The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know®
Books matter. Making them is a combination of craft and insight. Publishing them is a generous act of faith. Adding to the corpus of shared knowledge is important. Books change the culture when people act on them, even if they don’t sell many copies. And sometimes the backlist surprises the accountants.
But the economics of new books have nothing to... See more
But the economics of new books have nothing to... See more
Books don’t sell
We all know about Netflix, we all know about Spotify and other media categories, and we also know what it has done to some industries... The music industry has lost, in the digital transformation, approximately 50 percent of its overall revenue pool.
— Markus Dohle, CEO, Penguin Publishing House
Elle Griffin • No One Buys Books
Markus Dohle, CEO, Penguin Random House, says the top 4 percent of titles drive 60 percent of the profitability. That goes for the rest of them too:
Elle Griffin • No One Buys Books
The fundamental disruption of the Internet has been to turn this dynamic on its head. First, the Internet has made distribution (of digital goods) free, neutralizing the advantage that pre-Internet distributors leveraged to integrate with suppliers. Secondly, the Internet has made transaction costs zero, making it viable for a distributor to integr... See more