I am told that I am the longest running intern that BookNet has ever had; which in my eyes makes me the luckiest.
As someone who is at the beginning of her career, I don’t think I could have asked for a better launch pad, nor could I have picked a better staff to learn from. To the entire team at BNC, thank you so much for making feel welcomed and secure, and for taking the time to teach me things that I would not have had the opportunity to learn elsewhere.
In October 2005, BookNet Canada began tracking sales data on print books in the Canadian market, including average list and selling prices. Consumer prices on other goods had long been tracked, but this was the beginning of comprehensive, national, data gathering on books.
At the time, a bag of roasted coffee beans cost $11.25/kg, a domestic stamp was $.50 and a ticket to the movies cost just over $6.00. Today, coffee is close to $20/kg, mailing a letter will set you back $.62, and a 3D movie ticket can cost as much as $18.00. It seems that everything we consume is getting more expensive.
But a new BookNet Canada research study, available to SalesData subscribers only, has revealed that books are bucking the trend…
In my last post, I looked at what it means to implement ONIX 3.0, and came to the conclusion that it meant carrying enough “granularity” to improve metadata accuracy to support international sales. And I suggested that even ONIX files shared only within Canada will still need to implement new support in order to co-exist in a supply chain that supports international metadata. I hope that I also showed that ONIX 2.1 supports most of the same ability (even if ONIX 3.0 does it better), and that international support means everyone pulling up their meta-bootstraps.
Last week on the blog, 2012 PubFight champ Bill Holt weighed in on his scientific approach to the PubFight auction. But publishers and retailers alike know there is more to acquisitions and frontlist buying than science alone. While science certainly plays an important role, a lot of seasoned editors and buyers have good instincts about how a new book will sell based on experience—the art of buying rather than the science, if you will. But if you’re new to the industry, how do you learn this art?
Greetings. After winning the ultra-competitive BookNet house league last year and coming in a close second to grandmaster Carol the year before, I have been asked divulge all my secrets. A ploy by my coworkers perhaps, but who doesn’t like to pretend that they know a thing or two about a thing. Or two. Whatever.
As a relative newcomer to publishing, joining the PubFight league with the people who invented it is a little intimidating.
If you haven’t heard of PubFight, it is a fantasy publishing league that helps to develop inventory and P&L management skills using actual market data. You can learn all about it here.
Now let’s get serious—here are some of the key things I discovered during the BNC auction.
As the book industry focuses on reaching web-enabled readers, there’s an increasing need for technologies, like apps and APIs, that can be built quickly and altered often. This is why last month, a week before BookExpo America, New York played host to a significant publishing event: the Publishing Hackathon!
Children are now, for the most part, being raised as digital natives in North America. Their little fingers become adept at swiping screens at an early age, but parents and educators are still debating whether children should be reading much online. Where do things stand now? We’re working on some consumer research of our own to find out, but in the meantime I thought we could look at what’s happening in the US and UK.
BookNet Canada is a non-profit organization that develops technology, standards, and education to serve the Canadian book industry. Founded in 2002 to address systemic challenges in the industry, BookNet Canada supports publishing companies, booksellers, wholesalers, distributors, sales agents, industry associations, literary agents, media, and libraries across the country.
