The Book Business : What Everyone Needs to Know®

Mike Shatzkin and Robert Paris Riger, longtime publishing-industry insiders, survey the business of trade publishing - the arm of publishing that reaches readers through bookstores and libraries. Covering every aspect of the business, from vision to creation to marketing and distribution, and across all the formats that books can take, they offer a clear and succinct primer for interested outsiders and anyone looking for a bird's eye view of a centuries-old, ever-evolving industry.

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 US publisher, many non-US publishers, retailers including Borders and Barnes & Noble, wholesalers including Ingram and Baker & Taylor, and a variety of printers, literary agencies, and digital startups.

Robert Paris Riger (1961 - 2018) was a longtime publisher and author. He ran both major book club organizations before he was 30, co-founded 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.