Start gifting
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Shop the sale
In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!
Shop nowThe Book Business
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreMany of us read books every day, either electronically or in print. We remember the books that shaped our ideas about the world as children, go back to favorite books year after year, give or lend books to loved ones and friends to share the stories we've loved especially, and discuss important books with fellow readers in book clubs and online communities. But for all the ways books influence us, teach us, challenge us, and connect us, many of us remain in the dark as to where they come from and how the mysterious world of publishing truly works. How are books created and how do they get to readers?
The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know® introduces those outside the industry to the world of book publishing. Covering everything from the beginnings of modern book publishing early in the twentieth century to the current concerns over the alleged death of print, digital reading, and the rise of Amazon, Mike Shatzkin and Robert Paris Riger provide a succinct and insightful survey of the industry in an accessible question-and-answer format. The authors, veterans of "trade publishing," or the branch of the business that puts books in our hands through libraries or bookstores, answer questions from the basic to the cutting-edge, providing a guide for curious beginners and outsiders.
Robert Paris Riger (1961-2018) was a longtime publisher and author. He ran both major book club organizations before he was thirty, cofounded the publishing consulting firm Market Partners International, and spent several years at Barnes & Noble building and leading the marketing for their Spark Notes program. He was most recently VP and Director of Pimsleur Language Programs at Simon & Schuster. Robert was fluent in several languages, including German and French, and experienced publishing's digital transition on the frontlines with Spark Notes and Pimsleur. He died unexpectedly a month after this book's manuscript was completed.
Mike Shatzkin has been a consultant to the book publishing industry and its trading partners on supply chain and digital change issues for more than four decades. His clients have included every major U.S. publisher, many non-U.S. publishers, retailers including Borders and Barnes & Noble, wholesalers including Ingram and Baker & Taylor, and a variety of printers, literary agencies, and digital startups.
Kyle Tait is a professionally trained voice actor and narrator in Atlanta, Georgia. His first brush with a microphone came in sports radio, calling baseball in the Atlanta Braves' organization. To pass the time in the off-season, he started voicing audiobooks, and a few years later he left baseball and went into narration full-time. Now his voice can be heard on a variety of audiobook and corporate voice-over outlets worldwide. When not in the studio, Tait can still be found moonlighting in the sports world, calling football, basketball, baseball, and softball on a variety of TV and radio outlets. He's also a studio host with IMG College, anchoring football and basketball broadcasts for schools like TCU, UConn, and Arizona.