If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering. We have found that, on the Internet, “me too” strategies seem not to work very well. –Jeff Bezos, November 2008 (or so) I was pointed toward a very interesting piece of analysis (along […]
Poems by Heart from Penguin Classics – Poetry in Your Pocket
A secret to please keep quiet: I am not just a crass marketer or cold-eyed analyzer of publishing strategy. I am those things, or like to think I am anyway. But, truly and firstly, I love books and reading. (Shhhh…might ruin my rep.) So, this is a post written with the love of reading at […]
Some Thoughts on Amazon’s Acquisition of GoodReads
Our mentality here is to first do no harm, and make sure that if we’re going to do integrations, users genuinely find it to be a big benefit. — Russ Grandinetti, Amazon VP of Kindle Content (via PaidContent) I’ve been asked by several people what I think about Amazon’s acquisition of GoodReads. It’s funny because […]
Amazon is Many Things, Including a Publicly-Traded Company
Most publishing folks I know always figured that light at the end of the tunnel was probably a train. Now I believe we know it is. Not just by Amazon’s actions now but by what they’ll probably be forced to do in the future… A recent piece by Fortune’s Apple-watcher Philip Elmer-Dewitt caught my eye, at first for its […]
Platform Lock-In and Consumer eBook Prices
There has recently been a great deal of speculation and study as to what is happening – and what will happen – to eBook prices in a post DOJ settlement world. I must admit up front that I, like many, don’t know, though I am following along and am as curious as the next publishing […]