Category: Publishing

Book publishers are desperate for new business models. While standing in line at the airport recently, I thought maybe we could look to the airline industry for inspiration. If we did, here are some things you might see from publishers:

Publishing faces unprecedented challenges these days, with the decline of bookstores and the rise of the Internet and ebooks. The ultimate difficulty may, in fact, be the digital dilemma. Music, videos and news have been digitized, and which has sent those industries into chaos. And all sorts of other information have been digitized and liberated …

InterVarsity Press has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Biblica Books, the book-publishing arm of Biblica Worldwide. In the acquisition, which is expected to close by the end of the calendar year, IVP will obtain 170 current Biblica Books titles, as well as nearly 30 forthcoming books. This includes Operation …

When people visit InterVarsity Press, they often ask where the printing presses are. I show them our copiers—the closest thing we’ve got. Our books are printed all over the country and sometimes around the world—all on printing presses owned by others. Even the biggest publishers do not own printing presses. Why?

Sometimes a publisher has a footprint bigger than its foot. That certainly has to be the case with Copper Canyon Press. Respected if not revered by poetry patrons and literature lovers everywhere, Copper Canyon, since its founding in 1972, has developed an international reputation for doing (and doing well) what virtually all other publishers studiously …

John Stott, one of the most influential Christians in the world, retired recently from public ministry. Now he has issued his last book, The Radical Disciple. In the postscript (titled “Farewell!”) Stott offers a last bit of encouragement and exhortation, one that I resonate with myself after a lifetime of loving books: As I lay …

In my last post I exposed the awful truth that there’s a lot publishers don’t know. They just don’t have the ability to predict the future, unfortunately. But there’s a lot they do know too. Such as?

Many people seem to have a notion that publishers somehow are (or should be) a superior form of human being. It’s nice to be so highly thought of–until you find out what they mean. Like the question many of us have heard. “I thought you guys were smart. Why don’t you just publish bestsellers?” So, …

I was talking to an author who had worked for a multinational food company and had recently switched to a not-for-profit organization. She had a book in mind and wondered how many copies we typically sold for a book in that category. I gave her a five-figure range. “Oh, I guess I’ll have to get …

“Publishing by its very nature changes your value system.” I was struck when my publishing friend Roy Carlisle suggested this might be the case. It set me thinking. Instinctively I felt he must be right. At the same time, I felt like such a proverbial fish immersed in the waters of publishing culture that I …