May 31, 2006 • 8:23 am 0
The Anko Title Manager our $240 Onix compliant title management tool has no problem helping even the largest publishers step up to the Onix plate. Currently pumping out a minimum of 33,000 titles in Onix compliant XML for Harper Collins in Canada.
If you would like to download a free trial of the same software they use then simply click on the title of this blog entry and try it for yourself.
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May 31, 2006 • 8:22 am 0
I will be running an Onix workshop in Edinburgh on the 3rd and 4th of July at the Scottish Publishers Association offices. If you would like to attend please email me or Marion Sinclair of the SPA (marion.sinclair at scottishbooks.org).
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May 31, 2006 • 8:21 am 0
Just been reading this article in the Times about some of the outrageous payments demanded by some of the booksellers from publishers to stock and promote their books. This of course miltates against the smaller publishers for whom sums of up to £50,000 are just in dreamland but also from the readers point of view makes the phrase bestseller effectively mean nothing.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1056-2202068,00.html
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May 30, 2006 • 8:19 am 0
Now available through iTunes are new video podcasts giving instruction on the adding of royalties and sales as well as how to generate a royalty statement.
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May 28, 2006 • 8:14 am 0
Apart from Supermarkets are the newspapers – yes, they all have their great faults but you will miss ’em if they weren’t there. You can indeed have a perfectly pleasurable weekend weekend in England for a couple of quid doing nothing but reading the weekend papers interspersed with the odd cup of coffee and glass of plonk.
We especially like the Guardian Guide and their TV bit. You don’t need to actually watch the programmes to enjoy. These excerpts aren’t the best but just happen to be the only ones I have – but you get the idea. The first is this weeks Big Brother which has just kicked off again in the UK and the second one is the review of the surreally scary Armstrongs of a couple of months ago. Click on the images to enlarge.
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May 28, 2006 • 8:14 am 0
If like me you use your Mac for all your work and play stuff and you are not lucky enough to have one of the new Intel Macs with remote controls etc but you have a bluetooth phone then you may find this software from Salling Software (click on title of blog to visit their site) useful.
Invaluable when you need to get up and grab another beer in the middle of a movie and can’t be arsed to cross the room and press the space bar to pause it.
And also very handy if like me you have to do training/presentations as controls both Powerpoint and Apple’s Keynote. Although, you do have to ignore the people in the audience mouthing ‘wanker’ to the person next to them as you click your phone to change the slide.
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May 28, 2006 • 8:13 am 0
Launching in the next few weeks is a site belonging to Sara’s mother which showcases her incredible and completely captivating art. If you would like to learn more then please contact her through the site by clicking on the title of this blog entry.
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May 25, 2006 • 8:11 am 0
The Book Industry Study Group Trends 2006 document has been released and tells us all kinds of interesting stuff about who turns over what in which sector. With both the childrens and religious books showing on the face of it the most growth with 9.6 and 8.1 percent growth in 2005. Total net revenues for 2005 were $34.59 bn.
But perhaps most interesting is that for the first time accurate information was taken from the smaller and mid sized publishers. Which since this constitutes probably 90% of all publishers (if not more) makes you wonder why they didn’t do so before. Apparently, they are difficult to get information from because they don’t belong to trade associations etc. Which to be blunt all sounds a bit lame to me.
To learn more click the title of this blog entry.
http://www.bisg.org/publications/trends2006.html
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May 22, 2006 • 8:07 am 0
The Anko Title Manager is supplying Onix to Libri, KNV and VLB. It seems in the last year the situation has cleared up a great deal and are keen for more publishers to supply them data in the Onix format. They all prefer to receive their Onix files via ftp.
VLB and KNV are also starting to make use of Main Descriptions, Short Descriptions or Long Descriptions (01, 02 and 03 – or-related) in the Other Text composite and URL-related Medialinks. They were not able to make use of these fields a year ago, as they were not able to deal with them. Now it prettty looks like they are in a betatest-phase. Libri still can’t make use of this Other Text fields and doesn’t currently have date when they will be able to use them.
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Last Ten Tracks Played
Absurdity 