Virtual gold
An Associated Press story by Hillel Italie claims that there may be more money in small and niche publishing than people think. A new study by the Book Industry Study Group in the U.S. claims that smaller publishing companies (as well as self-published authors) are carving themselves a larger slice of the retail pie than was previously believed, mainly through the new sales opportunities available through online bookselling. Margo Baldwin, who runs Chelsea Green Publishers, a company that specializes in environmental and political titles, is unequivocal in her praise of the Internet. “The online retailers have significantly altered the industry,” she says, “because they allow small publishers to have their books alongside the books by the big publishers, at least in a virtual retail slot. Before that, if you couldn’t get into a traditional store, you had no distribution channel.”
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Read Hillel Italie’s article
