This January I had the opportunity to participate in a short online internship with Bard Press. Although I worked with Todd Sattersten, the publisher, for just under a month, I was surprised by how much I learned in that short amount of time. So, I wanted to write a blog post about my experience with […]
Posts
2020: The Year In Review
I wanted to end the year with a final post that pulls together everything we saw in 2020. Sales With one week left to report, Bookscan says business book sales are down 11.5%, compared with 2019. This gap had been much wider in the spring and summer months, but the fall and holiday seasons have […]
Substitutes for Business Books
Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures writes on his blog today: I’m not a fan of business books. I find that you get most of the value from them in the opening chapter and then it is a lot of repetition from then on. In the comments, which he hosts as a Twitter thread, there […]
Business Books by Black Authors
In June, I wrote a post on my personal blog about the underrepresentation of Black authors in the world of business books. My main points were: Do you own a business book written by a Black author? Opportunity through expertise and popularity creates the platform for successful books. With only four black CEOs in the […]
New and Notable – 9/11/20
Every week, I find myself sending a variety of short notes with news and insights from the world of business book publishing. These notes go to authors, friends and colleagues who might benefit. Not quite the depth of one of my research reports, but much of this is little things that aren’t really reported in […]
Assorted Thoughts on Recommendations
The recommendation is ultimate currency. Sales at movie theaters, restaurants, hair salons and bookstores are all driven by one person telling another about something. The recommendation might be “Wow, doesn’t that look cool?” or “Oh my god, you have to try/see/read this?” Book publishers can help people who want to recommend their books. The best […]
How To Build An Author Platform in 743 Steps
Step 1: Write something that matters to someone. Most of you know what that means because you have read beautiful, insightful, heart-breaking, hopeful books. Those tomes are on your bookshelves and in your devices. You wish you could read those books again for the first time to feel what you felt. You adore the audio […]
The Art of Cover Art
As new to the position of publisher, I have been reading the works of other book publishers. Not the books they have published, which you can learn alot from, but rather from their own words. Roberto Calasso, publisher at Adelphia Edizioni in Milan, describes the job as “[p]art merchant, part circus impresario, the publisher has […]
The First Requirement
All successful books need to solve a problem. I know that might sound obvious, but as a reader, you’ve bought books that miss this most basic requirement. You pick up a book expecting to get help and find something different. Sometimes, the problem is described in a way that doesn’t match your experiences. Other times, […]
