Episode 109—Who Wants Some Pie

08/06/19 • 57 min

After a rousing conversation about 1) pie and 2) the joys of novels that can’t be made into good movies, we talk about Macmillan’s new decision to restrict library purchases of ebooks. The (questionable) choice leads to some fundamental questions about the publishing and reading landscape: do libraries help or hurt publisher sales? How does an ebook differ from a print book, in terms of library usage and even just as a product bought and sold?

Previous Episode

Episode 108—Caption This

That classic online book retailer / Pentagon contract candidate is at it again, folks. With the announcement of Audible’s new audiobook feature called “Captions,” we talk about how it mostly amounts to an audacious rights infringement, one that fits perfectly in line with Amazon’s larger cohesive project of devaluing books as a means of swallowing the industry whole. We discuss the possible strategies behind rolling out something as nakedly infringing as this feature, and then look at another news item this week--Dean Koontz signing a five-book deal with Amazon as his publisher--to talk about where everything is at and where we go from here.

Next Episode

Episode 110—Preorders, Crossovers, and the Ways Publishers and Readers Engage

This week we talk about how the new emphasis on preorders for book sales has changed the way books are purchased, discussed, marketed, and evaluated by publishers. It’s a self-reinforcing feedback loop between publishers and book buyers, and it’s a trend with weird ramifications. Then, we talk through the idea of “crossover” books--who creates them, publishers or readerships? In all, it’s an episode about the interactions between the people selling and the people buying books, and how that interaction ends up changing the books themselves.