Most of us have figured out that we should have frontlist titles available in print and digital formats, so that readers have a choice. But what about those people who aren’t your readers—yet—who want to be, but don’t have any options?
BNC 101: ISTCs
An ISTC is a new way of linking different formats of the same book. Unlike an ISBN, it is tied to the book and only the book, not the publisher. A simple example is using an ISTC to link the hardcover, trade paper, mass market, and epub versions of a title. Even though each format would have a different ISBN, they would share a single ISTC.
But why is it important? We’ll tell you.
(Old) Spicing It Up
There is no doubt that this summer’s biggest heartthrob was the Old Spice Guy.
The commercials were hilarious. And they would have been enough. But then the geniuses behind Old Spice guy took it up a notch and blew us away with their response campaign, making short YouTube video responses to personal messages, including tweets. It floored everybody.
What lessons can we take from this for our own social media and marketing campaigns?
Anthologize: Making Web-First Workflow Even Easier for Publishers
Anthologize grew out of One Week | One Tool—yes, one week—a project of the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University.
So, what’s all the fuss about? This is the extra step that’s been needed to make it extremely easy for any publisher to implement web-first workflow : all you need is WordPress and a plugin.
The Pages Turn Just Like... an E-Book
The Fight Over Formats: All or Nothing
Random House and the Jackal are going at it and I can’t blame them. They are fighting over some very valuable territory. We’ve all read lots about trying to claim backlist ebook rights, about the conflict of interest in becoming an agent-publisher, about single-channel exclusives being a bad idea, blah, blah, blah. This turf war has raised a bigger problem:
Does it make sense to separate ebook rights from print rights?
It doesn’t—at least not if you’re the one who only has print. Here’s why.
Web-First Workflow: Confluence Proof-of-Concept
Back in May, Noah blogged about the potential for Confluence by Atlassian to work as a web-first xml workflow solution. His post put Confluence up alongside WordPress from SFU’s Book of MPub (full disclosure: I worked with John Maxwell in 2009 on Start With the Web and still do some related work today) as a contender. Really, any CMS/wiki can work, it’s just a matter of how well it works and whether it works for you.
SalesData Tip #11: From Tips to How-to's—A Cornucopia of Help Options
As we approach the fall, the industry’s busiest season, we thought it worthwhile to revisit the help options available on BNC SalesData. There’s nothing worse than being in a hurry and not knowing where to go for help. We, at BookNet Canada, are looking out for you and have provided you many, many ways to satisfy your hunger for help.
BNC 101: BISAC Classification
Slush Pile Onslaught Gives Publishers a Branding Opportunity
There is a lot to be afraid of when one considers the online book marketplace. When I read Laura Miller’s apocalyptic piece on the inundation of self-published slush pile submissions a couple of weeks back it made me incredibly depressed. The thought of the marketplace being full of subpar, unedited manuscripts turned into ebooks or printed on demand, thus making it impossible for readers to differentiate the good book from the bad, was a devastating one. Why? Well, we call it the slush pile for a reason.
