Podcast: How Books Are Made

A podcast about the art and science of making books. Arthur Attwell speaks to book-making leaders about design, production, marketing, distribution, and technology. These are conversations for book lovers and publishing decision makers, whether you’re crafting books at a big company or a boutique publisher.

Who gets published?

The biggest decision in publishing is ‘who gets published?’ Whose ideas, world views, and idioms get added to the great library?

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Creative publishing with smart tools

When we create machines to handle the drudgery of book-making, we free up our brains for more creative work.

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Publishing with purpose

Few people have helped to publish as many children’s books, in as many different ways, as Alisha Niehaus Berger.

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Going digital at hyperspeed

The pandemic has accelerated digitization in publishing to warp speed, and every book-maker in the world is wondering what that means for their business.

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How to make a book in five days

When we really need to get a book written and published quickly, and can rally a dedicated team around it, how fast can we move?

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Publishers, libraries, sales, and community

We all love libraries, but maybe we could love them a little more. Some money-minded publishing folk even wonder: what effect do libraries have on book sales? Luckily, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez can help answer that question, and many others.

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Plates, paper, perfecting—print!

Even in our digital world, despite the insight of editors and the wonders of design, printing is really where the book-making magic culminates. In this episode, Arthur speaks to Mike Jason, a long-time book-printing expert.

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Measuring reading for smart marketing

Arthur speaks to Andrew Rhomberg, the founder of Jellybooks, about how publishers use smart ebooks to measure what readers think of a new publication, and to figure out whether it could be a bestseller.

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Ebooks, Arabic, lions, vampires

Arthur meets up with an old friend, Ramy Habeeb, to share some fascinating, hilarious book-making stories. And he discovers that his friend has a whole other life, and pseudonym, as a successful novelist.

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International excellence, local twist

For many of us, the role of ‘The Publisher’ is almost mythical: a distant, unknowable keeper of dreams. Somehow, we grant publishers enormous cultural cachet, but they are just people, and hopefully conversations like this one can help us better understan

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