The Future of Digital Distribution and Ebook Marketing

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing in publishing circles about the fear that ebook mega-retailers like Amazon and Apple will go direct to authors and put publishers out of business. But early evidence from the ebook market suggests that a rich ecosystem of resellers is emerging. O’Reilly now distributes ebooks through dozens of different channels, with more coming onstream every month. Not all are equally significant – any more than the corner bookstore has as much impact on the print market as Barnes & Noble – but it’s becoming clear that publishers are in need of a next generation digital distribution infrastructure.

Similarly, there a thousands of new ways to market books online, from social media sites to phone app stores. No author can build relationships with all possible channels, any more than they can in the print world.

In this talk, Tim O’Reilly will outline some of the key competencies in distribution, marketing and sales that are required of publishers in the ebook era.