Mike Shatzkin, one of the publishing industry's best-known consultants and observers, died November 7 after a short bout with untreatable lymphoma. He was 77.
News of Shatzkin’s illness first reached the industry earlier this fall, when his wife, Martha Moran, posted the news on Facebook that he was in the ICU at Lenox Hill Hospital, prompting an outpouring of well wishes. When word of his passing was made public November 7, tributes poured in.
For years, Shatzkin’s primary base of operations was the Idea Logical Company, which he founded in 1979. Originally focused on providing advice about the supply chain, Shatzkin was one of the first in the industry to recognize the coming of publishing’s digital revolution, and he would go on to serve as an advisor to both technology companies looking to get involved with publishing and publishers looking to understand the threats and opportunities posed by tech companies. His interest in technology led him to join with Michael Cader to start Publishers Lunch Conferences in 2008, which provided programming for the first seven Digital Book World conferences.
"Mike was indelible," Cader wrote in a heartfelt November 7 obituary. "He was unafraid of being bold in his predictions and proclamations—of which he made many—and although he had firm convictions he did not cling to them tightly. Mike was always open to being persuaded by contrary arguments. While he had solutions and answers for almost anything, perhaps more significantly he asked great questions that always made you think more deeply."
Never shy about expressing his opinions, Shatzkin was a favorite of the publishing media. For a time, Shatzkin was a PW contributor, offering up his predictions on what was in store for the industry in the coming year. And on his long-running blog, the Shatzkin Files, he regularly offered his opinions on the state of publishing, including his belief that the traditional publishing model was broken. As evidenced by the many messages of condolences sent after his passing, Shatzkin’s list of friends and industry contacts was immense.
In recent years, Shatzkin had pared back his participation in publishing to work on creating ClimateChangeResources.org with another publishing veteran, Lena Tabori.
"We worked, laughed, thought, and strategized together for almost eight years. He had a huge heart, a brilliant mind, a passion for baseball and a stunning wife to whom he was married for more than 30 years. He came from optimism. He lived fairness. He magnetized smart, curious, moral, loving people," Tabori posted in a tribute to Shatzkin on her Facebook page. "No conversation went anywhere but up. You always understood more at the end than when you began. How will the world be the same without him?"
For Shatzkin, publishing was a family business. He was the son of Leonard Shatzkin, a publishing executive and industry critic. While working at Doubleday, Leonard Shatzkin was responsible for innovations that became industry practice, including standardizing book sizes for production efficiency, maintaining a nationwide sales force, and developing methods for stocking stores. He would later start a book distribution company, Two Continents, where Mike worked for a period. In 1982, he published In Cold Type, an analysis of the American trade book publishing business, followed by The Mathematics of Bookselling: A Monograph in 1997.
Mike Shatzkin was also an author; his books included The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know, co-authored with the late Robert P. Riger.
