Will Barnes and Noble survive the takeover by a hedge fund company? Will Amazon Publishing continue to take market share? Will audio-first become more dominant for readers? How will AI impact the publishing industry? I discuss these things and more with Mike Shatzkin on today's episode.
In the intro, Open AI releases an updated version of GPT-2, the AI natural language text generator [
The Next Web], try it out at
TalkToTransformer.com. Chinese search engine Sogou is creating AI-lookalikes to read popular novels in the author's voice [
BBC], and the article also mentions the development of human-level text-to-speech through
DeepZen.io and
Lyrebird.ai. Plus, indie superstar Hugh Howey talks about how he manages his publishing contracts —including retention of ebook rights, limited-term English print deals, and more in this interview on
The Knowledge Project (in the last 30 mins).
Plus, I'm a finalist for the
Digital Book World 2019 Publishing Commentator of the Year and Best Use of Podcasting in Publishing 🙂
Today's podcast sponsor is
Findaway Voices, which gives you access to the world's largest network of audiobook sellers and everything you need to create and sell professional audiobooks. Take back your freedom. Choose your price, choose how you sell, choose how you distribute audio. Check it out at
FindawayVoices.com.
Mike Shatzkin is the founder and CEO of The Idea Logical Company and an author, professional speaker, and thought leader about digital change in the book publishing industry. His most recent book is
The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know.
You can listen above or on
iTunes or
your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and full transcript below.
Show Notes
* On unforeseen changes in the publishing industry. Mike also talks more about this in his blog post,
A lot has changed in the industry in the last 10 years
* The growing trend of audiobooks and the potential of audio-first markets
* How the purchase of Barnes & Noble by Elliott Management, a hedge fund, under the management of James Daunt, will affect their retail stores [