Can you hear that?  It’s in the background everywhere you go in the book world, and it’s growing louder. The sound comes from audiobooks, the fastest growing segment of the trade book publishing market.  OverDrive, a leading provider of digital publishing to public libraries, has recently reported a 34% rise in 2016 audiobook borrowing numbers […]

Along with ALA Midwinter, the publishing conference calendar for 2017 opened this week with a trimmed down and refocused Digital Book World show returning to New York City. As keynote speaker, Macmillan CEO John Sargent offered some candid remarks on the state of the business, reports Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly senior writer. “Sargent told attendees […]

There are more of these than the number of McDonald’s restaurants across the United States, more even than the number of towns and cities in all 50 states, yet they are hiding in plain sight. The inconspicuous and ubiquitous institution is the public library – as much part of the national landscape as baseball diamonds, […]

The revolving door was invented in New York City, but it was perfected in Washington, DC, where it possibly gets the most use of anywhere in the world. A once-prominent figure on Capitol Hill has again popped up in the busy neighborhood surrounding K Street. On Thursday, the Association of American Publishers announced that Maria […]

Earlier this week, President Barack Obama delivered a farewell address from the same stage where he celebrated his election victory in 2008. As the world reflects on the Obama presidency, Beyond the Book takes another listen to a podcast from 2010, recorded at BookExpo America, with Jonathan Alter, then a Newsweek columnist and today at […]

The United States has by far the largest publishing industry of any nation in the world, followed by China and Germany. Some of the fastest growth is seen in national markets across Asia and the Middle East. Young populations with access to the Internet on smartphones are demanding content that is relevant to their dynamic […]

The holiday season marks the time of year when just about everyone wishes for miracles. As 2016 ended, the book world crossed its fingers, closed its eyes and said a quiet prayer for an upturn in sales. This first week of January, booksellers and publishers have tallied up their business activity in the stretch between […]

“Progress” is supposed to be a given in modern human society. We expect our technology to advance, year over year, and for maintaining that pace, we rely on Moore’s Law. In other words, last year’s model is always obsolete. One way to distinguish 21st century technology over that of other eras is that processing power […]

The word of the year for publishing in 2016 was data. It was such a big year for data, in fact, that it’s always called, “Big Data.” As publishers remake themselves into information providers for the digital age, they will likely need to abandon the old notion of content as their product. At the annual […]

When it comes to digital technology, the story is all about the disruption. From Napster to Uber, YouTube to Twitter, and Kindle to iPhone, innovative devices and Web-based services have made good business from displacing established players. Digital disruption can deliver a crushing blow, but technology may also help to repair the damage – just […]