Over decades, Martyn Daniels has accrued a wealth of expertise about the epublishing and print publishing universe, from the perspective of bookseller, consultant, researcher, publishing strategist, and blogger (Brave New World). Even as he settles into semi-retirement, the lure of publishing keeps him active and involved, with a key project taking shape—the launch of Read Petite, a short-form digital fiction venue to revive the short story and build interest around serializations (in the tradition of wildly popular Charles Dickens). The enterprise is being co-founded by Tim Waterstone (whose name is behind the UK bookstore chain, Waterstones), and other savvy publishing professionals, as listed in this Melville House post:
Speaking about the launch of the service, which is co-founded by the former editor of The Bookseller, Neill Denny, literary agent at Redhammer Peter Cox, and founder of Batch, Martyn Daniels, Waterstone also commented on his old chain, stating with optimism that the shops were returning to form, “[The shop] should be a theatre. It should be a lovely place to be on a Sunday afternoon. The physical browsing process is enormously pleasant. It’s an important part of our national culture, those bookshops.”
Over the course of a 60-minute interview, we covered a broad range of topics, much of the discussion circling around the ways in which publishers are mishandling digital content and the promise of new modes of distribution based on a subscription model. The following 11-minute segment offers highlights from the interview. More of Daniels’ take on the future of epublishing will be featured in the next issue of our digital magazine, ePublish Yourself!
In addition to the informed industry insights and thoughtful analysis, Martyn offered a lighter tip based on his experiences selling his father-in-laws’ books online:
Forget everything else—one lesson to learn today. Put a cute kitten on the jacket of your book and it will sell.
The value of cute kittens to ebook sales should not be underestimated.