Ecommerce

The New York Times has an article by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg detailing the rise and trajectory of the best selling book “Eat, Pray, Love”.   May be of interest to book publishers.

Currently, color publishing is significantly more expensive than black and white. So color print on demand, for example, is still quite expensive relative to “black and white” printing. Four plate CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) type jobs run up time, materials, setup and labor overhead requirements as compared to something like a simple, single “black” on “white” paper run.

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On demand and “instant” paperback book printing is continuing to make strides.  One could select from a list of available books and have a “library quality” book printed out in a few minutes.  Helps less popular books become more accessible to the book buyer needing instant gratification (e.g. those buyers unwilling to wait for a ordered book to ship, etc.) Check out ondemandbooks.com, for example.

Author appearances to promote their books has been a staple book marketing item for a while. It does however, have a number of drawbacks, the grueling schedule for authors, the uncertain response (e.g. audience count at bookstores), and the high cost associated with a physical tour.

For a while now, people have been experimenting with virtual book tours and other alternative. This article talks about using a film appearance/tour by the author.

Publishing News: The largest show for the retail book buying community in the USA is starting today and continuing to June 3. There are a number of events, speakers and exhibitors. In 2007, it is being held in New York city at the Jacob Javits convention center. The website is www.bookexpoamerica.com.

Note: The largest global event is the Frankfurt book fair.

Came across this interesting tidbit. Authors speaking at google, and author conversations on youtube. Some authors and publishers may find it interesting. See authors@google (or Google’s blog. )

Readers who love their authors and books may enjoy watching these author talks on youtube. Authors include people like Chris Anderson (Long Tail) , Ken Roth (Human Rights Watch), Steve Wozniak (Apple co-founder), Steve Stiglitz (nobel prize winner), George Soros (Open Societies Institute), Lawrence Lessig (creative commons). There are some really interesting names if one goes through the youtube videos. If one likes booktv, one may like this even more (the subject matter is more diverse it seems). Appears to be a very interesting resource for book lovers. Videos here. (Thanks to the Google folks for sharing this with the rest of the world.)