Book publishers are keeping tabs on FarmVille, ChatRoulette, Facebook, and video-game companies, turning their sights onto the rapidly changing environment in digital distribution and social networking to keep their industry relevant -- and alive.
Macmillan, one of publishing's Big Six, has become the first company to fight Amazon's pricing of e-books. Amazon lost this battle, but it's going to be a long and costly war, with other publishers and with Apple, which unveiled its iPad last week.
Publishers have lots to like about the iPad, including Apple's dedicated e-bookstore with titles priced pretty reasonably. But of the six big publishers, only five have signed up with Apple. The biggest, Random House, is still gun-shy. Here's why.
When should an e-book be published? Before the physical copy gets published, or months later, or at the same time? Publishers must increasingly weigh tradition against the tide of consumers who want to read their e-books when they want them, and on any device they choose.
One annual end of season rite is upon the publishing industry: when chief executives take stock of the year that was and look ahead to the one to come. In year-end letters to employees, interviews to newspapers, or interviews with DailyFinance, publishing CEOs exhibited a mix of grim acceptance and cautious optimism that 2010 will be a better year than this one.
