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A review by athst
The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know by Robert Paris Riger, Mike Shatzkin
3.0
I felt this was an okay introduction to the trade publishing industry, perhaps targeted to someone like a writer who wants to publish a book but doesn't understand how it all works. The authors touch most areas of the value chain and it's new enough that it covers important modern topics such as ebooks, digital audio books, and Amazon.
On the other hand, I felt like the book mostly describes the "what" of how things are, but doesn't go into very much depth around the "why" they are that way. For example, I was hoping to get a little more history and perhaps more of an insider's view of the publishing process. For that kind of stuff, I'd recommend a different book "Merchants of Culture," which is a lot longer, more academic, and has more of an outsider's perspective, but along with that contains much more depth and history about the industry.
On the other hand, I felt like the book mostly describes the "what" of how things are, but doesn't go into very much depth around the "why" they are that way. For example, I was hoping to get a little more history and perhaps more of an insider's view of the publishing process. For that kind of stuff, I'd recommend a different book "Merchants of Culture," which is a lot longer, more academic, and has more of an outsider's perspective, but along with that contains much more depth and history about the industry.