Big Name Author Publishes Direct to E-Book

Skip The Maze, Publish
Direct to E-Book

Mark Salzman (Iron & Silk and The Soloist) is bypassing traditional publishing and publishing direct to digital format through the Manhattan-based digital startup Open Road Integrated Media.

The circumstances that led him to this decision are interesting and I think you will appreciate the insight:

From Crain's New York Business by Senior Reporter, Matthew Flamm:

Author Mark Salzman, best known for his memoir Iron & Silk and his novel The Soloist, will forgo the traditional publishing route for his next title and bring it out as an e-book with the digital startup Open Road Integrated Media. The Man in the Empty Boat, which grew out of a show the writer has been performing, will be released Tuesday, the Manhattan-based publisher announced Monday.

The memoir marks one of the more high profile acquisitions for Open Road, which was co-founded by former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman in 2009. Much of its publishing list is made up of e-book reissues of bestselling titles put out before literary houses began holding onto electronic rights.
The Man in the Empty Boat started as a monologue, An Atheist in Freefall, about Mr. Salzman's family and the catastrophic year in which he suffered panic attacks and the loss of his sister.

“The piece began not as a book but as notes for a monologue that I performed at the Sun Valley Writer's Conference in 2010,” Mr. Salzman said in a statement. “Jeffrey Sharp, president of Open Road, happened to be in the audience that day. He's a dad like me and the story seemed to hit him dead center.”

Mr. Sharp, who is also a filmmaker, plans to develop film and television projects out of the book.

The memoir will be published in both e-book and print-on-demand editions.

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How About Some Final Stats for 2011 Publishing

Print or Digital, books are still books

My last post was on some publishing trends for 2012.

Let's now take a look into some final analytical numbers for 2011 publishing ... What the hell is the state of the union RE publishing, anyway?

The following is a cross post from my Publishing/Writing: Insights, News, Intrigue Blog:

Did the Book Industry Take it on the Chin in 2011? Inside Some Numbers


It’s really hard to tell by the analytical parameters that the old book industry trackers (such as Nielsen BookScan) has set up to take the measurements. BookScan doesn’t even track e-books yet! What the hell are they waiting for? You have to get e-book numbers through other sources such as the Association of American Publishers (AAP).

Let me say now that books are books … regardless of the media they are presented in. And they should be included in any analysis of the overall health of the book publishing industry.

But, this bit of industry analytical dabbling in the following article from Crain’s New York Business by Matthew Flamm does provide an interesting insight:

No happy ending for book industry

Book sales in 2011 dropped 9% overall, with mass market paperbacks seeing the biggest declines. Adult hardcovers—the industry’s biggest moneymaker—saw a 10% drop.

The book industry took it on the chin in 2011, though e-book sales continue to offer the promise of better times to come.

Through Dec. 25, total unit sales of physical books fell 9% to 640.6 million, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks 75% of the market. That compares to a drop of 4% in 2010, and 3% in 2009.

Some categories were hit particularly hard. Sales of mass market paperbacks, a category that has been hurting for years, fell 23% to 82.2 million copies. More troubling, perhaps, was the 10% drop, to 164.1 million units, in the adult hardcover category, which is the industry’s biggest moneymaker. Trade paperbacks proved the most resilient of the major formats, with a 6% sales decline, to 351 million copies.

Among subject groups, adult fiction suffered the most, with an 18% plunge to sales of 160.3 million copies. Commercial fiction tends to sell particularly well as e-books. Adult non-fiction was down 10%, to 263 million copies.

(John’s Note: By the way, how many know the definitions of (or differences between) the following categories: adult fiction, commercial fiction, mass market paperbacks, trade paperbacks, adult hardcover?)

Read and learn more


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Newsday is GROWING!

Good news for newspapers!...At least one newspaper. It appears the newspaper biz may be experiencing a resurgence in profitability just like the magazine sector has of late.

I'm happy for these type publishers turning the corner.

Matthew Flamm of Crain's New York Business reports this RE Newsday:

After several rounds of cutbacks and a battle with its union over a new contract, Newsday is hiring.

In a memo to the paper's staff Wednesday morning, Editor-in-Chief Debby Krenek announced that the Cablevision-owned daily would hire 34 new reporters over the next six months and add 2,600 pages of additional news annually, or about seven pages a day.

“I'm very excited to announce that we are making this significant investment in people and pages to provide more and stronger coverage for Long Islanders,” she wrote.

The hires are a surprise move at a time when few newspapers are hiring and many continue to cut back. It's particularly surprising that Cablevision is making this investment following bitter contract negotiations that ended in June with Newsday union members agreeing to wage cuts of from 5% to 10%.

The Dolan family, which controls Cablevision Systems Corp., paid $650 million for Newsday in 2008. By combining the paper with Cablevision assets, the Dolans were hoping to become the dominant player in Long Island news. They have been mainly preoccupied with cutbacks as newspaper advertising has plummeted.

In the second quarter of 2010, Newsday had revenue of $80 million, down 10% from the year ago period. The paper's operating loss narrowed to $1.3 million from $2.6 million.

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