School media specialists, tech integrationists, or anyone that works with teen writers – listen up! There is an exciting new publishing company started by a high school sophomore in Wayzata, MN called Sigma’s Bookshelf that is focusing on publishing books by writers ages 12 – 19. The company will work with the teen writer regarding editing, proofreading, and more!
Read on for the full explanation from the company:
Continue reading Do you know a teen writer that wants to get published?
American Libraries has been keeping track of “the Big Five publishers (Penguin Random House, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, and Hachette Book Group) and the terms they offer to libraries for their ebooks.”
Their “updated matrix (PDF file) provides a complete list of the distributors that each publisher uses and fuller information about library consortium access, including specifics for public, academic, and school library access.”
Things to note:
Check out the blog post, or read the updated matrix now.
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Leave it to James LaRue to put things in perspective for us regarding the monetary power of the big publishers. In the past couple of years with pricing struggles with the Big Six (Five now), is it possible that in our minds they have gotten bigger than they really are? Very possibly. When we consider that Amazon alone has more capital than the Big Six combined, we have reason to take pause.
See LaRue’s post to view a table of annual sales of first the top five US publishers, then the annual revenues of the Big Six. The data was extracted from the following report that LaRue endorses for every library Board packet.
The report is Exploring Connections: Independent Publishers and Research Libraries,’ by Amy Ballmer, Albert Municino, Judith Schwartz, and Robert Weiss for the Metropolitan New York Library Council.
This idea of working more closely with independent publishers and research libraries for eContent was a topic of conversation recently at the Explore eBooks MN Summit event. No time to attend? Hear the speakers and view the results of facilitated conversations here.
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Before “it” is in print or available online, many writers seek assistance from a publisher. So, what role can a publisher play in the process?
This October, the Scholarly Kitchen circulated a list of 73 Things Publishers Do (2013 Edition.) This post is a broader, continuation of tasks originally identified in 60 Things Journal Publishers Do (2012.) The author, Kent Anderson, is the CEO/Publisher of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Inc. Anderson includes a quick reference to the potential expense(s) for each of the 73 tasks listed ($-$$$$.) He also identifies the difficulty of navigating each undertaking using a metaphoric scheme describing the terrain.
Publisher Weekly posted an article titled Teenage Tweetland, YA authors and publishers reach out to young readers where they live: online and on their smartphones which discusses the use of social media in relation to the publishing industry. What makes this post so interesting are the multiple perspectives/voices being projected; the young adult, the author, the publisher, etc.
A large sector of young adults use social media such as Twitter (20+ million), Goodreads (8+ million users under 30), Tumblr (22+ million users under 18), blogs, etc. to identify titles to add to their reading lists. Publishers themselves are posting upcoming book lists and must reads derived from data collected from sites “liked” or reviewed by their target audience. In addition, authors are engaging their readers by sending tweets not just about the finished publication but during the characters development process to heighten anticipation and ultimately entice continued readership. Simone Elkeles, author of Perfect Chemistry, states that she spends about 25% of her time writing and 75% of her time directly interacting with her fans. Authors like Sundee Frazier find it daunting to engage in social media platforms stating, “I’m not the sort of person who can just fire off tweets. My first priority is writing my stories.”
This highly personalized and direct marketing creates a digital dialog with readers-especially young readers who are confident and enthusiastic about technology. It also creates a feeling of being connected, albeit virtually, using a system that has been known to inversely foster physical isolation. This type of connection between writer and reader is becoming a growing expectation opposed to a preference. I suspect the key is finding a medium that works. As Patricia Post indicted in her editorial, From the Director, CMLE has recently begun to engage in various forms of social marketing (this blog) with our target audiences (libraries and library professionals) to acknowledge that libraries are key stakeholders in the ever present cycle of information development, access and sharing. Click here to read the full article (May 2013).