Mormon Bloggers

Amazon.com says it’s selling 80% more downloaded books than hardcovers. “The Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format,” says Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive. Amazon sells 143 e-books for every 100 hardcover books. A drastic cut in the price of the Kindle portable reader is probably a major factor. Last month, Amazon lowered the price from $259 to $189–mere hours after Barnes & Noble introduced a $150 version of the Nook. Paperback books, which far outsell hardbacks, were not included in the figures. Although revenue from retail sales of printed books has been stagnant for several years, electronic books are forecast to surge to $1.6 billion in sales in 2010 from $1 billion last year. Read the whole story in the LA Times.  Read More →

According to the Financial Times, China will end America’s 110-year run as the No. 1 manufacturing country in the world in 2011. “That gives me a great idea – we should start making the one thing we know the world will always need: ‘Made in China’ labels.” – Jimmy Fallon  Read More →

I’ve posted online my set of notes from the Publishing Business Conference.  Read More →

At the Publishing Business Conference in New York City, I attended keynote addresses by two leaders in the publishing industry about the future of magazine and book publishing: Cathie Black, President of Hearst Magazines (Cosmopolitan, Esquire, O, Good Housekeeping, Popular Mechanics, Harpers Bazar, etc.) talked about the future of magazine publishing. She believes that magazines have a strong future. She doesn’t believe that the decline in newspapers has to bleed over to magazines, as long as they continue to provide value. It’s not digital vs. print, but digital + print. They are launching a major advertising campaign in their magazines to promote magazines. Strong growth internationally—they sell 1 million copies of Cosmo in Russia. Every one of their magazines has a Web site. A consortium of magazines (Next Issue Media) is trying to develop a subscription/advertising model for magazines on reader devices. Jane Friedman (CEO OpenRoad Integrated Media, former CEO HarperCollins)... Read the rest of this entry »

I’m at the Publishing Business Conference in New York City, and just attended the keynote address by Steve Forbes, one of the nation’s foremost economic prognosticators (and also the chairman and CEO of Forbes Media and editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine). Current and future economy Forbes believes there are huge economic problems. Government spending is at an all-time high. Massive national debt. However, America in not in decline. We will grow 3-4% in real terms this year. Watch the US dollar—not against other currencies—just look at the price of gold. You need a strong dollar to have a strong recovery. Also look for tax cuts. Bailouts and spending has to stop. These will be signs of a recovery. Timetable for a full recovery Forbes is an optimist. He believes there are solutions to the above. We can’t compete with other countries on commodities and manufacturing. We need to take the game to the next level, like we did with the information age and technological innovation. He... Read the rest of this entry »