Each year since 2005 BookNet Canada has been actively tracking and comparing the performance of the Giller nominees and winners. On the day that the shortlist announces we send a Giller Report to all nominated publishing firms who are subscribers to BNC SalesData. This report is created in order to give publishers a sense of what to expect during the award season, and to help nominees with stock and demand planning. What did we find? In a nutshell: the Giller effect is alive and well.
Goodreads Gives Good Recommendations
Many of us are avid readers. We’ve all gotten tips from friends on what the next most amazing, imaginative, exciting, fresh, brain-imploding new book is and we add it to our to-read list. Well, friends… that list is going to get a lot longer and a lot better with the book recommendation algorithm from Goodreads.
E-Book Tracking in the Canadian Market: What’s in the Works
Some of you may have seen the recent Quill and Quire article discussing the fact that BookNet Canada is undertaking an initiative to collect statistics on the sale of e-books in Canada. Right now BookNet actually has two e-book initiatives underway: e-book sales research and e-book SalesData reporting. Here are the details.
PubFight: Hopes and Dreams
PubFight. This is serious business around these parts.
Like the intern before me, I had heard of PubFight from my days in Ryerson and my first days here at BookNet. But to hear about a fight club and to actually join a fight club are two entirely different games.
New BNC Research Study: Juvenile and YA Series
In the past, BNC has turned its eye to researching books made into movies, J.K Rowling vs. Stephenie Meyer, and award-nominated titles, but this summer we decided to look at a trend in Canadian publishing that cannot be ignored: the sometimes-phenomenal, sometimes-underrated, but overall continued success of Juvenile and YA book series.
Code and Print: Date #2
2020 Media Futures at Tech Forum West: Reboot the Book
Code Meet Print TO: Back to School!
One for All? Should Different Markets or Retailers Get Different ONIX Files?
A lot of software vendors and some firms go to great lengths to prepare ONIX files tailored to markets, creating separate files by certification standards for BISG, BookNet, and BIC. And some ONIX senders tailor their output based on what a retailer requests.
At BookNet Canada, we think that so long as the ONIX file is a properly prepared XML document it shouldn’t matter. Here’s why.
Breaking the Page without Hurting the Reader
Enhanced books are truly amazing. It seems like everyday a new kind of enhancement is announced or shown off. Videos and images can be embedded or made to pop up, text can be hyperlinked, music can be played, table of contents and indexes can be reinvented and repurposed. But while it’s fascinating to see what can be done, we need to ask ourselves should it be done. Developers can build just about anything, because they’re such a talented bunch, but that doesn’t mean the reader wants it in their e-book.
This is why it seemed like a good time to devote one of our conferences to enhancements and apps. Tech Forum West will do just that this fall.
