Industry Insider: Publishing Thought Leader Mike Shatzkin

If you are a book packager, work with book packagers, or are interested in becoming one, sign up for this essential Industry Insider event to hear Mike Shatzkin, founder and CEO of the Idea Logical Company, talk about publishing, changes, and how they impact book packagers. Mike is a widely-acknowledged thought leader about digital change in the book publishing industry.

It’s no secret that the business and operating model of book publishing is irretrievably broken. And it is increasingly obvious that this is the case across all “content” businesses — newspapers, magazines, movies, TV, and radio — and for very much the same reasons. In the book business specifically, publishers traditionally exposed their titles through a retail network that accounted for nearly all book sales but didn’t allow amateurs and newcomers easy access. This has evolved into a primarily online purchasing environment open to everybody, where the serious full-time publisher has a very much diluted advantage.

And a new model — the “hybrid” publisher, which charges an author the direct cost of putting their book out in return for a higher royalty than traditional publishers pay — has become a growing part of the new title mix, along with authors who try to do it themselves using Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing and Ingram’s Spark to handle the mechanics of printing, distribution, and collecting the dollars from the consumers. Then there are even newer models like Bindery Books. The competitive set for each new title coming into the world has greatly increased, and publishers no longer have a moat around the retail marketplace protecting them.

Hear Mike address these changes and how they affect book packagers and the book producer ecosystem. Bring questions for an open and lively Q&A session after the talk.

WHAT: Mike Shatzkin: Observations about how book publishing changes affect packagers
WHEN: Thursday, January 25, 2024, at 5:30 pm ET / 2:30 pm PT
WHERE: Online via Zoom videoconferencing
COST: Free for ABPA members; $15 for nonmembers
RSVP: Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEsc-CgrTIiHtzqbDxu-olVR1VHQfO9Heie

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. We’ll send an invoice to nonmembers for payment, which must be received before the event. We accept payment via Zelle to office@abpaonline.org or by credit card with a PayPal invoice.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Mike Shatzkin is the founder and CEO of The Idea Logical Company who, over a 50+ year career, has been a strategic consultant, digital change leader, supply chain expert, and author of nearly a dozen books. Mike has been involved in book publishing since his first job (in the summer of 1962) on the sales floor of the new paperback department of Brentano’s 5th Avenue bookstore. After graduation from UCLA Mike joined his family enterprise, The Two Continents Publishing Group, as Director of Marketing. At Two Continents, Mike worked with dozens of publishers whose books the company distributed. In 1979, Mike established Idea Logical and became an independent consultant, providing services to small publishers seeking distribution and strategic insights to larger publishers about managing their supply chain.

In the early 1990s, Mike began exploring book publishing’s digital future through a series of “Publishing in the 21st Century” conferences and white papers sponsored by VISTA Computer Services. His speeches at those conferences, many of which are archived on the Idealog.com website, were the beginning of more than a quarter-century of envisioning the changes digital communication would bring to the industry. And in 2008, Mike co-created “Publishers Launch Conferences” with Publishers Lunch founder Michael Cader. PLC organized and ran numerous industry conferences about digital change, including creating and hosting the initial seven “Digital Book World” conferences. In 2014, Mike and his Idea Logical colleague, Jess Johns, teamed up with publishing’s most knowledgeable digital marketing expert, Peter McCarthy, to create the Logical Marketing Agency. The group later founded Optiq.ly, a digitally sophisticated service to optimize discovery and online purchase of books.

In 2016, Mike sold his interest in Optiq.ly to Ingram, a consulting client, to concentrate on climate change. He teamed up with Lena Tabori, and they started building ClimateChangeResources.org. Since 2016, Mike has continued his publishing activities while becoming a climate activist. Mike continues to think and write about publishing’s digital change. His Shatzkin Files blog remains active, and in March 2019, Oxford University Press published Mike’s latest book, The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know, co-authored with the late Robert P. Riger.