Why a Donate Button Will Hurt Your Blog” on Brian Haynes
Startups, Niche
All this connectedness, combined with lower barriers to entry, have made it easier than ever for people to start their own startups. Not all are successful, but they are all interesting.
Apps
- “Among News Apps, Flipboard Drives The Most Traffic For Publishers (According to Onswipe)” on TechCrunch
- Byte
- “Byte is a wild new creative tool from the founder of Vine” on The Verge
- “Creating Book Apps With AppOpus by Russell Phillips” on Nonfiction Authors Association
- “Flipboard buying, killing Zite – will you make the switch?” on iMore
- “Learnist Releases App, Debuts Digital Bookstore” on Publisher’s Weekly
- List
- “New app offers ‘books for the Snapchat generation‘” on CNN
- “Osprey and Amber launch digital partworks” on The Bookseller
- “Out of the Box Ebook Store for Publishers From Pubsoft” on Digital Book World
- “Quotle Is Instagram And OneShot For Book Quotes” on TechCrunch
- “Review: Read’s ePub reading app for iOS will make you more productive” on TNW
Books
- “At the New Zola Books, Focus Is On Tech” on Publisher’s Weekly
- “Bedtime Reading, Written by a Robot Just for You” on NY Times
- “Bonnier is Working on its Own eBook Subscription Service – BookBeat” on The Digital Reader
- Book Grabbr
- Book Tango
- “BookTech Award Showcase: Write-Track” on The Bookseller
- Borne Digital
- “eBookids Wants to Be a Netflix for eBooks for Kids” on The Digital Reader
- “Eleven Wants to Bring Back Adverts in Books” on The Digital Reader
- “Extinction and Editing: Startup Collate It” on Publishing Perspectives
- “Founder of The Pigeonhole on the serialized future of books” on Talking New Media
- “Germany’s LeYo! Relates Digital Interactivity and Analog Books for Kids” on Publishing Perspectives
- Girl Friday
- Graffica
- “How a City in France Got the World’s First Short-Story Vending Machines” on NY Times
- Inkle
- “Inkshares Announces New Publishing Tier, Funding Goal” on Digital Book World
- “Inkshares introduces Inkshares Credits to publishing crowdfunding system” on Teleread
- “Interactive Storytelling Phone Debuts” on Publisher’s Weekly
- “Is Scribophile For You?” on Indies Unlimited
- Moveable Type
- “MyPublishingAssistant Lets Authors Streamline Blog-to-Book, eBooks” on GoodeReader
- “Nerdist Launches Collection on Inkshares” on Digital Book World
- “NetGalley Adds Excerpt Support Via Dial-a-Book” on Digital Book World
- Picturing Books
- “Pigeonhole Offers Subscriptions for Serialized Ebooks” on Publishing Perspectives
- “Poland’s OpenBooks.com Asks, Is Pay-After-You-Read Sustainable?” on Publishing Perspectives
- Post-Digital Publishing Archive
- Publication Studio
- “PubSoft’s New Platform Stands to Revolutionize the Publishing Industry” on GoodeReader
- “Startup of the week: Intellogo” on The Bookseller
- “Startup of the week: Orson & Co” on The Bookseller
- “Startup Serial Box Wants To Be the ‘HBO for Readers’” on Publisher’s Weekly
- “Startup snapshot: The Owl Field” on Book Machine
- Unconventional Guides
- “Used eBook Website Launches in Europe” on The Digital Reader
- “Tapas Media Launches Gamified Stories App” on Digital Book World
Book Publishers
- Adams Media
- Archangel Ink
- “Canelo reveals first signings” on The Bookseller
- Comma Press
- Elementa
- Samhain Publishing
- “The new platform luring readers into short fiction” on The Guardian
- Waldorf Publishing
Book Publishing
- Anthology Builder
- “Authors.me Declaws the Publishing Process” on Silicon Hills
- Authors.me
- Book in a Box
- Business Ghost
- “DBW Interview with Enrique Parrilla, CEO, Pentian” on Digital Book World
- Flying Cat
- Pedernales Publishing
- “Self-Publisher Introduces MyPublishingAssistant.com” on eContent
- Story Weaver
- “UK’s StoryTerrace Extends Crowdfunding to Private Bios” on Publishing Perspectives
Book Recommendations
- Book Perk
- Delancy Place
- Fetch Book
- Inkett
- Luzme
- NCVRS
- The Reading Room
- “Read Senses” on DevPost
- “ReadZap Wants to Deliver Your Next Read to Your Inbox” on The Digital Reader
- “Screwpulp’s Launch May Be the Salvation of Book Reviews” on GoodeReader
Lessons
- “‘Netflix for E-Books’ Looks Doubtful with Oyster’s Shutdown” on Forbes
- “5 things we learned from the demise of Oyster Books” on Joe Wikert
- “After Oyster, What’s Next for E-book Subscriptions?” on Publisher’s Weekly
- “Oyster, a Netflix for Books, Is Shutting Down. But Most of Its Team Is Heading to Google.” on re/code
- “Oyster” on Crunchbase
- Oyster blog
- “Oyster Is Shutting Down Operations” on Publisher’s Weekly
- “Oyster’s Sunset Shows Subscriptions Alone Won’t Address Challenges Of Ad Blocking” on TechCrunch
- “Scribd Cuts Romance Catalog” on Smashwords Blog
- “Vook Acquires Booklr” on Publisher’s Weekly
- “What do Subscription E-book Services Really Mean for Indie Authors?” on BookBuzzr
- “What’s Up with eBook Subscriptions? Kindle & Scribd Business Models in Flux” on Book Works
Niche
- “Cassidy: Issuu shows Silicon Valley’s vital role in global commerce” on Mercury News
- CEO Lifestyle
- Epic Write
- Interweave
- Kit
- “Popcorn Time reinvents the seedy process of torrenting” on Ars Technica
- Product Hunt
- Reasearch Pad
- Stembook
- Storycorps
- “This free online encyclopedia has achieved what Wikipedia can only dream of” on Quartz
- Worm Book
- XKCD
Tech
- Balsamiq
- Code Mentor
- “Making sense of MVP (Minimum Viable Product) – and why I prefer Earliest Testable/Usable/Lovable” on Crisp
- Email Hunter
- Dot
- “How The New York Times and other publishers are using Slack as a content tool” on DigiDay
- Immersion
- Ink
- Kivy
- Notion
- Open Knowledge Labs
- “Prototype mobile phone covers foreshadow new wave of E Ink displays” on Gizmag
- Publish.js
- “Skimlinks Poised to Displace Traditional Hyperlinks With World’s First Intelligent Linking Technology” on Digital Journal
- Space.js
- “StickyDocs Launches New Digital Publishing Platform Uniquely Tailored for Corporate Communicators” on Digital Journal
- “Vivliostyle – Web browser based CSS typesetting engine – Johannes Wilm – XML London 2015” on Vimeo
- Wave
- Y Combinator
Future, Trends
After taking a look at other industries, as well as new companies in the book industry, it’s interesting to read about trends and predictions for the future.
Authors
- “A manifesto for the open book” on The Bookseller
- “A manifesto on working with authors” on The Bookseller
- “Author Earnings survey analysis 2015” on Amelia Smith
- “Getting Past Genre in Digital Acquisitions” on Digital Book World
- “All Good Things…” on Julie Hyzy
- “Let authors take the quiet road; Week in Books” on Independent
- “The Agent’s Role in the Digital Age: A Conversation with Jessica Faust” on Jane Friedman
- “New Guild Survey Reveals Majority of Authors Earn Below Poverty Line” on Publisher’s Weekly
- “Self-publishing And Web Presence” on Original Content
- “Type, edit and format with your voice in Docs—no keyboard needed” on Youtube
- “Web Poets’ Society: New Breed Succeeds in Taking Verse Viral” on NY Times
Design
- “Ebook-Inspired Art: Center for Book Arts Nods at How Digital Is Changing Everything” on Digital Book World
- “Face to Face? Or Face to Screen?” on C. Hope Clark
- “Fonts and Nonsense: What Bookerly and Literata Get Wrong” on Digital Book World
- “Google developing books with special effects, patent applications suggest” on Silicon Beat
- “Google’s Ebook Logo Combines The Best Of Print And Digital Brands” on FastCo
- “Guardian open journalism: Three Little Pigs advert” on The Guardian
- “How online book shops can harness the power of social proof” on EConsultancy
- “How Publishers Are Using Smart Automation to Drive Sales” on Digital Book World
- “How We Build CMS-Free Websites” on Development Seed
- “Maximizing mobile micro-moments” on Joe Wikert
Marketing
- “‘Book Scavenger’ Has Readers on the Hunt” on Publisher’s Weekly
- “Barnes & Noble Announces Fantastic Lineup for the First-Ever Retail Mini Maker Faire® at StoresNationwide, November 6-8” on Business Wire
- “Books as brands and the opportunities to sell book-branded merchandise” on The Shatzkin Files
- “Can Technology Replicate Word-of-Mouth Book Marketing?” on Publishing Perspectives
- “Can This Small Publisher’s Radiohead-Style Plan Change the Way Books Are Sold?” on Flavorwire
- “Direct-to-consumer: Can you change buyer behavior?” on Joe Wikert
- Gumroad
- “Ingram partners with BitLit to offer e-book bundles” on The Bookseller
- “International Read an Ebook Day Set for September 18” on Digital Book World
- “Leanpub Explains Why Not to Write Books in “Stealth Mode”” on Publishing Perspectives
- “Local Maui Book Publisher Launches First Worldwide Coordinated Virtual World and Book Series For Tweens” on Ein
- “Macmillan To Publish First Novel From Swoon Reads, A Crowdsourced Romance Imprint And Online Community” on Digital Journal
- “Mimi Makes A Million” on James Altucher
- “Potluck Book Discovery” on Medium
- “Publishers Turn to the Crowd to Find the Next Best Seller” on NY Times
- “Rewarding Readers– with Ebooks via Credit/Debit Card” on Digital Book World
- “Simon & Schuster and Hotels.com to Offer Ebooks to Travelers” on Digital Book World
- “Sword & Laser to Launch “Sequel” to First Publishing Contest” on Digital Book World
- “Target to offer e-books through partnership” on USA Today
- “The 15-Second Films Taking Instagram By Storm” on Fast Company
- “The Things Customers Can Do Better Than You” on Harvard Business Review
- “This unique Tokyo bookstore offers one book title a week (pictures)” on Ebook Friendly
- “Three Brilliant Publishers Doing Things Differently” on Digital Book World
- “Walmart is Carrying a Self-Pub POD Book In-Store” on The Digital Reader
- “With Stephen Fry, Penguin Crowdsources Future of the Book” on Publishing Perspectives
News
- “Bitcoin Now Accepted at Falbe Publishing for Ebooks, Audiobooks, and Stock Art” on Digital Journal
- “Bitcoin U: Why Simon Fraser bookstores are accepting virtual currency” on CTV
- “Connecticut Governor Signs Bill Creating State-Wide Electronic Book Delivery System” on Library Journal
- “Corner Office: F+W Chairman & CEO David Nussbaum on the Company’s Decisive Strategic Shift Toward Ecommerce” on Publishing Executive
- “Dance to Calypso” on Ma.tt
- “Digital reading museum to open in Paris” on The Bookseller
- “Disney and Pixar Spotlight Staff Talent in New Line of Books” on Publisher’s Weekly
- “Harper Collins: from publisher to creative content business” on EConsultancy
- “Huge coalition led by Amazon, Microsoft, and others take a stand against FCC on net neutrality” on The Verge
- “The Rise of Twitter Fiction” on The Atlantic
- “Never Stop Learning: Access Lynda.com Courses on Your Next Virgin America Flight” on LinkedIn Blog
- “Reference: Google Adds Historical Street View Imagery” on Library Journal
- “Selling Erotic Ebooks Is Illegal in Germany Before 10pm” on Factually
- “SFWA Welcomes Self-Published and Small Press Authors!” on SFWA
- “The State of Ebooks” on EContent
- “Top 10 companies winning at remote work culture and their secrets” on CloudPeeps
- “Victory in California! Gov. Brown Signs CalECPA, Requiring Police to Get a Warrant Before Accessing Your Data” on Electronic Frontier Foundation
- “Making Medium More Powerful for Publishers” on Medium
Predictions
- “2015 is the year the old internet finally died” on Vox
- “Forget Samsung and Apple. This is the future..” on 9Gag
- “Activate Tech and Media Outlook 2016” on Slideshare
- “A Vision for Making Ebooks More Engaging” on Digital Book World
- “Ebook silos and missed opportunities” on Studio Tendra
- “E-Ink Smartphone Flip Covers Are a Wonderful Idea” on Gizmodo
- “Interstitial Publishing” on The Scholarly Kitchen
- “Is It Time for Scholarly Journal Publishers to Begin Distributing Articles Using EPUB 3?” on The Scholarly Kitchen
- “Print Primacy Vs. Digital Diversity?” on Digital Book World
- “Report: “What Lessons Can Consumer Publishing teach the Book Industry?”” on Byte the Book
- “The businesses of books” on The Bookseller
- “The Death of the Long Tail” on Music Industry Blog
- “The End of Apps As We Know Them” on Intercome
- “The iPad Pro: The Start of Something New” on re/code
- “The publishing world is changing, but there is one big dog that has not yet barked” on The Shatzkin Files
- “The Show Must Go On – More Opportunities Than Ever for Publishers at MIPJunior” on Digital Book World
- “The State of the Internet” on Business Insider
- “Time to rethink the publishing internship?” on DigiDay
- “What We Got Wrong About Books” on The Scholarly Kitchen
- “When the Sharing Economy Comes to Publishing” on Publisher’s Weekly
Research
- “Book Sprinting with PLOS” on BookSprints
- Breaking the Page
- “Market research used to be a silly idea for publishers but it is not anymore” on The Shatzkin Files
- “NaNoGenMo 2014: A procedurally generated mysterious codex” on Safari
- NYT Labs
- “Piracy Takedown Notices Increase eBook Sales, Research Finds” on Torrent Freak
- “Seth goes short. Buffer goes long. Here’s what you should do with your content.” on Copy Hackers
- “Two out of every three digital minutes are spent on mobile” on Digital Content Next
- “Ebooks gone global: Report suggests less resistance, more legal sales and importance of Apple” on GigaOM
Ebooks
Last, it’s fun to see all the pieces starting to come together in the form of ebooks. There’s a lot of interesting developments in the EPUB world.
- “AAP Supports Ambitious EPUB3 Plan” on Digital Book World
- “Can e-books be made worthwhile for everyone?” on Teleread
- “E-book Reader: Batteries Not Required” on Engineering.com
- “Ebook sample subscriptions and automation” on Joe Wikert
- “Ebook screen tech is changing how Australia sees the road” on Alphr
- “Editions at Play are an extremely creative take on interactive ebooks by Google” on 9To5 Google
- “Google Is Publishing Unprintable Books” on Buzzfeed
- “IBM standardizing on EPUB to reduce digital barriers and increase mobile support” on IDPF
- “Indie band Airplane Mode releases iBook to accompany new EP; highlights further opportunities to tweak iBooks Author” on iBooksAuthor Conference
- “What is an Ebook Worth?” on Terrible Minds
- “Why and How the Samsung Readers Hub Could be the Next iBooks” on The Digital Reader
[…] CommonsIt’s always fun to think about how things came to be. A couple weeks ago, I shared a bunch of links that looks at the present and predicts future trends. I think that understanding the past also helps us to better understand the present and look […]