Day: September 6, 2011

Change Is Good

~ Eoin Purcell ~ 23 Comments

My career in publishing has been one graced by luck, chance and opportunity. I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked at new publishers, established publishers and with a variety of authors, literary organisations and media companies too. The one constant throughout has been change.

Two years ago I established my own company Green Lamp Media. I’ve done more than I could reasonably have hoped in that period, everything from consultancy to publishing. It has been an exceptional experience and rewarding in every way.

Now it’s time for more change.

On Monday 12th September I’ll be joining New Island as Commissioning Editor. I’m looking forward to commissioning a full list again and excited that I’ll be working for a publisher with the heritage that New Island has.

The Irish book industry has experienced several hard years and there’s no reason to expect the next few will be much better so I have no doubt this position will have challenges as well as opportunities, but I’m keen to embrace them all.

I’m delighted too that New Island has agreed to structure the position to enable me to continue editing Irish Publishing News and to work with my existing clients at Green Lamp Media. It’ll mean I’ll be as busy if not busier than ever, but that just means more fun!

Here’s to change,
Eoin

Go Read This | Perseus Books Forms Digital-Services Venture in U.K. – WSJ.com

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

Fascinating move this. It will be interesting to see how things develop. I get the sense that many US service providers see UK publishers a potential clients, and they might be right:

Perseus will combine its Constellation digital-services technology with Faber & Faber’s Faber Factory to offer services to independent publishers seeking to convert their new and older titles to digital form, including file conversion, digital book production and social-media marketing services.

via Perseus Books Forms Digital-Services Venture in U.K. – WSJ.com.

Go Read This | Barnes & Noble: Cashing In

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

It really is remarkable how quickly B&N is becoming a digital company or if not a wholly digital company, a company where digital is clearly the future. In the same way that large publishers have embraced ebooks in the last few years, so too has B&N.

The paragraph below from PW’s story (read the whole piece) really bangs home the importance of digital content and devices to B&N in 2011 and just how rapidly that segment of its business has grown since 2009:

Much of the profit improvement will be due to better results at BN.com. The fastest-growing segment of its business, the online division’s sales rose 36.8%, to $198 million in the quarter, and its operating margin jumped to 21.0%, from 3.7% a year ago. B&N CEO William Lynch said in the quarterly conference call that the margin improvement shows that BN.com’s business is scalable and should continue to improve its profitability as sales grow. The margin improvement in the quarter was due to a combination of higher sales of more profitable digital content and better margins from the sale of Nook hardware products. Sales of digital content through BN.com quadrupled in the quarter, and B&N estimated it has a 26%–27% market share of e-book sales and a 30% share of the digital magazine market. The majority of e-book sales are made through the agency model and B&N’s self-publishing platform, PubIt! By the end of fiscal 2012, B&N projected that digital/Nook sales will represent about 24% of total revenue compared to 12% in fiscal 2011 and 2% in fiscal 2010.

via Barnes & Noble: Cashing In.