http://www.blackplasticglasses.com Musings on Publishing and life in the Digital Age by Evan Schnittman Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:07:20 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2011/01/05/amazons-newest-bff/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2011/01/05/amazons-newest-bff/#comments Wed, 05 Jan 2011 13:18:40 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=583 http://bit.ly/dOL8AQ) Triangulating this news with an insider rumor insider claiming that Amazon sold over 8 million Kindle’s last year puts the Kindle in the same sales range as the iPad.  One has to wonder what the reaction in Cupertino to this shocking bit of news. This is important for a few reasons; first it demonstrates that there isn’t just one company out there able to launch and sell an entertainment device. In fact, it demonstrates that there is an incredible appetite in the reading world for a single use device. Giving customers the right business model and device/platform...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2011/01/05/amazons-newest-bff/feed/ 2 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/02/18/im-coming-back/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/02/18/im-coming-back/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:36:48 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/02/18/im-coming-back/ ]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/02/18/im-coming-back/feed/ 3 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/07/20/demand-pricing-for-ebooks/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/07/20/demand-pricing-for-ebooks/#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:18:25 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=350 Is Dominique Raccah making a smart decision?  There are a lot of factors to consider. Amazon has claims that sales of ebooks are 35% of the same print titles on Amazon.com.  If the hardcover is priced at $25 and the ebook $10, then one can see Dominique’s point quite clearly – delaying the ebook version could mean that demand for 35% of the...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/07/20/demand-pricing-for-ebooks/feed/ 17 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/06/18/net-pricing/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/06/18/net-pricing/#comments Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:07:21 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=335 Innovation is not exactly something the book-publishing world is known for, so ebooks are a breath of fresh air...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/06/18/net-pricing/feed/ 3 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/06/11/best-evan-schnittman-blog/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/06/11/best-evan-schnittman-blog/#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:31:28 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=330 The following are what I consider the top 5 posts I have done on BlackPlastcGlass and OUPblog.

• Number 5, on my list of top posts, was done for OUP's OUPblog: Do I Believe In Ebooks? Part one and Part Two . This series posited that the key to the ebook reader device market will...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/06/11/best-evan-schnittman-blog/feed/ 0 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/15/ebook-discounts/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/15/ebook-discounts/#comments Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:41:18 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=85 To be perfectly clear, this blog is not sanctioned by, endorsed by, or even remotely associated with Oxford University Press, my fantastic employer. What I say here is my opinion and my opinion alone. In my inaugural post, Why Ebooks Must Fail, I promised to follow up by exploring a variety of business models I believe could work in the long run for publishers of all sizes and shapes. This is the first part of a 3-part series in which I propose changes and new initiatives for ebooks that, I believe, will help ensure that ebooks don’t fail. I theorized that the book industry relies too greatly on advance sales and billing and that the predominant model of ebooks,...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/15/ebook-discounts/feed/ 12 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/11/book-advances/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/11/book-advances/#comments Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:47:51 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=60 MICHAEL MEYER has a piece in the Sunday NY Times book review section entitled "About That Book Advance ...". While it logically has the perspective of an author, it does point out some of the issues associated with the predominant model in current trade publishing. One part that I think doesn't quite compute is the following: "In 1971, for example, Viking sold paperback rights to “The Day of the Jackal” to Bantam for 36 times the $10,000 hardcover advance it had paid its author, Frederick Forsyth. “Agents realized that they should be the ones holding auctions for their authors and get advances more in line with the anticipated total value of their books,” Georges Borchardt, who brokered...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/11/book-advances/feed/ 1 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/06/drm/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/06/drm/#comments Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:47:58 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=24 All Things Considered I had a brief sound bite about DRM (Digital Rights Management) and the music industry. What you didn’t get to hear was the larger point I was trying to pull together – which is that DRM is not bad, nor is it good. It is like any tool, only as good (or bad) as it is implemented. DRM has gotten a lot of press over the years as there is a quite vocal group who are politically/philosophically, perhaps even morally opposed to any restrictions on the use of content once disseminated. I call them the “Anti-DRMers.” They come in many forms – from scholarly archivists to Swedish anarchists. http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/06/drm/feed/ 9 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/03/30/why-ebooks-must-fail/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/03/30/why-ebooks-must-fail/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:33:14 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=5 NB - I have noticed from the amazing amount of commentary this post generated over the last two weeks that there seems to be a misunderstanding of my intentions here. Granted, I chose a very inflammatory title, but this article, especially when taken in context with the follow up piece Discounts Must Align to Risks, is about supporting growth in the ebook market, not predicting its demise. Ebooks are the future and getting there as an industry will require some hard evaluation of how things work and a better understanding of publishing economics. Evan This piece is about consumer or “trade” publishing as we call it in the industry.  To begin, let's review how a book becomes a book. A...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/03/30/why-ebooks-must-fail/feed/ 62