It is difficult to pick one digital theme that stood out at this year’s ash-inhibited, but digitally switched on, London Book Fair, but the debate about whether a model might emerge for e-books that go “beyond the book” was particularly prominent. Driven, no doubt, by the multimedia capacity, jiggle- and flip-a-bility and sharp, colour-screened intensity [...]
Welcome to the busiest year ever!
Posted on 22 January, 2010
Posted in General, Sara's Manifesto
Hello and welcome to 2010, everyone. In each of the last three years, publishers and the media have asked, ‘Will this year / next year be the year of the ebook?’ I think in 2010 we can all offer a resounding ‘Yes’ to that question. Digitalists, prepare for your busiest year ever!
I hardly need [...]
Revisiting a publishing manifesto – what does the future look like for publishers?
Posted on 19 October, 2009
Posted in Development, General, Publishing, Sara's Manifesto, TOC 2009, eBooks, mobile
I’ve had many requests for a transcript of my presentation to the TOC Frankfurt crowd last week, so here it is. Scroll to the bottom for a download of the transcript and a view of the slides:
Revisiting a publishing Manifesto – What does the future look like for publishers?
In May 2008 I posted a [...]
OMG, that’s…Spotifying
Posted on 23 February, 2009
Posted in General
One of the themes that came across most strongly at TOC 2009 was that we publishers all need to think a lot, lot harder about what Readers – with a Capital ‘R’ – want. And we need to get to know them, like, really, really fast. I used Michael Cader’s simple but brilliant words from [...]
Conference blogging – that’s sooo last year!
Posted on 12 February, 2009
Posted in TOC 2009
When we came to thinking about blogging the conference this year, many of us agreed that the need for direct reportage was more or less obfuscated by the enormous volume of tweets that emanated from the conference halls this time. Hopefully you were able to follow @thedigitalist and pick up some of our immediate reactions through that.
James [...]
Stanza goes from strength to strength
Posted on 4 December, 2008
Posted in General
As you can imagine I was one of the people grinning from ear to ear yesterday as Lexcycle went public with their announcement that they have partnered with Fictionwise. As you know, I’ve always had my eye on them as their reading app for the iPhone, Stanza, looked set to be one of the best [...]
Pan, Stanza and the iPhone
Posted on 24 November, 2008
Posted in General, Reading devices
We’re very excited that from today, if you have downloaded Stanza on your iPhone, you’ll be able to read excerpts of some of our titles on the iPhone. We’ve forged a partnership with Lexcycle, the creators of Stanza (which has half a million downloads). What’s more because the full version of these titles are available [...]
Googlezon: good or bad?
Posted on 28 October, 2008
Posted in General
A settlement plan for the suits filed by the AAP and the Authors’ Guild about Google Book Search, was announced earlier today. Hailed by many (especially those involved in its negotiation) as a landmark agreement, there is a lot in it to digest. My sense is that today, many publishers will be scratching their heads trying to work [...]
Free and fabulous
Posted on 16 September, 2008
Posted in eBooks
It seems that we are beginning to trip over increasingly enlightened authors on the digital frontiers here at Pan Macmillan. Just as we are poised to publish the the seventh novel in David Hewson’s beguilingly atmospheric and addictive Rome series, Dante’s Numbers, David has shrewdly agreed to an experiment to give away the first of [...]
It is a little bit exciting, I must admit
Posted on 9 September, 2008
Posted in General, Publishing, Reading devices, eBooks
Michael beat me to it last week, but I wanted to reflect further on the Waterstones / Sony ebook launch last week. Anecdotally, Waterstones store staff report a great deal of interest from customers, and the rumour mills (or well-planned leak??) put a *correction: five* figure number on the Sony Readers sold by the morning [...]
