Bookselling business

Take a look at this graph. The blue is Amazon's share of book sales in the past six years. The orange is where we are headed if their average growth rate (8%) continues. If nothing slows their momentum, Amazon will control nearly 80% of the consumer book market by the end of 2025. Every single book lover should worry. After we're done worrying, we must change the way we buy books.

The book business is in the early stages of its third great disruption in the past quarter century. The first two both changed the shape of the industry and created winners and losers across the entire value chain: touching every step from how authors got money to how readers got books.  Read more

On Thursday, James Daunt, CEO of Barnes & Noble, gave the keynote address at the Independent Book Publishers Association's annual IBPA Publishing University, where he was in conversation with Karla Olson, publisher of Patagonia Books and IBPA chair.  Read more

It might be a picture of gloom and doom for most business sectors in 2020 though surprisingly, the publishing sector has come out unscathed from the vagaries of the pandemic. Sales have largely been positive across all segments of the book industry, which includes printed books, eBooks, and audiobooks.

So, we're getting there... slowly. The "new normal" is taking shape, and both sales people and buyers are emerging from furlough and playing catch up.  Read more