Weekly Update

Never has the phrase You can't make this stuff up been more appropriate. As we arrived in the UK last week there was heavy news reporting about the last days on Litvinenco. (At this point barely a ripple on the US networks). Unless the authorities were keeping it quiet, the whole radiation thing only started to come out after the poor bloke was dead. My thoughts firstly were how did the stuff get here? Well, now BA are finding the stuff in multiple planes and this is weird not because it may have been transported via plane but why as many as three planes? I can see two planes - outbound and in-bound but what's with the third? Perhaps more than one carrier just to double the chances that some would reach the intended target? If so, where's the extra? My second subsequent thought was that this guy lay in hospital for three weeks before he died and we then found out he had radiation poisoning. What does this say about London's readiness to identify a more serious outbreak of anything? On this kind of schedule we will all be dead.

Back to publishing...

Deals:
The Houghton Mifflin deal was agreed this week with executive positions announced. As the news reports pointed out the equity firms which purchased the company a few years have made a very nice return on thier investment. More from The Australian on the riches brought forth.

Proquest have completed the divesture of their electronic parts catalog business to Snap-On tools. I suspect Snap On sees a huge opportunity in building a e-commerce business based on this data. Coupled with the large community represented by the Proquest sales channel of over 33,000 dealers. Proquest recieves mostly cash for the deal. Earlier this year Proquest announced some accounting irregularities but stressed they did not impede the business.

Wolters Kluwer announced better than expected results this week and this article from Forbes on publishing deals notes that the WK educational unit may be put up for sale. Apparently they have had some expressions of interest. I have heard this unit has been a little problematic for them; generally legal, tax, regulatory, medical and nursing titles.

Other News:
Indigo books announced a program with iUniverse which is similar to the program iUniverse has with Barnes & Noble. The program enables iUniverse authors to have a presence on front of store displays. The titles have to meet certain commercial criteria.

For the aging generation - thankfully not me yet - Harpercollins has launched a 'luxe' large print program. Named HarperLuxe, they aim to raise the standard of typical large print titles. Look for others to follow-on. I always liked the large print publisher market which used to be 'dominated' by GK Hall and Thorndyke. When Macmillan was collapsing I had a thought of acquiring G.K. Hall. A little issue of money reduced this to little more than a thought.

I had a hand in this implementation at Bowker - made the go ahead decision and signed the contract. On occaision I demo the interface; however, it sits behind a subscription wall so it is not easy to get to. To get an idea what this interface looks like go here and type 'suspense' in the search box. By the way, Queens Public is one of the more innovative library systems in the nation and also has one of the most diverse population served.

If you were doubting your sartorial sensibility then this article from The Age (my one-time home newspaper) on a flood of new titles for those needing a refresher on 'manners' and 'dress code'. That would be me. I am closer to the loin cloth type - see the article.

There were a few best of lists this week but here is a different take from Forbes magazine which asked a list of reputable media types what books mean to them and the title of the last significant book they read. I liked the gorgeous Suzanne Somers the best.

New York Times best of 2006. and the Kirkus' reviews of said titles.
Publisher's Weekly (Glad to see George Pelecanos and Cormac McCarthy on their list)
Amazon.co.uk (Interesting selection - click on fiction for more)
Amazon.com (I just started The Emperors Children which is on this list)
The Observer - The Great and the Good note their best 2006 picks.

Dead Barbie On A Beach in Costa Rica

This is the last of three travel articles on a trip Mrs PND and I took to Costa Rica. Links to the others are at the bottom.



There is a rage mixed with disbelief as the view along the crescent of sand is dotted with colorful plastic jewelry. Every conceivable color is represented and in all forms of mass production from buckets to sandals to nylon rope. Netted collections of twigs, branches and leaves hold this detritus from our civilized world until it runs ashore. And make no mistake - this excrement has no business being here in this spit of wilderness pointing out into the Pacific Ocean.

And, yes, tossed up on the beach was dead Barbie. Entirely pink but not anatomically correct it may nevertheless be the subject of an intense manhunt in some bedroom in Santa Monica. The sheer amount of plastic material, both whole and ground into small pieces, is hard to describe and the hotel workers labored for three days to collect the material and truck it off. Mini color-dotted pyres sprang up along the beach as they struggled to catch up with the constant influx of new material from the sea. It was likely to go on for a week pushed ahead by some massive storm out to sea: This didn’t matter to hotel management - they had to get the beach back in pristine shape. At least until the next tide. I did notice that of the 20 or so workers, there didn’t appear to be any managers.


My fascination with this mess took me along the beach. We are infrequently confronted by our impact on our environment and this was a first for me. We had just spent the past three days in a protected ecological reserve and that experience made the contrast with what we saw on the beach all the more marked. As I walked the length of the beach I was mindful of my step. Thoughts of medical waste washed up on New Jersey beaches caught in my mind and wouldn’t you know it? There was a syringe still connected to its needle sitting happily just above the waterline. Thankfully lonely amongst the plastic bottles, buckets and foam bottle holders, I carefully picked it up and placed it in one of the garbage bags the workers were filling.


Needless to say, few people were venturing into the sea that week although the beach on the bay side of the hotel was protected from the scrum of scum. Care had been taken in the construction of the hotel so as to destroy as little of the jungle as possible but while this is a beautiful location, an eco-lodge it is not. Designed for rich, pampered phobia-ridden tourists, there is just enough ‘nature’ to enable them to return to Upper Saddle River where they can tell their friends about the monkeys they saw from their bedroom lanai. How about a hike up the volcano or a visit to the small local town? Nope, that would be too much trouble and we only came for the sun.


Make no mistake - I recognize Mr. and Mrs. PND are similar (although we are often horrified at the closed mindedness of some of our fellow pool dwellers) in nature to all the other attendees at this ecological Disney experience. On the other hand, the hotel has enabled some lucky Costa Ricans to crawl into a sort of lower middle class. Engaging in a conversation with the hotel staff produces startling support for the hotel and the opportunity it affords. All enjoy the opportunity to practice their English and in a country where over 95% of the population is literate (can we say the same?), your average Costa Rican is going to come across as being quite “with it”. The hotel is hard to get to and I think management discourages personal transport, so staff catch regularly scheduled coaches to the hotel. One worker told us she is up at four every morning to catch the bus and not home until past six at night. She just loves her job, though.


We can escape all we want to places like this, but it doesn’t take long to realize how interconnected we all are. It was bad enough that we were quietly sitting reading at the pool when two couples sidled up near us and started to discuss shopping at the Short Hills Mall. The ecological disaster that greeted us on the beach got me wondering what it must be like to live downstream from a very large waste pipe. Sadly the producers of the waste in the pipe (me included) rarely, if ever, see the results of their activities. I wonder, had the weather been a little nicer, would I have been more upset that I couldn’t tan on the beach or horrified about the scum? I guess if I didn’t think the experience disturbing, I wouldn’t still be thinking about it.


Hiking in the Clouds
Zipping Through Costa Rica

Customer Service

I admit to a degree of impatience with shoddy service. At the same time I do fight the English tendancy to put up. Often I have an internal conversation with myself that generally ends in '...you'll be disgusted with yourself tomorrow if you don't do something about this..' Generally by then I am pissed which doesn't help. Anyway over the past two weeks, I have felt a little awash in the Bermuda Triangle of customer service.

I checked into a Holiday Inn recently and on leaving the desk I asked if my room had a connecting door. I hate them. Happily the receptionist said "When you get up there if your room has one just come back and I'll put you in another room." Sure enough I was back at the desk five minutes later. By then she had seemed to have found the floor map.

Mrs PND and I travelled to the UK last week. British Airways used to have one of the best in-flight services going. Coming and going we noted the total mediocrity of the service. Periodically the flight attendants seemed to forget we existed. I never got offered breakfast and for some reason the crew moved four from economy into business class - a significant bonus for them no doubt - and in the process spent more time addressing their needs than the rest of the paying travellers. Return wasn't much better but it was prefaced by a standing room only arrival in the executive club lounge. Staff couldn't give a rats arse.

While in the UK, I walked into a Starbucks near home at 5:45pm to access my email only to realize the place was closing. This was apparent because rather than waiting to clean up after they were closed (at 6pm) all the chairs were on the tables and they were mopping up. No staff were available to serve. The next day I went down to get a coffee at 8:20am, paid for my grande and then realized (together with the clerk) that they had forgotten to put the coffee on! This is Starbucks - that's what they do!

In Hatchards on Monday I was picking up books I had paid for over the phone and rather than have someone bring them to the front desk they had me up and down the stairs doing my own research on where someone may have put the three books in question. I ended up in the mail room on the top floor. As I left someone asked if I had found everything I needed. Christ.

I might be a whiner but over the same period, I can't think of any occasion where I have witnessed good or exceptional customer service. No one cares anymore.

Publishing Supply Chain Part Two

Structural flaws in our business will increasingly cause a decrease in the amounts of productive capital invested in our business. Publishers we are weighed down by the inefficiencies within the publishing business and unless we adopt more flexible processes and work more collaboratively with our partners in the supply chain business growth will be stunted.

Our industry continues to benefit from a technology-driven period of change based in part on Y2K and ERP system implementations. IT infrastructure is now more flexible and provides information far surpassing the data and analytics available in years past. Today’s systems are also leveragable; their implementations allow even further opportunities for efficiencies within the organizations where they exist and this has helped drive cost and process efficiencies.

Recently, the President of a large trade publishing house commented that his company had maintained their operating margins over the past five years by squeezing more and more cost out of their operations but he couldn’t see that continuing in the ensuing years. Other publishers have begun to understand that cost structures have been cut about as much as they can and effort needs to be focused externally to achieve margin improvement. Creating efficiencies in the supply chain is the only area where sustainable expense and cost savings can be found.

The elements exist for publishing companies to understand and proactively manage their supply chains. Data warehouse structures now support sophisticated analytical reporting across a broad range of metrics, including the development of models for projecting the sales of new titles based on past performance of an authors previous titles or predicting sales of a new title against titles with similar characteristics. Publishers using the data currently available to them have generated incremental operating improvements from their use but there remain significant gaps in data supply.

Supply chain problems manifest themselves in operational statistics that would not be tolerated in most other businesses. Order fill rates averaging 85% are common; meaning we may be loosing as much as 15% of potential revenue. Counter intuitive to this fill rate percentage, inventory levels are often excessive - absorbing cash, capital expense, and operating costs due to personnel, obsolescence, damage and shrinkage. At fault is a lack of knowledge of key supply chain data elements. For example, most publishers (with a few exceptions) can not see day-to-day demand and stock positions across the supply chain. If this information were available to publishers, they could be far more educated about inventory, printing and supply decisions.

The low fill rates above are not for want of trying. There is plenty of inventory with the publishers, wholesalers and retailers. Nevertheless, a publisher’s annual inventory turns of less than of 1 is common. And let’s not forget returns which average between 25 - 40%. Efficiencies can and have been made within organizations with better planning and forecasting tools. For example, while at Price Waterhouse I was involved in a project which increased inventory turn at a large trade publisher saving them $120million/year; however, this only got them to a turn of once per year. To really drive inventory down and turn up, the publisher needed to know where their inventory was in the supply chain, what was selling and what projected demand was for all their titles down to the level of the locations that held the inventory – stores, wholesalers, retail warehouses, etc.

Access to retail sales data and stock information at each level in the supply chain would enable publishers to make their operations more efficient. Retailers would be able to manage their inventory effectively but most importantly all participants would be better placed to satisfy customer’s requests resulting in improved fill rates. Publishers don’t want to be caught unable to fulfill a title and incorporate a high safety stock level into their printing decisions. Intuitively, better knowledge would lead to more effective distribution and therefore less returns and less need for high safety stock levels. The ripple effect is considerable; high inventory turns means less warehouse space, fewer returns means less freight and postage, processing and write-offs.

Publishing needs to adopt an “Intelligent Publishing Supply Chain” (IPSN) model governed by the demand of the final consumer. This drum beat will set the pace for the entire supply chain and is based on information flow and access across the supply chain. Obviously, a main component of this information flow is demand information at all stages of the supply chain with full collaboration between trading partners. To be effective in driving supply chain efficiencies publishers, retailers and wholesalers will need to establish collaborative practices and common standards across the industry. This will require a significant change in approach and perspective for all the players but the benefits will accrue to all parties. Collaboration across the supply chain is the only meaningful opportunity which will result in increased sales, reduced inventories, and reduced supply chain costs.

What might this IPSN look like? That is for my next post on this subject.

Supply Chain Part One.

Ziping Through Costa Rica (Number 2)

You have the feeling that things are spiraling out of control, but you are of two minds as to whether to stop it. The process itself seems to be controlling matters and, while you have had time to think about your actions, there is something in the back of your head reflecting on the ease with which you seem to have put your life in danger. Those thoughts ran through my head as Luis, our guide, placed the pulley over the zip wire and told me to lift my feet off the platform. Mrs. PND is no wimp; she upped and went first and was now 200 feet away-- speeding 50 feet above the canopy to the second of 15 platforms we would visit in the next hour. Our two guides had clearly come to a conclusion about us immediately and, for whatever reason, they decided we would just get on with it. Hence, the rather cursory and matter-of-fact instruction, which sounded more like he was practicing his English than anything else. He gave the impression he expected us to pay about as much attention as we would to a flight attendant.

The first platform is a short drive from the head office and small gift shop and, once up the hill, we were led to a location short of the first platform. Our instructions were simple and presented in decent English—place your arm behind you, pressing on the wire to slow yourself and never grab the wire in front (otherwise you risk mangling your fingers). Then one of the boys attached himself to the practice wire suspended in front of us between two trees and showed us how it worked. We then got up from our seats, thinking we would then get the chance to practice on the training wire. Not so. We went straight to prime time.

Per instruction, up go the feet with knees bent in front of you and you are off-- flying like Peter Pan above the sea of green Monteverde rain forest. It was very cool and we still can’t really believe we did it. There are 15 platforms at Selvatura and a multi-bridge cloud walk. I had reviewed Fodor’s list of zipwire tours but decided based on the recommendation of our hotel, and I think we made the right choice. Most of the ziplines are 30-100 meters long; however, the longest is 400 meters, and runs parallel to one of the suspension bridges we walked across later that day. The wire looked more impressive from the bridge than it did when we sped across, given its height above ground - perhaps 100 feet - and the enormous distance between the platforms at either end.

Since it was just the two of us, we able to enjoy the company of the two boys and Mrs. PND was able to try her Spanish --I think the boys liked her. One had better English than the other and told her it was easy to learn English because Americans keep using the same words over and over again. I thought that comment was rather amusing.

Selvatura is located a very bumpy 20-minute ride above Santa Elena, and their mini-buses pick up customers anywhere in town. Ecology provided the genesis of the zipline tour when scientists recognized that they could study plant life and animals more effectively if they were suspended above or within the canopy. So, for purely scientific reasons--not at all for fun --scientists began zipwireing across nature preserves; word got out and a tourist attraction was born. In Santa Elena, there are at least 10 zip-line tour operators but none of them could be better than Selvatura. Any guide book will have listings and recommendations on each of the better operators. Obviously, safety is a major concern because these tours are a strong attraction for eco-tourism. It wouldn't do for tourists to start falling out of the sky and, at least according to Fodor’s there haven't been many accidents.

The zipline tour lasts about 60 mins. and I think I got to platform 10 thinking we were done. I was already impressed with the length of the tour but, as a parting gift, Selvatura offers something they call the “Tarzan Swing.” Tarzan has no redeeming or scientific value and is designed only to make you scream like an idiot as you step off a small platform and free-fall 30 feet over a ravine. It is really a mini bungee jump. Again, the fearless Mrs. PND went first. Not ever having bungee-jumped, the sensation of nothingness as you fall forward is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. This wasn't even that high--and I would do it again. When we got back to the hotel, the desk clerk asked in reverent tones, “Did you do the Tarzan?” I think she was impressed, although she might have been worried about my age...

Like the day before, we were eating lunch by 1:30 (this time at Pizzeria Johnny), feeling very satisfied with ourselves. Selvatura also has a 1.5-mile trail which includes 8 suspension bridges through the cloud forest, but we had to rush this since we would have had to wait 2 hours for the next shuttle bus to Santa Elena. We needed our lunch and we needed to get on the road to the beach.

Travel Edition: Hiking Above the Clouds

Top Ten Reasons Beckham Should Stay and Ali G.

Selena Roberts wrote last week that David Beckham should come to the US and give up playing at Real Madrid. I'm not sure this is a good idea. Here are my top ten reasons why. (And if you need to ask who David Beckham is then don't bother reading on).

1. Who will he play with when all the good players are in Europe. Kiss good bye to Freddy.
2. He is still only one free kick from redemption for England
3. Naming his next child Brentwood - or perhaps Malibu - would be too much
4. 10 Boring players are is still a boring team
5. Heaven can wait: Buy a team and play when he turns forty
6. He couldn't carry England how will he carry MLS
7. Playing for MLS he will get about as much action as the ref....at least on the field
8. Posh
9. There will be less admin assistants for the rest of us; ask Rebecca Loos
10. We don't want David in the Movies.

That's it other than the following Ali G video.
Ali-G Interviews Posh Spice and David Beckham

Berlitz: Improve your English

I used to work for Berlitz and they were a very conservative organization who relied on yellow pages and newspaper advertising to generate sales leads. Internationally, the company tended to be a little more adventurous particularly in Germany and Japan. Here is a link to some new style advertising that shows you can teach an old dog some new tricks.

Friday Update: Deals, Deals, Deals

Given all the hype about private equity interest in publishing and media it is interesting that two huge deals come somewhat out of the blue. Wiley has purchased Blackwell which will fit very well with that company and both will be able to leverage their collective expertise around the world. Both Wiley and Blackwell have strong positions in the UK and International markets but Blackwell will definitely get a boost in the US and Australia/New Zealand. This combination will also better support their growth into the Asian and Indian markets. I think it is a perfect deal for both. Obviously, the fact that Blackwell were for sale is not as much a surprise as hearing of the Reader's Digest sale. In the case of Blackwell they have suffered through some family issues and had reorganized about a year ago with new management directed to get the company into shape.

Reader's Digest has been under pressure for a number of years with a declining market and reduced direct marketing effectiveness. In the past five years or so they have restructured and infused the organization with new management and new thinking which has started to bear some fruit. No telling where this company would have been if it remained on the same path it was seven or eight years ago. The wonder now will be whether RD embarks on an acquisition process to further strengthen its revenue base.

Wiley: Press Release
Blackwell: Oxford Mail
Readers Digest: New York Times

Reading Challenge

So I thought this would be easy...thanks to So Many Books here is notice of a challenge issued by Overdue Books to read five books currently on your bookself. As I noted recently, I did a dumb thing and rearranged the books I have purchased but not read and they numbered over 30. So the challenge is read five books by January. Here is my gang of five;

The Road - Cormac McCarthy. Just picked it off the shelf

The Emperors Children - Claire Massud

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins

The Big Over Easy - Jasper Fforde

The Power of the Dog - Don Winslow

Travel Edition - Hiking in Clouds In Costa Rica

Our second trip to Costa Rica started with a weather report from the Captain: “I hope you guys are planning on doing some surfing--October is the wettest month of the year.” Actually, we weren’t planning on catching any waves and, about three hours later, we were climbing the hardscrabble road to Santa Elena in Monteverde. As we drove up the mountain road – which rolled, twisted and turned, rising to a point 5,000 feet above sea level-- we marveled at the green pastures and the apparent slow pace of life. Locals looked up in mild interest and smiled as we passed slowly by. We waved affably and tried not to overplay our interest in what they were up to.

Costa Rica is rapidly growing in popularity and, in the year between our last visit and this one, a strip mall with an American-style supermarket – is that “Maxi-Bodega”? – had opened up in Liberia. Liberia is regional capital of Guanacaste and the location of the recently expanded northern Costa Rican airport. We had landed here with the intention of spending a few days hiking in the rain forest followed by five days in the sun. As we de-planed, the likelihood of five days in the sun was dimming but, as we entered the clouds in our approach to Santa Elena, I wasn’t thinking about that at all in anticipation of seeing the rainforest firsthand.

Dusk was closing in as we jolted into Santa Elena and the ground-level clouds made it virtually impossible to see anything. Mrs. PND and I had settled on Hotel Sapo Dorado (she really didn’t have much to do with it) – the name has something to do with frogs – which turned out to be both empty and rustically adorable. Staffers told us that the hotel is usually full between mid-December and April with a mix of European and US guests. Fifteen cabins are spread across a hill above Santa Elena, most with views of the town and the Nicoya Peninsula beyond. Once settled in our cabin (which had an outdoor lanai, two queen-size beds and a basic bathroom), we proceeded to dinner in the hotel restaurant. As we discussed plans for the next day, we were a little worried about the rain but decided we would hike through the Monteverde Cloudforest Preserve.

Costa Rica has an aggressive ecological program and recently designated a large tract of forest in Northern Guanacaste as national park--though they haven’t yet decided what they will actually do with it. It has neither bathroom nor navigable road but, nevertheless, it represents the country’s desire to create yet another feast for eco-tourists. At 8:30 am the next day, we found ourselves hiking through the cloud forest on a route suggested by a park ranger based at the trail head. On the well-maintained trail, we rarely faced any mud or other hazards. I was a bit disappointed about this, since I had bought hiking boots and Mrs. PND only had Nikes--I was looking for a real hike, with real mud. At this altitude, we quickly became short of breath and regularly stopped as we climbed through the greenery. Tall trees covered in epiphytes and wrapped in vines towered above us; others seemed to have succumbed to the stranglehold of the hangers-on and had fallen across the forest floor, taking a chunk of the canopy with it. We later read that winds at this level can be very strong and often result in casualties.

Occasionally, we emerged from the dense forest to stand on the edge of a ridge, where we surveyed the peaks and valleys intersecting the region. Sixty minutes into our hike, we arrived at the Continental Divide, which provided a rest stop as well as an opportunity to look out over the forest toward the Atlantic on one side and the Pacific on the other – or at least we could have, if the clouds had cooperated. The return trip took us over one of the hanging bridges common to Costa Rican parks and reserves, and we resolved to visit another of these reserves the following day. That day’s supposed 3.5 hr. hike took us about 2.5 hrs. and, as we returned to the car, the rain started to hammer down.

The Monteverde Cloudforest Preserve is only 10 mins. from Santa Elena and we were eating a well-deserved lunch by 11:30 that morning. As the rain pounded away, we spent the rest of our day reading in our cabin in the clouds. I plotted our activities for the next day and wondered why we weren’t spending more than two days up there. . .

Updates for the Weekend

Watching the news last night, Mrs PND and I were shocked and incredibly saddened to hear of the death of Ed Bradley. What a shock. Only several weeks ago he presented his last story on 60mins about the BP Refinery explosion in Texas and was admitted to the hospital the same day. Bradley was cool, professional and unpretentious and he joined the serious crew at 60mins in the early 1980s as very much the newbie. He clearly took his job seriously but had a great attitude about life. As described in the Boston Globe, at a Jimmy Buffet concert in Boston in 1984 he jumped up on stage unannounced and grabbed a tambourine and belted out a few songs. Here is CBS.

In other news, you will enjoy the following tale of a cocktail party where Stephen King attempts to sing with a band. The writer is Madame Arcarti and she rightly points out the hypocrisy sometimes exhibited in our reactions to the antics of of our popular culture 'heros'. Why do people think King's singing is great? Why, because he is a popular writer of fiction. Obvious. We seem to be far more patient with these people than we should be.

Thanks to a link on Guy Kawasaki's blog here is a very creative blog entry. I love it and it would be cool to try the comics myself. I should look into it.

Here is an all too frequent example misguided censorship in education from Blasted Members. It has a nice twist at the end.

Apparently, yet another large city newspaper has decided to do away with books reporting and book reviews. Here though is the reasoned discussion why this is somewhat inevitable.

I caught the following review by Bill Grimes in the NYTimes yesterday about the US pilots of the Eighth Airforce which was established in the aftermath of Pearl harbor to execute a long range bombing campaign against Germany. Surviving a tour with your mind and body in tact was a feat in itself, but to then face another tour was unbearable for some. Yet another book to place on the Christmas list.

Finally, Grumpy Old Bookman has a segment about Richard Dawkins writer of The God Delusion and a strange coincidental interview Dawkins had with Ted Haggard an apparent supporter of the gay lifestyle and illegal drug purchaser but now ex-head of his local evangelical church.

Private Equity Still Interested

Publishing is suddenly hot news in the financial markets. For an industry that is periodically characterized as a anachronism it is curious that so many PE firms seem to view publishing with excitement. Last Friday, CNBC had a segment on the activity and while they didn't hit on anything new they focused on the fact that many publishing companies, particularly newspaper companies retain very good margins and throw off a lot of cash. While their markets are seen to be declining, the PE firms can ride a decent wave for a few years and expect to hop off with a respectable return on investment. Several newspaper companies are or may be in play and even the NYT may face a proxy fight that may lead to changes in their ownership structure. It is well known that the Chandler family - prior owners of the LA Times - have pressured the Tribune Company to consider new ideas and options for recapitalizing that business.

In other publishing news, CNBC mentioned Moody's as a potential target given its strong and stable state. I haven't heard this company's name brought up before. Springer had its' bid rejected by Informa but I suspect they will be back with another bid in the short term. It was also revealed last week that Vivendi received an unsolicited bid from KKR - while not directly publishing this does reflect the interest in media generally. The bid while huge was rejected also.

We do however await the outcome of the Thomson and the Harcourt deals; they will represent the biggest publishing deals in a long time and will presage other deals in the early part of 2007 if not sooner. (Article on Pearson).

Ronald Reagan and the Vote

In July 1981 I warily plodded down to my local post office (Kihei, Maui) to register for the draft. As a non-citizen green card holder I was required to do so just like every other kid I knew because of the bill the Reagan Administration had passed earlier that year. Since that day I was never sure that the paper work was ever completed -that the post office hadn't lost it: the whole process seemed completely ad hoc. Nevertheless, no less than 25 years later I was sitting in an immigration hearing answering questions for my citizenship application and there sure enough was the notation regarding my registration for the draft on July 10th, 1981.

So, in the intervening years I could drink legally, work, be arrested (I wasn't) deported, pay my taxes, go to war as a draftee but I couldn't vote for the candidate of my choice. Up until today I have never voted anywhere. Having gone through the byzantine citizen process - which is another story - I am finally enfranchised and just at the right time. In retrospect, I should have done this sooner, but my silly notion that I would be somehow giving up my Englishness if I became a US citizen is wholly selfish and irresponsible and I wish that I had done this sooner.

It is interesting to contrast 1980 with 2006 because the current President believes himself to be the successor to Ronny. Ron Reagan the President's son was on The Colbert Report recently and couldn't control is disdain for this idea and pointedly poked fun at the idea even suggesting that he had learned to ride a horse any by a ranch to emulate The Great Communicator. Ronald Reagan was the right choice for America in 1980 as much as George Bush is the wrong choice today. Regrettably, as Neil Young said "... we had our chance to change our mind... but we went with what we knew..." I think if voters could do the 2004 election over they would think differently. Today the electorate gets to exhibit their dissatisfaction with the state of events over the past six years and will present the democrats with a chance to define themselves while in the leadership in the run up to 2008. Do I think the Democrats will blow it? All evidence today seems to indicate they haven't won this election as much as the Republicans have lost it and that should be very worrisome to the dems.

This election today appears to be the most widely voted mid-term election since 1946 with an expected 48% of voters participating. I am finally happy and proud to be one of them. If anyone doubts the true state of affairs I recommend reading Frank Rich's piece in the NYT from this weekend.

Books In Different colors

There was a front page article in The New Times last week that didn't deserve to be there. Honestly, The Times' coverage of the publishing industry has eroded substantially since Geraldine Fabricant moved to other things and this article is no different than most of the other recent weak stories. The NYT treated the news that books are now available in Home Depot, Anthopologie and other non-bookstores as a shocking surprise. The only real surprise in my mind is their lack of imagination in suggesting that more of this non-traditional placement should occur and that they should have examined why publishers are being led by (supposedly) innovative retailers who place yellow covered titles with yellow pull-overs. I mean really how brainless is that.

This weekend in the same paper Eleanor Randolph composed a rebuttal which included the notion that if books are considered a fashion accessory then perhaps publishers could cover them in some chameleon like material that matches its' surroundings thereby perfectly blending into its environment. I think she strikes the right absurd note.

I recently read a quote from Todd Wager (who founded Broadcast.com with Marc Cuban) who stated that it is "dangerous to assume your customers will be interested in your products in five months". His research confirmed that half of movie goers leaving a cinema said they’d buy the DVD which is an impulse buy opportunity. So, the strong implication is to place the DVD in the movie theatre so the patrons can buy the books, err... the DVDs. Wagner's new company does sell DVDs to patrons in the movie theatre. MJ Rose recently tried to solicit other ideas as to book/store match-ups from this entry. Harlequin Romance with Victoria Secret.... the notion is positively sacrilegious.

Have You Heard of Crowdsourcing?

A post on Lorcan Dempsey's site a few weeks ago caught my attention. He drew attention to a concept defined by Wired Magazine writers Jeff Howe and Mark Robinson called crowdsourcing (Article). They defined the concept (to paraphrase from wikipedia) as activity traditionally completed by selectively hired, trained and managed workforces migrating to low paid or un-paid amateurs. These people use their knowledge and spare time to complete tasks, share ideas and solve problems. The obvious question is why don't you get what you pay for? The answer seems to be that to work well there needs to be a strong and widely held common purpose. The 'crowdsourcing' moniker is evidence that the idea is growing mainstream (and is itself a result of increasing wide-spread access to networks). As some have pointed out the Linux and Firefox development projects have been early examples of this concept.

The wikipedia site also lists some additional examples from mainstream companies such as Proctor and Gamble and Amazon. Recently, The Economist wrote about an Australian mining company that made available their prospecting documents under the guise of a competition. Interested 3rd parties could identify areas where they believed the company could mine for gold. Apparently the participating companies identified over 110 target sites of which 50 were new to the company. The benefit for the mining company was a significant reduction in time and expense to find these new targets and they also got access to new prospecting technology and processes.

Jeff Howe has a blog related to this topic named unsurprisingly crowdsourcing.com. The article in Wired is fascinating as it points to how business models have to change in some of the least likely businesses. Who would have thought that the stock photo business could collapse because we all have digital cameras and loads of images we can now share or license. Suddenly 'good enough' content exists in substantial amounts and the market is becoming over supplied - at least from the perspective of the stock photo agencies. The article points to istockphoto.com as examples of the above and in the same vein scoopt.com exists to enable anyone who witnesses a newsworthy event to upload their photos for distribution and licensing.

Coincident with my reading Lorcan's blog entry about crowdsourcing I also witnessed an incredible example of this idea on the librarything.com site. A few weeks ago, they decided that they wanted to translate their pages so that they could appeal to foreign language speakers. Instead of finding a language speaker in each of the target languages to slog through all the pages and translate them into F, I, G, S etc. they opened up the site to allow iterative translation. To my mind the results were astounding because they had for example 75% of the German translation done inside a day. To date, about a month after they started the project, they have 100% of the site translated into German, French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese. Here is the hit parade. As they (Tim) point out, adding a league table of translators seemed to incite some competition. There have been a number of blog entries on this topic but here is an early one.

Crowdsourcing is powerful, and yes we can argue it isn't that new, but the enablers are now more prevalent which is better and closer computing power, easier access to networking and rapid adoption of virtual social networks. My characterization of 'good enough' above was purposeful; one of the tenets of crowdsourcing is that the power of the network will outstrip that of a small group of experienced professionals. This is the real danger for publishers and others who have built silos of expensive (to develop and sell) content. As a database publisher I could point out the blemishes in 'good enough' products that I competed against. What happens when I can't do that. Witness the EB versus wikipedia debate earlier this year.

William Styron

William Styron has passed away and his obit in The New York Times is here. Sophie's Choice is the only title I have read which still resonates with me having read it when I was 16. William Styron wasn't afraid of courting controversy - perhaps he didn't set out to do that - but he knew what he knew and he wanted to tell people about it. Sophie's Choice was a powerful novel that in my case drew me in and told me about the holocaust in a way a history book never could.

Penguin Blog

I typed penguin blog into google today and this is what came up first. Predictable really... I don't believe a Penguin can do its own shopping. For the record, I was looking for the book publisher.

While I am on this, while I was in Graduate school some friends of mine wanted to set up an all boys club named after Penguins (The Penguin Club) on the basis that (apparently) Penguins only mate once a year. Happily, I was able to decline my charter membership.

Lorcan Dempsey (who may not like the intro to this link) has some thoughts on the design of the Penguin paperbacks here.

The Big Deal Returns

I was lamenting recently that there hadn't been too many mega publishing deals this year and all of a sudden they are numerous.

In June, I mentioned that CEO Richard Harrington had been quoted in the FT regarding Thomson's willingness to part with their educational division. They rapidly back tracked and in truth the context of his comments were along the lines of "...if someone offers us a good price, we can put the money to good use on the legal and regulatory and financial segments of our business." Clearly, they have had a think about this and last week publicly stated their intention to divest the business unit. I suspect it will go to a financial buyer; this is not a particularly integrated operating unit and I think a buyer could exact some significant expense savings in aggressively consolidating these business units and product lines. Once that is done the group could be resold or sold in parts to other educational publishers.
(Toronto Star, Bloomberg)

Further interest in education from an Irish based educational technology company (The Learning Company and Edusoft-not this one -my error) which is interested in purchasing Houghton Mifflin from the financial buyers who have owned the company for only a few years. Houghton Mifflin is a venerable old line educational publisher which has gone through some hairy times as a public company, Vivendi (and collapse thereof), and then a buyout. Riverdeep will likely bring some long term stability.
(Boston Globe, FinFacts Ireland) Also here is a jealousy inducing analysis of the ownership structure of the merged entity.

Springer Science and Business Media has launched a $5bill bid for Informa which is itself a recent result of a large merger of Taylor and Francis and Informa. Apparently, Informa wanted to buy Springer Science rather than the other way around. Oopps.

Media Ownership laws have recently been changed in Australia and pundits were anticipating a surge in new deals. Irishman Tony O'Reilly who owns a media empire (and was head of Heinz) has offered to buy APN the forth largest newspaper publisher in OZ. The same article also lists some of the other recent media deals in Australia including Murdoch's purchase of 7% of Fairfax the publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald.

And for other pending deals?

Publisher's Lunch reported on the pop that B&N stock received this week when Barron's reported that private equity would find the company an attractive investment. The Riggios (majority owners) announced earlier this year that they were buying back stock and the share price is sharply up this year even without the Barron's article. In my view, it is difficult to see the value to the majority owners of a private equity play.

Reuters has been struggling - I wonder if Thomson would see this as an interesting addition to their portfolio. The company has been in the process of remodeling itself over the past several years and are still working through this. They are not out of the woods yet.

Bloomberg. The NYC mayor has said this week that he is not going to sell the company but it is not clear if he will return to manage it. He has consistently indicated that he wants to concentrate on his charitable and foundation work once his term in office is completed. Again, a potential match for Thomson once they have the war chest.

Reed Elsevier - could they go the way of VNU and be purchased by a PE firm? Undoubtedly, all the bigger players have been looking for new targets and Reed has strong branding and positioning in trade magazines, legal and education.

Returned to Reality

Mrs PND and I spent the last week or so in Costa Rica and had a wonderful time. Between the two of us we read eleven novels and I consider that a success. As it turned out I ended up reading only one of the books I intended to read (leaving The God Delusion, The Road and The Emperors Children behind). One of the books I read was kingdom of Shadows by Alan Furst. He is an exceptional writer of suspense and espionage novels set in the 1930s. I have now read three of this novels and have enjoyed them immensely. His evocation of settings and characters is so realistic that having read this novel which ends on the eve of the German invasion of Poland, I caught myself two days later wondering what was happening to the characters as though the story hadn't ended. Furst lives on Long Island but you wouldn't know it since he writes like he lived through this time in Europe.

The book I did plan to take with me was Philip Roth's The Plot Against America which I couldn't put down. The whole idea of interlacing some of his family history in this 'What if' story was remarkable. My experience of Roth only extends to Portnoy's Complaint which I read in High School for a English paper. I kinda wasn't that crazy about the book which colored my view of his more recent releases. The 'what if' concept is what it is, but I had a constant troubling sense all through this book that I could see how this could happen. In someways it suggests that society is always finely balanced but one slight push one way or the other has the capacity to send things into an accelerating tail spin to the detriment of particular segments of society.

Having returned I have vowed to spend more time reading and all the talk about an excess of big titles coming out in the fall had me wondering how many books I currently have that I haven't read. I wish I hadn't done this: I rearranged my book shelves so that I now have one shelf dedicated to unread titles. I have 34. I could probably clear that if I were on vacation for 12 months and short of winning the lottery that is not going to happen. It made me a little depressed. There are some excellent titles in this group and they range from biographies of John Adams, Christopher Wren, John Lennon to the above mentioned titles and Dennis Lehane, Don Winslow, John LeCarre and George Pellecanos. It is the non-fiction that I have a hard time with since they are hard to finish unless you can read a reasonable amount at each sitting. Fifteen minutes before lights out doesn't cut it.

Now it is back to an intense period of work for me. I start planning for the next vacation post haste.

Off on Vacation

And looking forward to catching up on some reading.

Here is something from the Colbert Report last week that I found amusing: I love you Fonda!

Monday Update with Links

Small Retailers: On the back of last weeks announcement that Coliseum Books was to close the AP published two reports on independent retailing. There are success stories in independent book retailing but the market is very difficult and the retailer has to be very creative in not relying on the books to produce an income. One of the retailers mentioned in the following articles refers to being 'fractional' in how he approaches his market. Basically, a little bit here a little bit there and it all adds up. Genre Booksellers and Independent Booksellers as reported by the Associated Press.

Personal Libraries: I wrote last week about libraries, but here is a far more lucid reflection by author Alberto Manguel, excerpted from The Library at Night by Knopf.

I spent some misguided time over the past few weeks looking for new links and came across a few new sites. Here is a sample:

Fifth Estate is the child of the authors and editors at Press Books. I came across the site this week and am impressed with their blogs/articles and will visit frequently. There is a link to the right of my blog. Here is a recent post about bookfinder.com.

Book Info.net has all kinds of interesting articles from someone named Tomasina. It was this recent article on the amount of new titles to be released over the next several weeks that drew me in originally. I am not sure I agree with some who think we will be overburdened by choice. For the most part, the books are purchased and are read in the less fertile periods of the year. Buzz, Balls and Hype had a similar post penned by Jason Pinter discussing the same thing. Also, if you scroll down the home page you will see they are running a 'contest' to see what the best tie-in or cross promotion idea is. This came from an earlier post about Mitch Albom's book on sale at Starbucks.

Another publisher web site I have started looking at is Elephant Walk by Overlook Press. (Overlook is the home of Peter Mayer who was at Penguin UK for many years). They are publishing a book purported to be a history of the Funerary Violin. No one is quite sure if this book is a fake or not. Overlook are Mum: here.

More next week.

See you in Church on Sunday

An article in The Register (heretofore unheard of) reports that, blogging is now 'un-christian' at least according to the Reformed Church of God. (Presumably, as simply the 'Church of God' they were mad bloggers). These evengelicals just take the fun out of everything.

Thanks to MobuzzTV. for the link.

Frankfurt and Travel

As I departed for the airport this past Sunday afternoon it was for the first time all year that I have shortened my weekend for business travel. Over the past several years I may have done this as many as 20 times a year. Virtually all of these departures were a prelude to an over night transactlantic trip with the promise of a full days work on Monday. I missed Frankfurt for the first time in eight years last week and this was often a two week trip. In 2003, I did a round the world three week trip with the last three days on the stand in Hall 8.0. Such is my ambition. I won't do that again.

The interesting thing at Frankfurt are the people you meet. It is a great place to meet international customers but you are also likely to bump into the senior level publishing people. It seems to happen more regularly at Frankfurt for some reason. I remember my first show when I met an Egyptian licensor of our content on our stand and he presented me with a highly decorated cigar (ash) tray. I felt horrible. I don't smoke and I didn't have anything for him. In October 2001, traffic was sparse and as I walked around the English hall 8.0 I envisioned a large bullseye on the roof. That year in remembrance the entire fair came to a halt on one of the days for a few minutes of total quiet.

Frankfurt is hectic, hot and smoky but it can be rewarding to showcase your products to a very large audience. I have always looked forward to it and when I am invariably traveling to the airport on Saturday morning I think if only I had more time to look around more.

What I started to say regarding traveling is that I am doing less of it but more of it at the same time. This year no more international travel but lots of tribulations traveling domestically. At the moment I am suffering a three hour delay on the way home. I will make tier level the hard way via segments and not miles. Mrs PND looked coolly at me as I left on Sunday but it really hasn't been so bad this year. We persevere.

Postscript: Seven hour commute home (norm is 4hrs). I did catch Letterman and saw Bob Woodward and listened to what is now becoming his stump speech. News yesterday that they are reprinting State of Denial and there will be 1mm in print. Also, while I was stuck in an airport at least I wasn't at the Quills awards.

Synchronisity Again, The Road, Harlequin, St.Martin's, Publishing News. AbeBooks,

Synchronisity plays a part in my reading again. I recently purchased a copy of Letters from London by Julian Barnes (signed) at The Strand in NYC. Among numerous topics it covers the leadership challenge to Margaret Thatcher. Earlier in 2006, I also plowed through Heseltine's biography and it was interesting to recall his version of events during this time. Anyway, given the current state of the Labor party's convulsions over their leadership issues I thought the following quote from Barnes' book was interesting.

Mrs Thatcher had been removed because enough members of her thought that her domineering dogmatism had become electorially counterproductive. On the other hand, Mr. Major has been the candidate of the outgoing leader and the diehard Thatcherites. So he had to keep the 'Business as Usual' sign in the window while redecorating the place and updating the stock: instead of barbed wire and rifles, the family store would in future sell chocolate bars and liniment.

What of Gordon Brown? Personally, I think they should both go and Labor should take the next year to re-establish a relationship with the electorate with new leadership. It is hard to see Brown elected in his own right.

I purchased Cormac MacCarthy's book The Road last week and there was another positive review in the NYT Book review. While it is bleak, I am looking forward to reading it. Bob Woodward was with Tim Russert yesterday. The administration knives have been out, but the damage has been done. Apparently they produced a list of 'inaccuracies' all of which have been proven out. Meaning Woodward was correct. Russert asked him about Kissenger and he stated Kissenger confirmed that the President speaks with him regularly. The massive ego even suggested it was more frequently than Woodward had in the book; information which was provided by Chaney. Apparently, Chaney called Woodward personally, argued with him and told him 'Bullshit' that his comments were not on the record and hung up on him! How adult. I haven't decided to buy his book yet. It reminds me of the All the President's Men which is one of the best books I recall reading as a teenager. Just the combination of incompetence and arrogance is breathtaking.

News last week from Harlequin and as I have said before it must represent some level of incompetence to allow this company to falter so much. It strains credibility that a company with such a loyal base of customers and potentially large electronic distribution opportunities is laying off staff. Someone needs to buy this company.

Time magazine - which in truth I rarely read - has an article this week about publishers of 'streetlit titles' and their promotional activities designed to reach 'non-traditional' markets. The article makes note of St.Martins Press which is publishing K'wan who has over 400,000 units sold of titles such as Gangsta, Road Dawgz and his latest, Hood Rat. I remember reading about K'wan last year and he is quite the entrepreneur having built his publishing empire by literally hand selling his titles on the street, in barber shops and on street vendor tabletops. Other authors are mentioned in the article. It reminds me of Basquat - spray painting subway cars on his way to making millions as an avant guard artist.

Interesting news in the area of publishing trade magazines. Publishing News (UK) and AuthorLink (US) have created an alliance to "broaden the two entities news and features coverage across the globe." I can't say I am familiar with AuthorLink but I will have to check it out. In the US, Publisher's Weekly has been wandering the proverbial desert attempting with limited success to re-define itself as a trade title with appeal to consumers. Hopeless. Facing declining ad revenue and subscribers - not a healthy combination - they are reinserting some of the trade oriented sections (but not calling them sections) and have also hired a new Publisher. They have also decided to offer the title to retailers for free. That is a big risk - it will be very hard to reconsider that decision. Other subscribers, particularly libraries are likely to be unhappy with their exclusion from this offer.

ABEbooks - which has a stake in LibraryThing.com - announced that the number of titles available for sale on their site has now exceeded 100million. I don't believe this means unique titles but impressive nevertheless.

I am surprised that more hasn't been said about the Automated Content Access Protocol which I discussed last week. Here is a blog entry from searchenginewatch.com that explains all there is to know about it thusfar.

Embargoed Books

Those of us who care about bibliographic data - and I do - have been a little amused to read the summary reviews that the NYT has done in the past two weeks about State of Denial (Bob Woodward) and Carly Fiorina's biopic released on Monday. That is...next Monday. The Times has been able to purchase both of these titles in advance of their official release date. Why is this a bibliographic data issue: well, because publishers and retailers have spent considerable time defining pub date, lay down date, street date, and other dates so that no one in the supply chain is disadvantaged. In the past several years the ONIX data format has consumed significant time and effort by publishers, retailers, bibliographic agencies ses (Nielsen, Bowker) and wholesalers and this has been all to the good. Data is now more uniform and consistent and the entire effort has concentrated publishers attention on the value of good data. Nevertheless issues clearly remain in how this data is used and how processes can break down.

There is no good reason why a store should be selling these books before the publisher has told them they can. Marketing and promotional spending, author appearances, buy-in commitments and other activities are all predicated on the official on-sale date. Stores that hold these titles off the floor are disadvantaged if they are available at other stores. The industry has toyed with the idea of an specific release day of the week to focus attention on all books released during a week (Music companies do this on Tuesdays). This tactic would be pointless if retailers ignored the timetable.

The physical nature of book distribution requires that books be shipped well in advance of release date which is where the process tends to break down. Spare a thought for the bookstore which recieves shipments everyday and they can't afford the time and effort to segregate the titles which they have to hold. Most stores will have little storage space in the first place and a limited amount of time to check in boxes of books. The tendency then will be to open everything and get it out on the floor as soon as possible. That doesn't make this right but it is a reality. Limited staff time and knowledge at the recieving point results in the carefully laid plans of the sales and marketing department to fail.

If publishers care about this issue - and they must do otherwise why have embargoes in the first place - they should address this issue with an understanding of the bookseller's situation. And publishers should treat all books equally if they want to be serious about on-sale dates. It would be pointess and confusing to selectively monitor this process only for the 'important' titles.

The God Delusion

The new book by Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion has caught my eye and it is getting significant play from a number of reputable sources. This weekend The Guardian (Joan Blackwell) reviewed the book. It was also reviewed in last weeks Economist here.

It was The Economist where I first came across the book; the sub-head as follows: "Richard Dawkins has long trumpeted the rationale of science. Now, at 65, he has finally marshalled a lifetime's arguments against believing in God." The reviewer goes on to characterize the book as irreverent - which I think is somewhat the point. Real believers are not going to read this book; however, look for a raft of bible bashers on thier soap boxes denouncing the book nevertheless. If this happens of course it will indeed lead to more attention paid to the book and a higher Amazon sales rank. My best part of the review is the reference in the book to his contention that fervent religious indoctrination given to children amounts to child abuse.

In the Guardian, Blackwell touches on some of his social commentary regarding the encrochment of religion into social policy (in the UK and US) such that "many of us who might want to stay outside theological debate can't afford to when it is influencing social policy." In the US of course this is seen increasingly in many areas and are too numerous to mention. In our publishing world this is seen in text books that must present 'intelligent design' as though it is a scientific option while at the same time describing evolution as a mere 'therory.' Blackwell writes that Dawson reserves his best arguments for why religion has persisted.

He cites his own concept, the meme, the social equivalent of the gene, as the way ideas are spread and handed down. As a Darwinian he is keen to understand what is so beneficial about religion that makes it eligible for survival. He has an interesting theory - exemplified by the moth being attracted to the flame and thus to its death - that an arcane survival mechanism is operating in grossly distorted circumstances

Regretably, our world is increasingly becoming defined by religion and over the next 100 years our biggest conflicts will be oriented around religion. The question is whether secularism will rise as a force strong enough to counter this train wreak - I have my doubts.

Here is the book on Amazon.com. The initial reviews are all positive but in the forum section at the bottom things are starting to hot up. At the moment it is number five on the Amazon.com sellers list.

Blogger Issues

Blogger has consumed 30mins of my time this morning to fix the RSS feed. Lesson: don't compose in Word and paste into Blogger. Feedburner refuses to work since some hidden code is transferred in the process. The RSS feed still isn't working correctly but it is at least working. Inexplicably, it has re-dated a post I did last week on Supply Chain and is ignoring a post I made in the middle of last week. All are displaying correctly on the blogger site however.

Frustration reigns. Apologies.

All for the Apocalypse

In a strange synchronicity, I just finished a novel by first time novelist Alex Berenson named The Faithful Spy about a deep undercover CIA operative who ultimately saves Times Square (that's about 1.5miles from me) from vaporization. It was an enjoyable book. In last weeks' New York magazine (here), Kurt Andersen describes how all 'the apocalyse thing' has become de rigeur. Apparently, 2012 is the year. Savy New Yorkers are buying Nova Scotia real estate mainly for investment purposes but also on the off chance they can escape to it should the worst happen.

I have always wondered about disaster plans; I mean if something terrible happens to New York it isn't going to be convenient. I am not going to be able to get to my stash of currency, or water or wind-up electric radio. I am going to be stuck on the number 7 between Grand Central and Times Square. So what if I have prepared if I can't travel anywhere. And of course, I won't be with any of my immediate family either so how are we to know what to do?

Andersen narrows in on Cormac McCarthy's The Road which in his description of the book it reminded me of Stephen Kings' The Stand. (I read this when I was sixteen and thought my mom would like it - ooops.) On this theme he says "...Millions of people -Christian millenarians, jhadists, psychedelized Burning Men - are straight-out wishful about The End." McCarthy's novel is about "..a transcendentally bleak, apparently post-nuclear-war-ravaged American of the future." Excellent. I am thinking why read the "historic" The Emperors Children about post 9/11 over vacation when I can read about the future.

And if you thought this was good - read my next post.

Publishing Week in Review

It was banned books week this week (Sponsored by ALA). Here is a list of the most challenged books from 2005. No word yet on 2006 but I expect to see perennial favorite Catcher in the Rye on the list again. Pretty much any children's or young adult book that deals with sex education, dangly bits, and snogging is guaranteed at least an honorable mention. Throw in Why do I have two daddies? and you will have cracked it.

Litlove had a recent post about two new mystery writers she has started reading. Both Reginald Hill and Susan Hill produce great stories but as she points out in the case of Reg that the characters have been hijacked by TV script writers. I am not sure I like this trend which also happened with Morse and is now happening with Inspector Linley. The 'ghost' written stories don't seem to have the same substance of those that come from the authors books.

Many years ago I attended a conference given by Stanford University and Guy Kawasaki was the dinner speaker - it was a small affair. He was at Apple in the early days and is now a VC among a number of other things. His blog is very interesting and he had this recent post on 'distribution' which does sound boring but he has an interesting view point. Additionally, he also published a post at the end of last year which if you are a frequent user (and abuser) of Powerpoint you will want to read. Lastly, from a traffic and design stand point you can see how he has taken a particular approach to the way he creates the content for his blog that results in maximum attention. If you are interested in this - and who wouldn't be - here is an article.

Here is a little more on the Google decision made by the Belgium court that I commented on earlier this week. Google clearly did not like the requirement to post the judgment and replied very strongly to the court on this issue. There is another hearing in November where they are likely to rely on industry practice that enables any web site to effectively close itself off to spidering. In this case had this technology been invoked by the plaintiff would have avoided the law suit. But then, where's the fun in that?

Eoin Purcell had a post on comics and beat me to a reference from the New York Times article on same. There have been a few other articles that I have noted over the past several weeks in addition to this one. Firstly, the 9/11 Report is being published in a comic book version. Interesting...I am not sure the point, but perhaps comprehension and reading ability has something to do with it or maybe it is a "...let's see if we could do this.." kind of thing. As the article points out it is a little hard to generate the gravitas of two aircraft slamming into the WTC with a simple ...KABOOM!! Here also is an article from the Houston Chronicle about Comic book Bibles. (I just report the stuff I don't believe it). Comics are of course huge business and a number of large US publishing houses have undertaken publishing programs or distribution deals for comics or Manga.

Finally, I haven't had a link to The Daily Show for a while but Hugo Chavez was such great comedy that it has to be referenced. Oh and Norm Chomsky - assuming he earned out his advance - running all the way to the bank.

Publishers Fight Back

Some of you will be aware that Google lost a copyright case in Belgium last week that ruled that Google infringed on German and French newspapers copyright by reproducing article snippets in search results. Publishers everywhere will probably feel somewhat emboldened by this ruling. Google on the other hand were very sulky in their response; they initially refused to place the ruling on their web site as required by the court. I haven't heard that they plan to appeal but I would think this is not the last we will hear of this.

This story was interesting to me but not particularly earth shattering until I read this report in Silicon.com which discussed a publishing industry initiative named the Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP). Once implemented a search engine will be able to recognize the content owners' access and permissions use rights. Rather than shut down their sites publishers will be able to manage the indexing that search engines conduct and tell search engines under what terms the content may be used. The World Association of Newspapers produced a briefing paper on this initiative.

Gavin O'Reilly the current President of the WAN had the following comment: "Importantly, ACAP is an enabling solution that will ensure that published content will be accessible to all and will encourage publication of increasing amounts of high-value content online," he said. "This industry-wide initiative positively answers the growing frustration of publishers, who continue to invest heavily in generating content for online dissemination and use."

Clearly, the briefing paper makes clear that the content owners are not looking to restrict the use of their content but I wonder how this fits with the recent announcement by some major US newspaper publishers. Perhaps there is no impact and this merely 'automates' what these newspapers have set out in their legal agreements with Google.

The WAN are not the only participants in this initiative and the International Publishers Association are also sponsors. This is the international association that most national publishing associations are members (AAP, PA, APA). Jens Bammel, the director of IPA is quoted in the Silicon article in support of the initiative. Here is another article that appeared in CNET.

This initiative does represent an interesting aspect since not only are companies within these associations cooperating and funding this program but associations across industries are cooperating. Interesting what is possible when the stakes are so high: publishers and content owners recognising that their content is being used without permission to create value for an entity that had no hand in its creation. But before you rush to judge that statement, we will also continue to see proven the reality that content owners need the search engines to enable content users to find and use the content.

The Publishing Supply Chain

A number of years ago I was asked to speak at a conference on the future of the book. I did not take this title literally and decided to examine the inherent inefficiency of the publishing supply chain. Importantly, I believed the future of the book had as much to do with profitability and efficiency as it did with creativity.

Since that meeting, I have presented the themes of this post on a number of occasions. As I noted earlier this month an old colleague of mine, Michael Healy has been named BISG Executive Director and he joins BISG with a mandate to address the inefficiencies that are endemic to our industry. Many other industries have successfully addressed supply chain issues and have significantly improved all major functional areas in their organizations; some have created competitive advantage from their attention to these supply chain issues. The publishing industry on the other hand is still characterized by vertically constituted monolithic organizations which rarely share information and rarely collaborate with their supply chain partners to common advantage.

In my presentations, I proposed a structure named The Intelligent Publishing Supply Network (IPSN) which would be dependent on the sharing of information regarding activities in their market. It is information that increases speed and improves productivity, enables better and faster decision making and supports an environment suitable for innovation and development. Time and effort is not distracted with non-productive activity.

The most obvious information limitation publishers and retailers have is accurate sell-through and channel data. Without real time or near time access to information about what is happening – and notice I use the present tense - in the supply chain most publishing industry participants are forced to make ill-informed decisions. Large levels of inventory, sales promotions that sell-out before their sale period ends and uneven product distribution are but a few of the examples of our inefficient supply chain.

Both BISG and BIC (UK) must address the supply chain issues our industry faces and become advocates for improvements similar to those supported by GS1. GS1 is the leading global organization dedicated to the design and implementation of global standards and solutions to improve the efficiency and visibility of supply and demand chains. This organization grew out of the grocery and food business but now spans many industry groups. It may be a viable strategy to integrate some of the publishing supply chain programs of BISG with those of GS1. Not surprisingly they are far more advanced in their programs and there is no sense reinventing the wheel.

Over the next several weeks, I will expand further and update some of the ideas I have presented over the past few years. What is readily apparent however, is that there is a willingness from retailers, wholesalers and publishers to cooperate more to improve efficiencies in the publishing market. BISG will become more relevant in this context.

How to Read A Book

Bill Grimes in the New York Times this morning looks at a number of books that have recently come out that examine the meaning of books, their changing impact on readers over time and books different people feel impacted their lives. It is an interesting article. It is a sad reflection on life that speed to finish is a component I take into account when picking up a new book. As is noted in the article, prison and vacation make good readers and while I am thankfully unfamiliar with the former I am regrettably infrequently familiar with the latter. Vacation does represent the opportunity to make a big dent in the backlog and also to pick books that require a degree of concentration that 10 minutes before I nod off each night really can't support. But I still need to choose carefully, a few years ago I started Gotham which is a history of New York to 1900, and got through the first 600 pages but once I returned to real life it took me six months to finish the book.

We are about to go on vacation and I am currently honing my list. The Emperors Children or Jonathan Strange and Mr. Morrell (see backlog!) will probably be on the list but I also thought I would re-read The Good Soldier (Ford Maddox Ford) a book I haven't read for a long time. Happy readings.

Simon & Schuster

There hasn't been too much M&A activity in publishing this year (TWBG/Hachette) and when we think about what might happen we routinely think of S&S which is stuck like some coelacanth in the belly of big media giant Viacom/CBS. Well, the boss Les Moonves says there are still synergies to be had but not many - actually he said "few". As reported by MediaPost from a Goldman Sachs investor conference yesterday S&S is not currently on the block. In fact CBS has "no plans to do anything with it" a comment which hopefully sounds more negative than he really meant...

No doubt, CBS will be getting a few calls from the usual suspects and I would suspect 'fire sale or no" that a deal will be made either with PE or with a house other than Harpercollins or Random House.

New York Times Bookstore

It won't happen often but I picked up on this story a few months ago regarding a partnership agreement between Paradies retail group and the NYT. I am happy to report that PaidContent.org has just reported that the companies have agreed that the Delta Terminal at La Guadia will be their second store. Here is my post from July.

The post was about renting a book which you can do at a fairly large number of airport stores managed by Paradies. When I first noticed this offering at the Columbus, OHIO airport (where I have spent way too much time) the promotional material was all over the place. When I was there last week (suffering another two hour delay) there was far less promotion of this offer. Either the store management isn't getting the floor staff to do their jobs correctly or the promotion isn't that important.

Incidentally, I am always shocked and amazed that anyone would get on a plane with absolutely nothing to read and I see this happening all the time. When these people sit next to me they get a very quiet seat mate. These people will thumb through the in-flight magazine which will take all of 10 mins, maybe sneak a look at my computer screen or try to engage in conversation. These people won't be renting books because they don't read. People who read probably don't need the motivation of knowing that they can return a book (i.e.; rent it) in order for them to buy at the airport store. So, my theory is that renting a book is a mere promotional concept and generally speaking wouldn't materially impact store sales.

The Who

The Who play Madison Garden tonight and tomorrow and I was really torn whether to go or not. Sitting miles away from the stage is not my idea of fun so it was floor seats or nothing for me (and the wife). Seats in the second section from the stage just a little beyond half court were going for $300 a piece last week. It is a lot of dosh but I was tempted since we saw them the last time - when I thought the whole thing was going to be cancelled since John E snuffed it in Vegas. Tempted because the concert was possibly the best I have ever been to especially since Pete and Roger are my parents age. Still, I suspect they will be back. Regrettably, I have no stories of seeing them (or really anyone of note) in a small bar before they were famous and the only other time I saw them was at the Kingdome in Seattle (which as the name suggests was fucking huge - since demolished). Strangely, MSG can actually be a decent place to see a concert. We saw McCartney there last year and while we weren't on the floor it wasn't too bad at all.

As they embarked on their US tour, Pete reflected on the upcoming tour and some aspects remind me of how I feel about an upcoming long business trip. He says "I’m not going to pretend I’m looking forward to being away from home, but neither am I going to pretend I’m not looking forward to the tour." I have been lucky enough to manage businesses around the world and this entailed a lot of travel over the years; it gets old after a while leaving but there can be benefits to meeting and experiencing how other markets work and understanding your overseas managers is critical to managing them from a long distance. I don't go to Frankfurt this year and I will miss the experience. My reflections don't have much to do with what Pete experiences but if there wasn't reward in it - beyond the money - he wouldn't be doing it. Here is the link to his 'diary' which he suggests will be the last entry for a while.

Frey: Covered in Candy Sprinkles

Many thanks to Steven Colbert for this evisceration of James Frey and others unnamed. Possibly not fair on Barry Manilow...but he gets in several great shots on many others.

Atlas of Fiction

MobuzzTV did a round up of Google Map mash-ups and noted the presence of Atlas of Fiction, which at the moment goes under the banner of interesting distraction. That said, with the inclusion of more content - real locations represented in fictional stories - the site could become a reference point for a better understanding the novel, to sight seeing trips or general back-ground for someone visiting a new city. (Witness all those fee paid Sherlock Holmes walking tours of London).

What I would think would be interesting is some combination with LibraryThing.com and sites like this where users have identified the settings of the titles they have read. This information would provide a boost to Atlas in establishing a large body of data on locations. The granularity of the location information in Atlas is to the street level so you can pin point exact locations for specific action in each story and annotate the location with a summary of what happened at each location.

Some novels could lend themselves to an entirely new way of reading or engaging in the book. For example, and obvious title would be Ulysses where as a reader you could follow the story on a map of Dublin going from geographic point to point with the narrative changing as you move a cursor from place to place. Intertwine images (still or low-res video) and perhaps sounds as background and you would have a new way of interacting with the novel. This could be particularly interesting if archival pictures and sounds are used.

It would be great to see publishers start to use some of these types of tools as part of their readers guide 'products' often understanding the neighborhoods and locations in which titles are set is highly important to understanding the dimensions of the title and characters. (At least that's what I was told in English lit).

Note: For some reason, Atlas of Fiction seems to work better using Firefox.

Librarything: More new stuff

Librarything just turned one year old and already has over 5million books cataloged on its site. Librarything, for the uninitiated, is a true book lovers social networking site which has garnered tremendous grass roots support from readers, librarians, bookstores and other ‘book people.’ Tim Spalding, who founded the site, has probably been courted by everyone from Google to Amazon and recently allowed ABE books to invest in the company and provide him with some much needed capital for investment. As a result of that investment, Librarything is now more stable than it was in the early summer when the interest in loading books to the site was causing slow response time and server crashes.

In recent weeks I have only seen minor problems and as noted in the librarything blog they continue to work on these issues and get them fixed. The increased investment has enabled some improvements to functionality as well as partnering. Interestingly, it is a trait of social networking – as with any social interaction – there needs to be constant stimulation. I noticed that after loading my titles initially and being generally interested in the site, I didn’t return for a few months. Social sites need to constantly add new reasons to interact with the other members on the site and I am happy to say that Tim and his small team of 3 have stepped this up.

In terms of functionality it is now far easier to tag your own titles and you can manipulate the display of your titles by selecting various fields of information you would like to see in column format. Additionally, you can format five different views of your content. This is a great feature and enables much faster tagging. Once your tags – and these tags are entirely of your invention but you can take a lead from others who have tagged the same titles – you can then see cloud maps of the tags. Clicking on the column heads enables resorting so you can easily bring to the top titles that have no tags which makes editing much easier. There are a few other new things and they continue to add more all the time.

Recently, librarything has enabled integration with bookswap sites. This is relatively new and I haven’t played with this yet; however, it is a simple matter of turning this on in your profile. This feature enables more opportunity to interact with others and share book titles just like a library. Interestingly, in an entry on their blog they discuss how to get scarcer titles added to the ‘share’ listing and there is consideration regarding using pricing (from Amazon) as a measure and applying some type of points system to the books. Obviously, the bookswap idea is less appealing if the only books available for swapping are books everyone has.

Librarything has generated some excitement and they are clearly interested in listening to their users and adding new and interesting items. Recently, they added author pictures and I expect that other information and data will continue to be added.

Never Saw it Coming

Who would have thunk it, the Senate Intelligence Committee has confirmed that the justification for war with Iraq was based on a number of erroneous conclusions (ed. lies, surely?) Well... whatever..., the Senate Intelligence Committee is moving on to confirming the existence of Santa Claus, Snow White and Gandalf. Stay tuned.