From Me to You: Selling Books on a Direct Basis
As more books are sold in electronic form, they will increasingly be marketed on a direct-to-consumer basis.
Let’s Make Open Access Work
Let’s put aside all the controversy about open access publishing and come up with an OA plan that will work.
An Interview with Kent Anderson at WritersCast
Interview with Kent Anderson on various issues concerning scholarly publishing and the life of the writer.
Platform Wars Come to the Book Business
Technological platform wars have taken control of the book business, and publishers are now collateral damage in the fight.
How Not to Negotiate for Digital Rights
Jonathan Galassi misses the boat when he tries to argue with authors on moral grounds. Appeal to their pocketbooks.
The End of Kirkus Reviews: Gloom, Doom, and Sunshine
Kirkus Reviews is doomed. But for all the losses of old ways of discovering books, new ones keep cropping up. The future is bright for book publishing.
Let’s Hear It for Reckless Enthusiasm!
Innovations in scholarly communications often come about through bold and often reckless investments in new capacity, for which the utility is not always obvious.
The Scholars’ Catalog Project
A new initiative for a unifying online catalog of resources is underway. Can it provide a substrate for future innovation?
A Library Card Under the Christmas Tree
‘Twas the month before Christmas, and by listening hard, you can hear Joe Esposito yearn for a library card. The reasons are simple, yet give publishers pause. No wonder Joe’s only hope is with Santa Claus.
Publishing in the Google Ecosystem
Complaints against Google miss the point — it’s the Google Era, and publishers who work well with this major upstart have plenty to look forward to.
What is “Library Bypass”?
Publishers are seeking new markets by finding ways to bypass libraries and selling directly to end-users. Do we need new approaches here?
Retrofitting Scholarly Communications
As scholarly communication moves from its frankly printer-centric reality of today, publishers will be faced with many more rounds of improvement to their digital information. Is ePub an answer?
Amazon’s Fifth Stage
Amazon’s options and pattern of doing business suggests the STM publishers had better prepare for a dramatically more digital future.
Paying for Peer-Review — or, What We’ve Learned from Financial Watchdogs
A common systemic problem links oversight of financial risks and author-pays peer-review. Both are potentially calamitous.
How Libraries Can Find Money in Clouds
With an outdated view of information technology, institutional repositories are missing an opportunity to cut costs while they fulfill their missions.