By Emily Williams This is a continuation of our Digital Case Study of Spain. Yesterday we covered publishers’ online marketing strategies. You can read that article here. Spanish-language publishers have taken their time moving into the e-book market, but that is finally changing. Using two companies as examples — small independent publisher Maevea and Random House Mondadori — we take a …
Do Readers Care about Publishers’ Branding?
By Edward Nawotka In today’s lead story we look at the digital marketing strategies of two Spanish publishers, Maeva and Random House Mondadori. In the article, Carmen Ospina, digital manager for RHM, discussed the launch of the publisher’s consumer portal, entitled, Me Gusta Leer [“I Like to Read”]. “We decided that [the publisher] brand really is not important for us,” she …
Digital Case Study: Publishers’ Online Marketing in Spain
By Emily Williams Update: Read part two of our Digital Case Study of Spain Spanish-language publishers have taken their time moving into the e-book market. However several of the more nimble companies have delved into Internet marketing and found it generates not only good will, but real-world results and sales of paper books. Two of those are the small independent …
Austin and Abu Dhabi Face Down Digitization, Scantily Clad Women
Editorial by Edward Nawotka SXSW: As I wrote last month, the book conferences are coming fast and furious. Though I’m still suffering from jet lag from my recent trip to the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair (ADIBF), I’m already at another conference, SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas. What’s noticeably different this year at SXSW are the number of panels –- …
Bye Bye Twitter, Hello Bubbly
By Erin L. Cox Just when you think you’ve mastered Twitter, there’s a new social media network that’s gaining ground, Bubbly. Started by the Silicon Valley and Singapore-based company, Bubble Motion — a global provider of mobile messaging and social media applications, Bubbly is said to act like Twitter, where you can follow your favorite voices using your cellphone. For book …
Bookish Guide to SXSW
By Hannah Johnson I love to recount the story of how Penguin tried to host a panel at the 2009 South by Southwest Interactive conference (SXSW) and how the audience ate the panelists alive with snark via Twitter and accusations about unfair gatekeeping practices (read about it here, here and here). Afterwards, one of the panelists explained the audience-speaker clash …
The Book That Almost Never Was: ‘100 Stories for Haiti’
By Greg McQueen AARTHUS, DENMARK: The book 100 Stories for Haiti — a forthcoming charity anthology with proceeds going for Haitian earthquake relief — wouldn’t have been possible five years ago. As it happened, I posted an appeal for stories on the morning of Tuesday, January, 19. Just one week after the earthquake that left over 200,000 dead. The final …
In the Long Run, is Social Networking Bad for the Memoir?
By Edward Nawotka Today’s lead story discusses how author Nick Flynn harnessed the power of Facebook to promote his latest book, The Ticking is the Bomb. What’s unusual is that Flynn’s book, a memoir, ranges over topics from fatherhood to the torture at Abu Ghraib. Initially reluctant, he was compelled to start social networking after someone created a fan page …
Author Nick Flynn Finds an Unlikely Friend in Facebook
By Sharon Glassman How do you go out into the world to promote a book about “torture and babies?” For Nick Flynn, author of the recently published memoir The Ticking is the Bomb (WW Norton), the answer mirrors the author’s way of working. The PEN Award-winning author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City writes memoirs that limn personal tragedy in poetic prose. …
Chefkoch Gaining on YouTube, Facebook (in Germany)
Siobhan O’Leary Nielsen has released a list of the most popular social media networks in Germany and, for the first time ever, the site chefkoch.de, focused on food and cooking, has made it into the top ten (with 4.9 million users in December 2009). As reported in the Boersenblatt, Germany was the only country surveyed to have a top ten site …