Canada: Random House and Indigo Looking at New Ways to Market Physical Books
From The Canadian Press:
“We believe that for people to buy them for themselves or as gifts, they need to look great, so I think that’s a good thing,” says Brad Martin, president and CEO of Random House of Canada.”
“Martin says Random House is adding more “production value” to its physical books. That includes more deluxe paperbacks with French flaps and rough-cut or deckle edges, as well as specially designed endpaper.”
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The Colour Your Library program, for example, in which the covers have a spectrum of vibrant hues with matching spines, is intended to make books look good on readers’ shelves, says [Indigo’s vice president of trade books Bahram] Olfati.
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Martin says Random House’s ebook sales in 2012 were nearly double those in 2011.
And in October, a report by the non-profit industry group BookNet Canada showed ebook sales represented an estimated 16.3 per cent of the overall book market in Canada.
Print sales still dominated, though, with paperbacks representing an estimated 56.7 per cent of the market and hardcovers making up 23.6 per cent.
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About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.