MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 2):

In the Wall Street Journal this weekend an article on Dash Hammett's, The Thin Man. Tom Nolan explores the deeper purpose of the book that many at the time of its publication thought of as a cast off. Many of us will know The Thin Man from the William Powell Myrna Loy movies. (Myrna is one of Mr. PND's favorites).

The author himself made no great claims for his creation. "Nobody ever invented a more insufferably smug pair of characters," he said of the book's married protagonists, Nick and Nora Charles; and in 1957, four years before his death, he would claim that "'The Thin Man' always bored me."

Yet Hammett -- often as hedonistic in life as the heavy drinkers in his stories -- was sober and industrious while writing the novel during his tenancy in an unimpressive New York hotel managed by his friend and fellow author Nathanael West; and, one way or another, the book and its characters would earn Dashiell Hammett (according to biographer Richard Layman) close to a million dollars.

The subsequent success of half a dozen MGM screwball-comedy movies inspired by "The Thin Man" and starring William Powell and Myrna Loy perpetuated the impression among serious readers and critics that Hammett's last effort was in all ways a lesser work and maybe even a worthless one. But a careful reading of this novel (and what better birthday present could a book receive?) reveals a still-sparkling comedy of manners within which lurks a vision of human affairs as grim as any social realist's.

Ann Patchett in the same newspaper (WSJ) pays respect to her library but more importantly sees some impressive changes in the reading habits of the youth (or as Vinnie would say Yoots);

According to a recent report from the National Endowment for the Arts, our Nashville library is bearing out a national trend. For the first time in more than 25 years, the number of people reading fiction is on the rise.

Am I surprised? No, but then I see the world of reading from a very particular angle. I spend a lot of time speaking in schools and town halls and public libraries where people who read and read and read pack the auditoriums because they want to talk about literature. Inevitably someone in the audience raises their hand to ask me how worried I am about the crisis in publishing, the rise of electronic books, and the death of the reading. "What death of reading?" I say. "Look at all of you." I have long refused to participate in the last rites of what is both my passion and my profession. I meet too many people who stay up half the night racing towards a final chapter. We are a hardy bunch, we readers. The rumor is we'll play around with a Kindle or an I-Book for awhile but eventually give up on the whole endeavor, the logic being who would want to read a book when there are so many enticing video games to play and Web sites to surf. But I'm more of the Charlton Heston school: you'll get my paperback of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" away from me when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

One of the largest Public Television companies WGBH Boston has sold its Music catalog to a Canadian company. (I am not sure if we should be pissed about this or not - not because it is a Canadian company but isn't this a public asset since public dollars fund public television?)

Canadian music publishing firm ole has purchased a worldwide majority ownership interest in the music rights of the catalog of WGBH Boston, the producer of television and on-line programming for PBS. The amount paid for the deal was not disclosed. The terms of the deal include co-ownership of the music in 1,200 individual episodes and programs, as well as a substantial stake in the music rights for all WGBH programming in the near future. WGBH programs include "Antiques Roadshow," "American Experience," "Nova," "Frontline," "Masterpiece," "Arthur" and "Curious George."

Reed Elsevier sold $1.5billion in debt to fund the Choice Point acquisition. Telegraph OCLC bows to significant (or at least vocal opposition) to the revision of its data usage terms and will convene a review board to examine the terms all over again. This time will a little more openness.

The purpose of this Review Board is to engage the membership and solicit feedback and questions before the new policy is implemented. In order to allow sufficient time for feedback and discussion, implementation of the Policy will be delayed until the third quarter of the 2009 calendar year.

In November 2008, OCLC announced that it was implementing the new Policy to update the existing Guidelines for Use and Transfer of OCLC-Derived Records. The goals of the new Policy are to modernize record use and transfer practices for application on the Web, foster new uses of WorldCat data that benefit members and clarify data sharing rights and restrictions. The Policy is intended to foster innovative use of shared records, while protecting the investment OCLC members have made in WorldCat, and ensuring that use of WorldCat records provides benefit to the membership.

"We have listened to questions and concerns about the revised Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records and have concluded that the issues surrounding the Policy needed further review and discussion,” said Larry Alford, Chair, OCLC Board of Trustees, and Dean of University Libraries, Temple University.

Lesson to publishers: When you run out of space don't simply drop content - especially when the content may be of interest to a key demographic: (MediaPost).

TV Guide is dropping the listings for youth-oriented channels the CW and MTV, reports Variety. CEO Scott Crystal said it was a space consideration. The magazine can only run 70 channels in its prime-time grid. The trade mag speculated that younger viewers who watch CW and MTV may get their information from set-top box listings.

Eminence Gris Jason Epstein has An Autopsy of the Book Business in The Daily Beast and he concludes:

The effect of this post-Gutenberg Revolution will be to radically decentralize the marketplace for books and greatly reduce the cost of entry for would-be publishers. Because these changes imply a superfluity of books—some readable and valuable and many others not—the need for filtering and branding is a vital task for future librarians and bibliographers. Meanwhile, through today’s gloom we may discern a spectacularly bright future in which the rewards to writers and readers and even to publishers will be unprecedented as world-wide multilingual backlists expand online in a cultural revolution orders of magnitude greater than Gutenberg’s world-changing technology generated five centuries ago.

Seven Cents Between Life and Death for Magazines

Things are pretty dire in the magazine world with plummeting ad revenues and ever repeating news of shut downs and layoffs. And if the specture of rising paper costs wasn't enough to worry the manufacturing and distribution staff the NY Post reports this morning that one of the business' largest wholesalers is set to impose a 7cent per copy surcharge on magazines it delivers to retailers.

CEO Charles Anderson insisted the new charge would help the company make up lost ground on a business that he said is losing money. The hike would add 3.5 percent to distribution costs, which translates into $200 million more for Anderson News.

"The last thing we want to do is exit this business, but why should we continue in a business where we are not making any money?" Anderson asked publishers on a conference call yesterday to discuss the new fee.

Publishers, which have until Feb. 1 to agree to pay the new fee, are balking at Anderson News' move, which would drive up costs at a time when most magazines are hurting.

If that isn't enough, the company also wants publishers to pick up the cost of unsold inventory sitting in the Anderson warehouse. In recent years, large retailers like Walmart have attempted to force the industry to adopt scan based tracking which effectively enables a retailer to accept inventory but not pay for it unless/until it passes through a register. It is not widely adopted for a variety of reasons including a disagreement over standards as well as publisher's concern over cash flow. Returns, lost copies and general inefficiency have long been issues in the magazine business with some reputable magazines skating through with 20% sell through. Tough love programs like the one Anderson is trying to impose will push many magazines over the edge.

It is debatable whether Anderson will get away with this; however, severe 'right sizing' is going to occur in the magazine business regardless. Watch this space.

Note: Ingram is also a magazine wholesaler but their reaction (if any) isn't noted. Anderson News racks books as well.

Plane Down

In the excitement, I didn't realize the camera was on the wrong setting hence the blue tint. I saved them on flickr in b/w and they look a little better.

http://flickr.com/photos/21500020@N08/

Hachette Rights Squable

Teleread.org is reporting that Hachette Book Group is pulling “all of its [e-book] titles from U.S. distributors” in a dispute over the issue of sales controls based on geographical territory.

"What’s happened is that U.S. distributors (Overdrive, Ingram Digital and Mobipocket) have not yet implemented systems to limit sales to assigned territories in a manner with which Hachette Livre (the French parent company of Hachette USA, formerly Time Warner books) is comfortable, likely creating contract issues with their European resellers and some of their authors.

“Without notice, Hachette instructed U.S. distributors (include French-based Mobipocket) to pull all ebooks from U.S. distribution over the weekend. Hachette and the distributors are working hard to resolve this. Meanwhile, our support email is getting a huge number of extra inquiries because of the Mobipocket error message and the Hachette action.

Teleread (David Rothman) also addresses the larger issues of DRM restrictions that could presage consumer frustration. "Will e-book DRM end up with a bewildering maze of territorial restrictions, just like DVDs?" One hopes not but is this representative of needlessly enforcing p-world realities on the e-book world?

Hopefully more news will be forthcoming on this issue.

From the Typewriter to the Bookstore: A Publishing Story

From the funny folks at Macmillan (who knew) and via Teleread.org a take on the book production process. I liked the bit about sending the trees from Italy to Switzerland by boat.

Romancing Rugby

I think I'm going to be ill. (Time)

Holly, a virgin and a waitress, was recently dumped by her fiancé, and the subsequent turmoil has fueled an addiction to chocolate wafers — and resulted in an expanding waistline. As her self-esteem tanks, she learns that she must serve dinner to Prince Casper of Santallia in a hospitality suite at Twickenham, the home of England's national rugby team. Within minutes the playboy prince starts making passes (and not of the sporting kind), Holly slides across a table, and, for the first time in her life, she feels like a "rider clinging to the back of a thoroughbred stallion." It's pure bliss until cameramen beam the encounter on the stadium's Jumbotrons.

Typically, England go on to loose.

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 1):

And so we start a new year... In The Atlantic Michael Hirschorn wonders what might happen to The New York Times if it runs out of cash.

Regardless of what happens over the next few months, The Times is destined for significant and traumatic change. At some point soon—sooner than most of us think—the print edition, and with it The Times as we know it, will no longer exist. And it will likely have plenty of company. In December, the Fitch Ratings service, which monitors the health of media companies, predicted a widespread newspaper die-off: “Fitch believes more newspapers and news­paper groups will default, be shut down and be liquidated in 2009 and several cities could go without a daily print newspaper by 2010.”

The collapse of daily print journalism will mean many things. For those of us old enough to still care about going out on a Sunday morning for our doorstop edition of The Times, it will mean the end of a certain kind of civilized ritual that has defined most of our adult lives. It will also mean the end of a certain kind of quasi-bohemian urban existence for the thousands of smart middle-class writers, journalists, and public intellectuals who have, until now, lived semi-charmed kinds of lives of the mind. And it will seriously damage the press’s ability to serve as a bulwark of democracy. Internet purists may maintain that the Web will throw up a new pro-am class of citizen journalists to fill the void, but for now, at least, there’s no online substitute for institutions that can marshal years of well-developed sourcing and reporting experience—not to mention the resources to, say, send journalists leapfrogging between Mumbai and Islamabad to decode the complexities of the India-Pakistan conflict.

The Economist takes a look at TinTin and author Hergé (Georges Remi). Apparently, a blockbuster movie is coming our way.

Tintin’s slightly priggish character fitted the times. His simple ethical code—seek the truth, protect the weak and stand up to bullies—appealed to a continent waking up from the shame of war. His wholesome qualities help explain the great secret of his commercial success—that he was, and remains, one of the rare comic books that adults are happy to buy for children.

But probity cannot explain why Tintin became a cultural landmark in Europe, as important on his side of the Atlantic as Superman on the other. There were plenty of wholesome comics in post-war Europe, most of them justly forgotten. Something else in Tintin spoke to children and adults in continental Europe. Even in the straitened years of post-war reconstruction, he was soon selling millions of books a year.

An interview with Frank Daniels of Ingram Digital in The Tennessean:

Powering much of the retail distribution for the e-book market is La Vergne-based Ingram Digital Group, a division born out of Ingram Industries' Lightning Source Division and acquisitions made in 2006 of Raleigh, N.C.-based VitalSource Technologies, a player in the digital textbook field, and U.K.-based MyiLibrary, which supplies electronic content to academic libraries.

Frank Daniels III, who headed VitalSource before its sale to Ingram, now serves as chief operating officer of Ingram Digital. He sat down this week with Assistant Business Editor Ryan Underwood to discuss the current state of the e-book market, where it goes from here, and Ingram Digital's role in all of it.

Maybe it's just that Amazon's Kindle e-book reader was one of the most popular items for Christmas, but whatever it is, e-books seem to be having a moment right now. Are you seeing that?

Absolutely. In a time when publishers' sales are flat, or declining, e-books are the bright spot. You're seeing significant increases in revenue, as much as 400 percent growth for some publishers. That gets the industry's attention. And they recognize that a confluence of events — screen and distribution technologies, and the standards that the industry has adopted — makes e-books more likely to be real versus hype.

Lastly, Bono reflects on Frank Sinatra. NYTimes.

If you want to hear the least sentimental voice in the history of pop music finally crack, though — shhhh — find the version of Frank’s ode to insomnia, “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road),” hidden on “Duets.” Listen through to the end and you will hear the great man break as he truly sobs on the line, “It’s a long, long, long road.” I kid you not.

Like Bob Dylan’s, Nina Simone’s, Pavarotti’s, Sinatra’s voice is improved by age, by years spent fermenting in cracked and whiskeyed oak barrels. As a communicator, hitting the notes is only part of the story, of course.

Lastly, lastly, The Giants may have choked but my team had a crushing victory earlier on Sunday. BBC.

* * * *

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Winnie the Pooh to the Rescue

It is not too early to think about next Christmas's big hot book and with the news that Winnie The Pooh will return to print there is some hope that the little bear will save book retailing.

The Times is reporting that a book is in the making:

The challenge for David Benedictus and Mark Burgess, the author and illustrator of the new book, is to revive one of the best-loved children’s series of all time in a way that proves sympathetic to the originals without veering into pastiche.

Since 1961 Disney has owned the film, television and merchandising rights to the character of Pooh and created its own spin-off adventures. E. H. Shepard, the Punch staff cartoonist who illustrated the original books, condemned the first Disney film as “a complete travesty”.

Many fans regard the American corporation’s subsequent efforts, which have included the introduction of a gopher character and Christopher Robin’s recent replacement by a girl named Darby, as even less acceptable.

The content of the new book is a closely guarded secret but Mr Benedictus said that it would pick up where The House at Pooh Corner left off, with Christopher Robin returning from school to play with his friends. He refused to say whether the beloved “bear of very little brain” would be joined by new characters.

Michael Brown, for the trustees who manage the affairs of A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard, said that he had been hoping to give the green light to a sequel for a very long time.

According to Reuters, Winnie is a bear stuffed with diamonds, wears a diamond encrusted waistcoat and has a dowry larger than the Shah of Iran and generates over $6 Bill in revenues per year. The revenue generated was subject of a lawsuit between Disney and family of the literary agent who helped popularize the bear in the US. Disney eventually won.

Disney don't get anything from the new book but the two groups would be nuts not to work together but who sees that happening?

Nash on Publishing

The Globe and Mail asked Richard Nash of Soft Skull Books about the state of publishing., Here is a sample:

JD Yes, and here's the question. Let's assume print-on-demand and digital publishing take off (and it will sooner than later for the small press and special markets). How do we help writers, and readers, realize this could be the best thing that ever happened?

RN The onus is on the independent publishers to embrace rather than be suspicious of it. I do often feel that I'm viewed as a bit of a curiosity in the field of literary publishing for being so gung-ho about the digital download book. Which is especially ironic because the suspicions derive, I think, from their personal affection for physical books, which would have been part of what brought them into this field. Yet the average trade paperback is getting crappier and crappier, and the only way I can see to allow the book-as-object to truly flourish is by allowing the digital download to be what generates sales volume, what creates new readers by having impulse-buy scale pricing. Then, by having tens of thousands come to something for $1.99, you can develop that small percentage of that who really become serious fans, and want a deep connection, part of which will be reflected in an intimate, perhaps personalized object. Come to the cheap download, fall in love with the author, fleece the fan for a $100 limited edition once they're hooked. [Emoticon suggesting this was said with a wink.]

Exact Editions And The Directory of Publishing

I have mentioned Exact Editions and their tool set for magazine publisher's in the past, but I was on their site recently and noticed they have loaded up Continuums' Directory of Publishing 2009. Published by the publisher and The Publishers Association this directory is the definitive catalog of UK and Irish publishers. What makes this application of the content interesting is that using the EE toolset users can not only view pages as they are rendered in print but can also dial phone numbers, visit websites and even see the listees physical location on a Google map.

Here is the link.

2008 Media Deals

Deal makers Jordan Edmiston released their annual report this week and of no surprise to anyone, the number and value of media deals completed during 2008 came no where near matching the heady heights of 2007. Only database information services showed strength indicating deal makers support for subscription based (annuity) revenue streams. From the report:

• With the largest transaction for the year at less than $200 million (the purchase of Randall‐Reilly by Investcorp) the business‐to‐business magazine sector saw modest deal activity in 2008. Number of deals fell 46% to 22 total transactions for the full year, with only two deals in Q4, while total value declined 92% in 2008 versus 2007.
• Activity in the consumer magazine sector was slow as well, with 42 mostly smaller transactions, representing 25% fewer than in 2007. There were no substantial transactions for the year compared to last year’s sales of Emap, Gemstar and Primedia’s Enthusiast unit.
• The database information services sector saw a 77% increase in number of deals in 2008 over 2007 with 46 total deals announced. Deal value nearly tripled for this sector in 2008 to $8.8 billion, from $3.2 billion in 2007, excluding the $18.3 billion acquisition of Reuters by Thomson in 2007. The most notable deal in the fourth quarter was Getty Images’ acquisition of Jupiter Images for $96million.
• There was little activity in 2008 in the educational and professional publishing sector, which showed decreases of 26% in deal count and generally smaller transactions for the year versus 2007. The most notable transaction in this sector was the sale of CQ Press to SAGE in May.
• The exhibitions and conferences sector was the third most active M&A sector behind marketing services and online media, with 50 transactions in 2008. However, the sector showed declines of 28% and 31% in deal count and transaction value, respectively, compared to 2007. The two most significant deals of the year were VSS’s acquisition of Clarion events in February and Marketplace Event’s acquisition of dmg world media’s North American Consumer Home Shows in July.
• Marketing and interactive services was once again an M&A leader, generating about the same number of transactions in 2008 as in 2007 and totaling a healthy $12.3 billion for the year, although this was off 50% from 2007 levels. Among the sectors JEGI covers, we are especially bullish on marketing services and anticipate that the advertising slowdown will dramatically alter marketer spending patterns and surface many viable and compelling M&A opportunities, as well as unexpected buyers. This was evident in the fourth quarter with WPP’s announced buyout of TNS for $3.1 billion, Akamai’s $95 million acquisition of acerno, and Crain Communications’ acquisition of Staffing Industry Analysts.
• The newsletter sector saw deal activity rise 33% and deal value increase slightly by 6% in 2008 versus 2007, albeit off a small number of deals. One of the most notable transactions for the year was Haymarket Media’s acquisition of Compliance Week in July.
  
• With 258 transactions worth $9.1 billion, the online media and technology sector continued to remain very active in 2008, even though the sector saw a 18% decline in number of deals and a 26% decrease in deal value in 2008 versus 2007’s hectic deal pace. Major strategic buyers such as eBay,
  Gannett and Monster were active during the fourth quarter, acquiring companies to complement their current offerings. Additionally, Waterfront Media, an online health and self‐help publisher, merged with consumer health online information company Revolution Health Network to create
  the largest online heath group by audience.
  

Down Under Blogger

I just came across a relatively new blogging effort by Peter Donoughue the ex-CEO of Wiley Australia. Peter and I met on a number of occasions and I know from those meetings his commentary is going to be blunt, on target and often funny. Not to put too much pressure on him but here are two selections from recent posts.

The following is his view of Angus and Robertson's implementation of the espresso book machine in their stores.

POD machines in every bookstore - Jason Epstein's vision as articulated in his memoirs of a decade ago - was always a dud of an idea. Investments in printing machines are for printers and possibly publishers, not for barely profitable, main street, high rent paying bookstores. The concept of print on demand is fine, and an everyday reality in the industry now, but it's a specialised business.

Ebook readers are the future - the Kindle, the Iliad, the Sony, and others to come. They'll be a dime a dozen in five or so years, like iPods and mobile phones are now. If you want your book printed buy the paper version or print it yourself.

ARW would be better advised to spend their limited capital on refurbishing their tired-looking stores and - here's a novel idea - buying much more stock of already printed books! That would really be good for business. Doing the basics well will never go out of fashion.

Peter is actually a supporter of POD but obviously not in a bookstore.

Secondly, Australia engages in a never ending discussion about parallel importation and here he is on that subject.

Here is the essential truth that the book trade proponents for continued protection need to get their heads around:

The 30/90 day provisions do not establish and have never established Australia as a rights territory. Australia is a natural rights territory because of its population size, distance, literacy and affluence. The provisions provide additional protection for a rights holder, but they do not establish the possibility of buying rights in the first place. Therefore their abolition will not destroy Australia as a rights territory. Their abolition will simply remove that additional level of protection which only serves to protect over-pricing and under-servicing. Publishers who price and service competitively have absolutely nothing to fear.

God, how often must this be said! To me it's so self-evident.

There is really no need for this paranoia in the trade, this awful, miserable 'we'll all be ruined' defensiveness. No wonder economists throw their hands up!

He has also just finished the same book I did, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and we both recommend it highly.

Predictions 2009: Death and Resurrection:

Like the guy who is asked how he went bankrupt, ‘slowly and then quickly’, the escalating economic downturn in 2008 has really been brewing since the end of 2007, but we only fell off the cliff in fall 2008. I still believe (as I noted in January 2008) that 2007 will be viewed historically as a watershed year for media: the economic decline will further accelerate the macro trends the industry witnessed as 2007 evolved. These trends include:

• the rapid commitment to electronic delivery of content in both education and trade
• separation of ad-based and subscription-based models in both information and professional publishing
• forced concentration in the traditional publishing supply chain countered by (nascent) new channels including direct-to-consumer
• further blurring of the edges across media segments: More publishers will offer all content – not just their own - wider services and applications, and broader linking and partnerships designed to draw customers
  

The economic difficulties today are stark compared to the boisterous 2007 where the price for publishing assets kept going up and many big deals were made. During 2008, many high-profile divestitures were either abandoned (Reed Business) or ignominiously completed (TVGuide magazine sold for $1). 2009 is likely to see both the unraveling of some of the deals done in 2007 and some opportunistic buying but, more generally, the deferment of many companies' corporate development strategies.

Naturally, 2009 will see new companies emerge and there are numerous precedents for companies launched in economically challenging markets ultimately becoming very successful. Perhaps challenging the status quo is easier when the status quo is concentrating on just staying "status".

Predictions 2009

• An easy one: It gets much worse before it gets better. When times were good an oversupply of market options – particularly in retail – hid a myriad of structural problems. Right-sizing in media retailing and distribution will result in one major physical book retailer, one wholesaler and one online retailer. Media will be a sideshow compared with some other segments, particularly clothing and department stores.
  

• Another easy one: Several major city newspapers will change hands for less than the debt they carry. Local and hyper-local models will expand and further encroach on the market for traditional big city news. Coupled with linking, content licensing and arrangements with classified providers like Craigslist and Ebay, there will be a rapid expansion of the (hyper) local online news provider market.

• Out-of-work journalists will see increasing opportunities to become ‘content producers’ as more and more companies seek to enrich their sites with professional content that appeals to their target market. The typical website ‘experience’ becomes more expansive and deeper than a company catalog or press release site. Journalism as a function becomes more widely dispersed across many business segments.

• The NYTimes will either close the Boston Globe and ‘rebrand’ a NYTimes version for the Boston Market or sell it for a $1 saddled with as much debt as they can get away with. Sunday's paper will now come on Saturday: The UK market successfully went down this road and the US will (belatedly) follow.
  

• In media M&A, look for companies that have lots of cash to act opportunistically: NewsCorp, Holtzbrink, Bauer, Bonnier, Bertlesmann, Axel Springer, Lagardère, BBC (Commercial).
  

• Gathering of ‘equals’: Media owners unable to sell assets may seek to partner with another media company in the same boat and combine assets to form a new company. One combination that could be interesting is Nielsen Business Media with Reed Business Information (– pure speculation on my part). Others in this space looking for options might include Primedia, McGrawHill, Penton.

• The Obama administration will make wholesale revisions to education policy which will pain education publishers who have made particular investments in assessment companies. Long term, the assessment market will be robust; however, with explicit indications that student performance is no better for the ‘no child left behind’ programs, fundamental changes will be instituted including a more federalist direction. Ready your lobbying dollars.

• Evidence that the edges of media segments continue to overlap: Google will bid for the 2014 and 2016 Olympic broadcast rights.

• Social networking and ‘community’ building will become the CEO’s pet project as a ‘cheap’ alternative to decreased ad and marketing budgets with, predictably negative results. Senior-level misunderstandings of what constitutes effective social programs will result in efforts being treated casually. Piecemeal approaches will predominate and there will be a continued lack of cohesion of marketing with social networking. Programs backfire as customers witness the cynicism. Effective social networking is not just for Christmas.

• Professional and information publishing will effectively leverage Linkedin-like networks (possibly using their platform) to extend social networking to their closed networks. Lexis/Martindale is creating a private legal social network platform.

• Too much Linkedin with my Facebook. More people will do what I did in 2008 and build barriers around their online social networks and selectively cull ‘friends’ or ‘connections’ Sheer numbers have no logic, friendship is earned and legitimate business connections are money. Quality, not quantity, will reign. Don’t take it personally.

George Jones Out at Borders

Borders books announced a number of senior changes including the replacement of their CEO George Jones and CFO Ed Wilhelm. The replacement for Jones is Ron Marshall who has bookselling experience having been with Crown books. Marshall has a strong financial background having served as CFO of $4billion Pathmark during the restructuring of that company in the late 1990s.

Border's replaced Wilhelm and VP Merchandising Rob Guen with internal candidates (Mark Bierley and Anne Kubek respectively) and appointed Dan Smith as Chief Admin Officer.

The company also reported predictably soft sales for the holiday period and with the intense promotions they were running look for gross margin impairment when they report their full quarterly numbers. From the press release:

Sales Results-Holiday 2008
Borders Group also released its sales results for the nine-week holiday period ended Jan. 3, 2009. Total consolidated sales were $868.8 million, an 11.7% decline compared to the same period last year. Within the Borders superstore segment, total sales for the holiday period were $652.6 million, which is a 13.6% decrease compared to 2007. Comparable store sales at Borders superstores declined by 14.4% compared to the same period a year ago. On a same-store sales basis, the book category at Borders declined by 11.0% for the period. Borders.com sales for the nine-week holiday period were $20.3 million. Overall, holiday sales started slow and improved during the latter part of the season. Within the Waldenbooks Specialty Retail segment, total sales for the holiday period were $161.7 million, a 16.4% decrease compared to the same period one year ago. Comparable store sales for Waldenbooks declined by 8.0% compared to holiday 2007. Total International segment sales were $34.3 million for the period, a 1.4 % decrease compared to the same period a year ago. Comparable store sales at Paperchase stores in the U.K. decreased by 6.5% for the holiday period year over year.

Media Report Week 52

The Economist had a several interesting articles over the break.

Firstly, they note the 1,000 anniversary of The Tale of Genji which they note is the world's first modern novel. (Link)

Sheer scale is not all that is forbidding about the book. Japanese prose was still in its infancy in Murasaki’s day, so her syntax can be opaque. Sentences lack subjects, direct speech is often unattributed and, most alarmingly, the characters change names according to their rank or circumstances. Genji, for instance, is variously referred to as the captain, the consultant, the commander, the grand counsellor, the palace minister, the chancellor and the honorary retired emperor.

The subject matter is also challenging. There is polygamy, bisexuality (when one young woman rebuffs his advances, Genji consoles himself with her younger brother who turns out to be “no bad substitute for his ungracious sister”) and something very close to incest. Genji is attracted to Fujitsubo, one of his father’s consorts, because of her resemblance to his dead mother. Even though she is, in effect, his stepmother, he fathers a child with her.

The article goes on to examine how several translators (into English) have handled the story.

In their annual double issue there is a very interesting article on the development of Cookbooks from the first recognized cookbook "De ne coquinara". (Link)

The first Western cookbook appeared a little more than 1,600 years ago. “De re coquinara” (concerning cookery) is attributed to a Roman gourmet named Apicius who, legend has it, poisoned himself upon learning that he could no longer afford to eat fancy food. It is probably a mishmash of Roman and Greek recipes, some or all of them drawn from manuscripts that have since been lost. The editor was careless, allowing several duplicated recipes to sneak in. Yet Apicius’s book set the tone of cookery advice in Europe for more than a thousand years.

It has a decadent, aristocratic flavour. There are recipes for ostrich and flamingo, befitting the sweep of the Roman Empire. Apicius instructs cooks to add honey to almost everything, including lobster. He teaches them how to cook one dish so that it resembles another and how to disguise bad food.

The author goes on to look at how different countries approach their cookbooks and draws particular contrasts between the UK and the US.

Over at HuffPo, Andrew Foster Altschul asks publishers to forgo memoirs from Al Gonzales. (Link)

We all know the drill: disgraced Bush insider-cum-war-criminal licks his wounds for a year or two, then publishes a "tell-all" that either tells us what we already knew (cf. Scott McClellan's What Happened, which shocked the world by revealing that the White House had lied about its justifications for invading Iraq) or blames everyone else for what happened (cf. George Tenet's At the Center of the Storm, which excuses its author for his "slam dunk" comment by writing off its context as a mere "marketing meeting"). Prurient readers, believing mistakenly that they've breached the wall of executive secrecy, buy truckloads of the slimy documents, and the morally deficient scoundrel makes a ton of money and hits the lecture-and-talk-show circuit to make a ton more.

Ron Burkle's Yucaipa has bought a chunk of B&N for investment purposes. (Reuters)

Yucaipa Cos, a private equity firm controlled by billionaire Ron Burkle, said on Friday it it had acquired an 8.3 percent stake in bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc, saying it believed the shares were undervalued. The company's shares rose 4 percent after-hours to $15.99, after the announcement. Yucaipa funds said it had bought about 4.58 million shares since Nov. 24 for about $67.3 million, net of commissions, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Some real analysis of the concept of The Long Tail as applied to the music industry indicates that the theory may not be as airtight as Chris Anderson would have us believe. (TimesOnline)

But a study of digital music sales has posed the first big challenge to this “long tail” theory: more than 10 million of the 13 million tracks available on the internet failed to find a single buyer last year.

The idea that niche markets were the key to the future for internet sellers was described as one of the most important economic models of the 21st century when it was spelt out by Chris Anderson in his book The Long Tail in 2006. He used data from an American online music retailer to predict that the internet economy would shift from a relatively small number of “hits” - mainstream products - at the head of the demand curve toward a “huge number of niches in the tail”.

However, a new study by Will Page, chief economist of the MCPS-PRS Alliance, the not-for-profit royalty collection society, suggests that the niche market is not an untapped goldmine and that online sales success still relies on big hits.

An Op-Ed in the NYTimes looking for some help from Treasury (Link)

The Best Posts of the Year...but then I'm Biased.

As I close out the year and wish everyone best wishes for the new year, I have compiled a summary of what I think were my more interesting posts. Frequent visitors will have read these. As always, thanks for your support and tell your friends to come visit and subscribe.

In Death of The Big Box (December) I thought about how long-term macro changes that emanate out of the current economic crisis will impact the retail channel. I speculate how these changes will impact the sale and merchandising of books. This week I read an article about the near bankruptcy of the second largest mall operator in the US and an article about how shoppers are flocking to on-line discount coupon sites. The web is easier and there is no going back.

On the theme of print to web transformations and migrations, I had several posts most recently the questionably titled Pimp My Print (December and my favorite for title of the year) and Generational Chasm (June). If I were to write a book the idea of the generational chasm really interests me. It's not a unique idea I have to say.

As always Amazon was in the news - Amazon The Monopoly (March)- and I noted concern expressed in the market place about their increasing dominance. Amazon was brutal in their exertion of market power in their argument with Hachette UK. Mike Shatzkin picked up the theme in this guest submission Amazon and Book Pricing (April) (He also tackled the question Border's Stickers Books - Why?) Earlier in the year, I had speculated on the budding competition between Amazon and Apple: Amazon Versus Apple: Is this a Cage Fight (January). Apple may have the last laugh with the numbers of iStanza e-Book downloads to the iPhone. We await the next version of the Kindle in 2009.

In keeping with the e-Book theme, I posted thoughts on a possible development of an e-Book mass market channel. Rackjobbing the E-Book (July)

The post that generated the most comment during the year was on Brand Presence (July) where I noted the continued attempt by publishers to organize around branding concepts that remain largely irrelevant to consumers. In a similar vein I thought about the implications of big-name author's defecting from one publisher to another in Defections (February) and a possible Google play.

I had a lot of fun putting together a presentation to the Supply Chain Interests group (October) at Frankfurt this year. I'm not so sure the audience felt the same way.

My post on Massive Data sets (June) suggested that publishers may think differently about all the data collected during the preparation of published research articles, dissertations and other types of data intensive publishing.

Lastly, the post office launched a Frank Sinatra stamp which gave me an opportunity to tell my Frank Sinatra story (May). I am waiting for the Clint Eastwood stamp so I can tell that one. I missed the John Wayne stamp but maybe I'll tell that story one day anyway.

I think that's enough. I wonder what 2009 will bring? All my predictions of 2008 (January) where basically wrong but maybe I can do better this time around?

Update:
I have created a pdf of all the posts that is available here.

MediaWeek (Vol 1, No 50):

Man the barricades. An appeal to the French court has resulted in defeat for the family of Victor Hugo who wished to prevent an Alexandra Ripley-like sequel to Les Miserables. (BBC)

But the court ruled on Friday that Hugo's novel was in the public domain, meaning Ceresa was therefore free to invent a sequel. "Francois Ceresa, who does not pretend to have Victor Hugo's talent, is free to pursue his own personal expression, which does not necessarily act on all the levels that Victor Hugo was able to access," the judges ruled. "We can't criticise the author of this sequel... not to have respected the learned construction of the primary work, which functions on many levels through philosophical and historical asides," they added.

The aborted sale of Reed Business Information has garnered recent headlines, but earlier in the year an Informa auction failed to generate sufficient excitement either. The Informa board is directing their management to cut their debt which should mean asset sales in the New Year. (Independent).

A source close to Informa said: "Institutions and the market have – incorrectly, in the company's view – marked Informa down as overgeared at three times Ebitda [a calculation of profit], and so the board has accepted that it will have to get below £1bn of debt. Divestments are one of the ways of solving that problem."

At its half-year results in July, net debt was £1.22bn, and, the source added, "a natural conclusion" was that the performance improvement division, which provides training, mainly in the US, could be sold. The division has an estimated enterprise value of up to $300m (£200m).

In the US Bonnier is pegged as a possible winner next year as they look to add in a significant way to their roster of magazine titles. Ad Age reports on a minor addition.

The deal isn't a blockbuster, but any investment by a media company has to be encouraging as layoffs and budget cuts dominate the scene. It's actually the second recent deal for Bonnier, which bought Working Mother in September. Terms weren't disclosed, but Bonnier CEO Terry Snow said the horrible economy and chilly credit markets helped him negotiate a favorable price.

Follett perhaps a stealth player in the delivery of electronic books and products. As a significant book retailer in the College market, strategically becoming an e-Book distributor of content is vital to them in retaining their position in this market. (Press Release).

Follett Digital Resources' distribution agreements with eBook publishers have surpassed the 200 mark. According to Beau Clark, Vice President of Product Management, each enables schools and libraries to meet the needs of more students who can easily access eBooks at any hour using a computer and Internet connection.

"Students can get homework help at any time, can locate a book they'll need to review during school tomorrow, read for pleasure on their own time and connect with eBooks during summertime or a holiday break period," Clark said. "It's a plus for schools, libraries and students to have access to new eBook titles from these four publishers coming on-stream and available through Follett's K-12 and public library channels."

Cengage Gale acquired HighBeam Research (Press Release).

Founded in 2001 by Patrick Spain, the co-founder of Hoover's, HighBeam is a widely-used online subscription-based research and reference service accessed via the web sites www.highbeam.com and www.encyclopedia.com. "Gale's financial strength, vast content repositories and market presence will allow HighBeam to expand more rapidly and broadly," said Mr. Spain.

John Barnes, Executive Vice President of Gale, said, "A central element of Gale's market strategy is to connect more closely with end-users of information, whether they are in a library, classroom or on the Web. HighBeam provides us with proven expertise in reaching users on the Web and we look forward to the opportunities that the combined business will have to develop innovative new products."

Several articles on the digitization of Magazines. Here on the Google effort: (InfoToday)

With the current magazine initiative, users will be able to see articles in full color, browse/page through an issue, or even "Browse all issues" of a magazine. Go to the Advanced Search page (http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search), enter your search terms, click the "Magazines" option for limiting "Content," and your search results will all come with the word "Magazine" preceding the bibliographic citation. If you know the ISSN, you can limit results to that magazine alone.

Periodicals are not completely new to Google Book Search. As the Google digitizing teams rolled through university library shelves, they picked up a lot of bound periodicals interfiled with books in the stacks. There was no distinction made for these "bookish" journals. While full-text searching is available, you do not get the article citation retrieval. If you encounter a journal old enough (pre-1923) to receive full-image display and want a specific article bibliographic citation, you have to search and browse to assemble it.

More interesting for the comments this article on NY Observer that discusses the retraction by many large magazine publishers from the web. It appears to be bizarre and short-sighted. (Observer)

By all accounts, Mr. Serwer’s comments at that meeting were thoroughly genuine when made. But with cuts going down all over the industry, it appears a portion of the magazine world, which was never a quick adapter to the Web anyway, is responding by shoving their Web people right off the boat first. “You’re never going to get the traffic that really matters,” said one publisher at Condé Nast. “So it’s a traffic thing, but also, how do you monetize the traffic that you have? It’s impossible.”

The operating policy now, particularly at Condé Nast, basically reads: Revenue first! Future later. And the printed page, the luxury object, is still where you find the money these days.

Doing Over Mills & Boon

Mills and Boon, the UK romance publisher owned by Harlequin have contracted with an ad agency to revamp their book covers as part of a scheme to appeal to a younger audience. Stephen Brook in his blog post (Organgrinder) imagines what one ad exec in particular will be subjected to over the next several months as he comes to grips with the assignment.

As Caspar approached the office of the executive chairman to have a preliminary chat about the client he sensed something of a trap about his assignment. The whole agency had been delighted to win the account, but in the days following key executives had melted away, leaving him in charge.

"Nonsense, dear boy, this is a great British institution," the boss reassured him. "Mills & Boon are 100 years old, sell 7m books a year and are desperate. If you successfully bring them into the 21st century it will make your name. Think M&S and Twiggy. Think the Daily Telegraph and Will Lewis."

"Think big," the chairman urged. "Nothing is off limits. Cybersex. Love.co.uk. Eoghan and Diana. Take That elope with Girls Aloud. Go to town."

Stephen looks so good at this I think he has a cunning plan to ditch the Guardian gig. (I liked the TakeThat Girls Aloud one).

Answering the Question: What the hell is xml?

Mike Shatzkin writing in Publisher's Weekly answers the question in the headline:

First: recognize reality. For many titles, you aren't going to sell as many copies as you used to, and your standard marketing practices of the past few decades won't be nearly as cost-effective.

Second: come up with a strategy to suit the new reality. There are many conceivable ones, and they depend largely on what you publish, but two things are certain: you are going to want more direct contact with end users than you had before and you are going to find users congregating at Web coordinates that appeal to subject interests (or niches).

Third: recognize that your content is now “unbound.” You can still sell it in “book” format, but you will also be selling it in smaller units (chunks) or in larger units (books put together as databases) as well. And you will certainly be using chapters, excerpts, TOCs and other parts of your book in marketing, if you aren't already.

And that's where XML comes in.

XML stands for “extensible markup language” (and no fair asking why it isn't “EML”). XML uses tags to associate any information you want with any part of a document (i.e., a book). That is, your document file in XML resembles a database, with a structure you define to track elements of the document. It contains not only the printable text and information about the art (though not the art itself), but it can also contain any piece of useful information about the document or about any piece of it.

Publisher's Weekly.

Pub Fight with BookNet Canada

One of the more entertaining and interesting presentations at the Supply Chain Interests Meeting in Frankfurt this year was one by Michael Tamblyn of BookNet Canada. He spoke about several things but the one subject that was most interesting to me was a development project that his team devised that can help junior staff members learn how to make accurate sales and demand forecasts. The 'game' PubFight was initally tested with a small group of publishers but was so successful that it has been expanded to include students in publishing programs as well as some booksellers.

While the principles are core to under standing how planning works effectively the tool was constructed so that individuals or teams can 'play' each other and the team that maximizes sales while minimizing costs wins over a period of time. In the first version of this program the BookNet Canada group used real sales data for real titles over several months. In the version for publishing education programs, the tool can be loaded with historic data to compact the - say four months, of selling time into a week of elapsed time.

I hounded Michael until he finally answered my five questions on Pubfight.

1. You spoke at Frankfurt about two different initiatives but it was the PubFight which caught my interest. Can you explain the program?

BookNet Canada is an agency tasked with supply chain and technology innovation, so our primary focus is service delivery -- point-of-sales tracking, process improvement, EDI, standards and the like. During a series of meetings with heads of some of our larger publishing houses two years ago, I started to hear a recurring theme that went something like this: "Our tendency in publishing is to hire passionate, well-read arts graduates who can communicate well about books. But we need people who can combine their love of books with an understanding of the numbers behind those books, people who can forecast sales, assess opportunity or analyze sell-through and stock position in real time. How do we build those skills for the people we already have? How do we make sure that people joining the industry have those skills when they arrive?" That request -- to get people familiar with the numbers behind the industry -- was the genesis of PubFight. We whipped up a quick in-house version, tried it with staff and a few guest-stars from the publishing community last fall, and turned it loose this year.

PubFight is basically fantasy publishing. It's fun, competitive and only accidentally educational. At the beginning of the (real) selling season, leagues form up, usually co-workers or students in a publishing program, sometimes competitors and real-life rivals, about 8-12 per league. It all starts with the auction, "Fakefurt". Each person gets a fake budget to acquire the real titles that are going to hit the shelves that fall. Everyone has to fill a list of fiction, nonfiction and juvenile/YA titles. Once the list is built, each player has to forecast initial print runs and pay for them. Then, as the books hit the street, you accrue the (real) sales on your titles as long as you have enough (fake) stock to cover it. You can reprint if you need to, with real-life lead times and unit costs. The most profitable house at the end of the season wins.

On one hand, completely frivolous. But on the other, it is encouraging people to do some analysis, take risks, and make mistakes without putting their jobs or the firm's money at stake. Along the way, they build an understanding about how books sell that could take years if they were just learning by experience. Both publishers and some publishing educational programs are using PubFight.

2. How do they use it? What about retailers?

Every publisher is different. For some, it's pure team building. For one large house, they excluded their own titles from the auction in order to deepen their understanding of what the competition was doing. For some of our small press players, it's a chance to look at how the more commercial, mass market end of the industry behaves. In all cases, whether they intend it or not, it's helping them become more familiar with forecasting, sell-through analysis, competitive title analysis and the other techniques that publishers need throughout their organizations.

At the colleges and universities, it's often the students' first look at how books actually sell, which can be a real eye-opener. It takes them right from theory to practice: How much is a book worth? How can you tell? To what degree is the past a predictor of the future? And it puts them in some remarkably true-to-life scenarios, like when the book that you bought for nothing becomes a runaway bestseller that you can't keep on the shelves. With schools, we can also run lightning rounds, where we run a complete past season in a couple of weeks, with a new week of data dropping every couple of days. Much easier to fit into an existing curriculum.

We see retailers as the next stop for PubFight. One of the biggest challenges faced by store and chain managers is identifying new talent. Which of the people working on the floor has the aptitude to become a buyer? Who can look beyond their own interests to predict what book-buyers are going to be interested in? It's reasonably easy if you're a small independent, but much harder if you are spread out across multiple stores or in a chain. This might help junior booksellers start to get a sense of how the industry works at a larger scale, and pick up some tips about the demand for different kinds of books along the way. It would also help senior managers get a sense of who has a knack for picking winners.

3. How do you see this program expanding? Is there are more practical implementation of PubFight – can the tool be used in actual forecasting?

It's more about encouraging the practice of forecasting than becoming a tool for forecasting. At the same time, we're interested to see if the positions taken by publishers and retailers at auction and on print-runs can act as a lightweight, EasyBake prediction market for future sales. In a frivolous and non-serious way, of course.

4. Are you considering licensing this tool outside Canada? It would be great if you had a Flash version of your Frankfurt presentation to explain it in full to publishers and retailers. Is this under consideration?

It's a possibility, if we can find a licensing model that makes sense. It does require a direct connection to a continually updated source of point-of-sales information, which limits the pool of licensees somewhat. In the meantime, this might just be one of those things that makes it worth a trip north, right along with colourful money, free healthcare and baroque parliamentary politics. When we get some time, we'll try to get the Frankfurt presentation online and let you know when it's available.

5. Do you have any development plans for PubFight?

This is a sideline thing for us, an experiment that has escaped the lab. To the extent that we put more resources against it, the focus will probably be on things that help it scale on its own -- easier set up, self-administration -- and resources that help the educational/professional development focus: demos, sample analysis and training tools for students and junior staff. But the user community is quite vocal, so they are sure to have a few ideas of their own.

Michael - Many thanks. He can be reached at mtamblyn @ booknetcanada.ca

Author-centric website FiledByAuthor Launches

Mike Shatzkin and Peter Clifton (ex-Ingram) have annouced the private beta launch of a new author-centric web site named FiledByAuthor.com. I am proud to say I had a tiny role in its development. Check it out - especially if you are an author. Here is the press release:

FiledBy, Inc. Launches Online Directory of Published U.S. and Canadian Authors called filedbyauthor

Friday, December 12, 2008

Nashville, Tennessee. FiledBy, Inc. today announced the Private Beta launch of filedbyauthor, the most comprehensive online directory of published authors on the Internet. The company hopes the site will become a top 10 destination for readers and for authors.

FiledBy, Inc., was founded by publishing veteran Peter Clifton, former president of various Ingram Book Group companies, together with publishing visionary Mike Shatzkin, C.E.O. of the Idea Logical Company. The company's first project, filedbyauthor, is a massive author-centric web portal initially consisting of more than 1.2 million U.S. and Canadian author profiles.

"We are launching a Private Beta for published authors only, regardless of publishing category or level of success, to sign up, find their profile page and update or correct the information. With millions of books and more than 1.2 million pre-constructed profile pages, the site will ultimately be an invaluable resource for authors, writers, readers, researchers, and students.

"Filedbyauthor is the most comprehensive online directory of authors and their books," says President & C.E.O. Peter Clifton. The company hopes to quickly expand to all authors with works in the English language -- estimated to be over five million writers.

Filedbyauthor contains basic listings of information about all U.S. & Canadian authors in the directory. Authors may visit the site, claim their profiles, correct them, and enrich them in a variety of ways at no charge.

We hope you will tell your audience about this opportunity for exposure. Filedbyauthor plans to open the site to the public sometime early in 2009.

Contact Information:

STEVE O'KEEFE

for FiledBy, Inc.

http://author.filedby.com

(504) 342-4806

We're Hiring an Editor In Chief

Please contact Kristen (not me) if you are interested in this position. Please forward this to anyone you think could be interested. You can also find this job on linked in.

Editor in Chief – Week’s Best
Contact: krisrecruit @ gmail.com

Product Concept

Founded by Louis Borders (founder of Borders Books & Music and Webvan) and Michael Cairns (former President of R.R. Bowker), “Week’s Best” is a professionally produced, multimedia publication delivering relevant, high quality, topic specific content to subscribers on a customized schedule. Covering as many as 1,000 individual topic titles, each title will be produced by a recognized “Expert Producer”. A typical Expert Producer might be a respected website blogger or magazine publisher that has a deep understanding of the topic. On a daily basis, the Expert Producer will select the best content from a corpus of article and multimedia material published by well known branded sources.

Each Week’s Best title will be recognized for its direct, relevant and accessible content. The free email subscription to a Week’s Best title will provide considerable time savings, and it will also provide access to content from broader content sources that might otherwise be missed.

Week’s Best, which will launch with 10-20 topic titles, plans to grow rapidly over the next three years and targets between 500 – 1,000 titles in English. (Other languages will follow).

The Week’s Best Editor-in-Chief will report to the Week’s Best CEO.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a team of creative, editorial professionals for this new media publishing division.
• Annual planning and budgeting responsibility and experience managing monthly departmental expenses.
• Define and implement an aggressive publication schedule.
• Support CEO in recruitment of “Expert Producers” supporting publication schedule.
• Implement editorial guidelines and standards for internal and external staff, including application guidelines for taxonomy rules and their correct observance within the Week’s Best context.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressively responsible roles in traditional and internet publishing.
• Online publishing and/or digital publishing experience in a management role or senior operating level is required.
• Experienced in delivery and execution of complex content products with a top tier branded content company(ies).
• Highly skilled thought leader who has built an exemplary reputation and garnered the respect of peers.
• Passion for and identification with digital media publishing.
• Decisive, excellent business judgment, energetic, and charismatic.
• Strong strategic planning skills and the ability to develop with the co-founders a bold vision for Week’s Best.
• Understanding of the capabilities and trends in digital media technology.
• Bachelor’s degree required: Journalism, Communications or Writing/English degrees a plus.

Fishing Where There's Fish

The news that Nintendo will add book content to their DS product platform may have publishing executives humming the refrain from the King and I - Getting to Know You - as they jet off to Tokyo. I wonder if this isn't an ominous event for content owners: Content producers may run the risk that their content won't be valued adequately by the target users. While the content will be paid for, it is very cheap. The content on offer isn't new (frontlist) but the aggressive pricing will establish a price expectation in the minds of the consumer. It reminds me of the inclusion of 'free' encyclopedia content on early personal computers which destroyed the market for paid versions. Remember, the content at the heart of Encarta didn't approach that of WorldBook or Brittanica but it didn't matter to the users.

The deal with the company that bought us DonkeyKong and SuperMario will deliver the Harpercollins 100 classic book collection. The package of titles includes titles from Shakespeare to Jane Austin and will be sold for £20. (As an experiment, I can't help wondering how successful/indicative this is going to be since the titles are available universally for free download and the target market will know that).

The Nintendo platform has more in common with the iPhone than it does with the dedicated e-Book readers from Sony or Amazon. No one is likely to buy a Nintendo DS for the book content alone but the addition of book content supports Nintendo's strategy for broadening the possible audience for their products. My complaint is that the typical Nintendo user will attribute value to the console and the purchased games but not to the other stuff - even if there is a patry entry fee.

My argument doesn't preclude delivering content via the Nintendo platform (or similar) and I think in the right circumstances it should be encouraged as another distribution option. In truth, while I second guess the tactical implementation I don't disagree with the strategy. Assuming there is a 'phase 2' of the Harpercollins experiment I hope value is communicated effectively in the offfer.

Firebrand Ink A Deal With NetGalley

Firebrand Technologies and Rosetta Solutions, Inc. today announced the creation of a joint venture, NetGalley LLC. The agreement passes development and operational responsibility of NetGalley, an innovative online connection point for book publishers and professional readers, into the hands of Firebrand, but retains the core NetGalley team responsible for launching the service. NetGalley helps publishers promote new books and authors through the professional channels that recommend and purchase new titles.

“We have felt for a long time that NetGalley and Firebrand are natural partners,” said Fran Toolan, Chief Igniter of Firebrand Technologies. “We are committed to making this service successful, to helping publishers better manage the costs associated with printed galleys, and to making it easier and less expensive for publishers to disseminate information about new titles.” Firebrand Technologies is a leading software and service provider to the publishing industry. Over the course of the next year, Firebrand has plans to completely integrate the NetGalley service into its offerings.

“Firebrand is a natural partner for this venture,” said Michael Forney, President of Rosetta Solutions. “Their publishing expertise and experience will contribute positively to NetGalley’s vision, adoption and long-term success.”

Since its launch at BookExpo 2008, NetGalley has made considerable inroads. Publishers Weekly and ForeWord Magazine announced that they plan to use NetGalley to manage the influx of titles for review, and major publishers are actively experimenting with the service. Professional readers from all segments—reviewers, journalists, media, booksellers, bloggers, librarians and professors—are enthusiastic about the service’s ability to deliver digital, pre-publication content. (There is no charge for professional readers to use the service.)

NetGalley delivers digital galleys and promotional materials to professional readers and helps promote new and upcoming titles. Using NetGalley, publishers can build communities, invite contacts to view galleys and promotional materials, and track who has viewed their titles.

MediaWeek (Vol 1, No 48):

The sale of Reed Business Information is rumored to be close to resolution with Bain Capital as the buyer. Apparently according to sources they are the only remaining potential buyer. Reuters quotes the Independent On Sunday as suggesting the price is $1Billion with Bain evidently taking advantage of their 50% off coupon. There is a long 'expose' of information publisher's Moodys, Standard and Poors and Fitch's in Sunday's NYTimes. This issue was raised earlier this year, and McGrawHill for one saw a big dip in its share price on suggestions that S&P had been lax in their coverage and ratings of debt offerings. The article points to the cozy relationship between the debt sellers and the debt rating companies. A reminder of the general casualness of the various interlocking financial relationships between banks and investment banking. Holly Brubach had an entertaining profile of Ludwig Bemelmans (Madeline) in the NYTimes TMagazine.

Fortunately for readers, he wrote some 40 books, of which 15 are for children and several are novels. The rest fall into a genre now known as autobiographical essays, a classification misleading in these times of me-generation diarists and bloggers documenting the afternoon’s shopping spree. As a first-person narrator, Bemelmans is completely devoid of the ego that prompts so many authors to occupy center stage. In fact, he barely appears onstage at all, a witness whose testimony is so transparent that he might easily vanish from our awareness were his presence not implicit in the things he sees and the way he recounts them. A career bon vivant, Bemelmans lingers at the table and refills the reader’s wineglass. In my experience, he falls in the same category as A. J. Liebling and P. G. Wodehouse: once you’ve read one of his books, you want to read them all.

Many of his stories revolve around hotels and while I have some funny stories about living in a hotel they could never be as interesting as Bemelmans' material. An RFID experiment in Japan with an interesting statistic (Link)

Unsold books returning from bookstores is an unwanted reality of the publishing business, especially since many of the returned volumes are destined to become waste product. Shogakukan estimates that if just 25 percent of the books returned to publishers in Japan are designated waste, the financial loss would be the equivalent of $1.5 billion U.S. dollars.

The is a new report on the state of UK book retailing (Guardian Blog) and its main finding is that UK retailers have been giving customers too good of a deal. Deep discounting is killing the business they seem to say, which to many of us in the business this finding would seem obvious,

The report, commissioned by The Booksellers Association, found that UK booksellers have been making less money, seeing less market growth, and sacrificing more in discounts than booksellers in countries such as the US, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

In bald terms it means that selling a £20 title - in the shape of Guinness World Records - for £10 has been bad business. This may seem obvious: "I wonder if the BA would look at what bears do in woods," was one of the comments that greeted the release of the report.

Having hooked the book buyer on the heroin (50% off and 3/2 deals galore) however with they break the habit?

Visual Journal: Writers Rooms

The BBC profiles Eamonn McCabe who has a project illustrating the working environments of novelists, biographers and poets.

Here.


As an aside, I wish the social tools on BBC where a little more advanced.

The End Predicted

Richard Curtis (E-Reads) has penned an interesting status report on the downward spiral of publishing:

Most of the resentment or suspicion that authors and agents feel toward publishers stems from royalty accounting based on returns. Authors, outraged that creative bookkeeping permits publishers to hold excessive royalties in the name of reserves against returns, consider the system fraudulent. Their viewpoint is easy to understand when you remember that returns are a manipulable form of currency. The temptation to manipulate them intensifies in recessionary or inflationary times when publishers seize upon royalty reserves as the most obvious source of cash to relieve their liquidity problems or earn some extra interest. Publishers cannot with impunity stop paying their printers, their landlords, their paper suppliers, or their employees. But by a stroke of the pen, raising the holdback on royalties from, say, 50 percent to 75 percent, a publisher can liberate enough cash to meet the urgent demands of all those other creditors - at the expense of authors. How, then, could authors, suffering liquidity problems of their own, not feel bitter? Nor is their mood improved to see their remaindered books, on which they receive little or no royalties, selling briskly in used-book stores.

Are there solutions to this dilemma? There are, but they all call for radical changes in the way we think about books, sell them, and account to each other for them. For any plan to succeed, it must: (1) allow publishers to print only as many copies as are necessary to fill orders, (2) put distribution on a nonreturnable basis, (3) enable publishers to make a profit, (4) encourage bookshops and chain stores to make money remaindering books on their own premises, and (5) provide authors with honest, easy-to-understand accounting. That's a tall order. Some gratifying attempts have been essayed, but they all failed because they were not radical enough, nor were they adopted on an industry-wide basis.

There is a great kick at the end.

Bloomsbury Buys Wisden

I think Richard Charkin will be walking around the Bloomsbury offices this morning with a big smile on his face. Wisden is the official almanac for Cricket and Richard being a big cricket fan as well as Chief Executive of Bloomsbury is going to be well chuffed since they now have their hands on it.

From AP:

John Wisden & Co was bought by the billionaire Paul Getty in 1993. Since his death in 2003, the company has been owned by his son, Mark.

Published every year since 1864, the yearbook is known among cricket fans for its mixture of statistics, features and opinion pieces.

Bloomsbury Publishing chief executive Nigel Newton called the acquisition "a landmark event in the history of the company and an important step in our strategy to increase our presence in reference and sport publishing."

Amazon Rents Massive Data Sets

Several months ago, I wrote a piece titled Massive Data Sets about the potential for increased access to very large data sets that historically would have remained ancillary to the reporting of research projects. While very important to the conclusions reported in research typically the data and primary research supporting the conclusions was inaccessible. From my post,

here could develop the next land grab for publishers and perhaps other parties interested in gaining access to the raw data supporting all types of research. As publishers develop platforms supporting their publishing and (n0w) service offers will they see maintaining these data sets as integral to that policy? I believe so, and I suspect in agreements with authors, institutions and associations that own these journals the publishers like Elsevier will also require the 'deposit' of the raw data supporting each article. In return, the offerings on the publisher's 'platform' would enable analysis, synthesis and data storage all of benefit to their authors. But the story may be more comprehensive than simply rounding out their existing titles with more data.

The original was triggered by an article on a Google blog post as well as a NYTimes article.

Yesterday, the NYTimes blog Bits reported that Amazon has begun hosting large data sets as an adjunct to their services offering. From the Times,

Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, has started offering access to large collections of data. Business customers and scientists can take the information, which ranges from census databases to three-dimensional chemical structures and the genome, and use it as the basis for computing jobs. By gathering and storing the information, Amazon says that it can save businesses the step of assembling and managing data on their own.

As the blog post goes on to say, there is the potential that the Amazon service can further eliminate (on top of the vast array of services Amazon already offers) significant expenses. Access to the Amazon service begins to push to zero the infrastructure cost and overhead that must be covered in any research project. This could have a material impact on the types and extent of all research dependent on the collection, storage and analysis of vast data sets. The economics have fundamentally changed for researchers enabling them to contemplate all kinds of new projects that otherwise may have been cost prohibitive. On the other hand, their research limitations could be more mundane in that they may no longer need to compete for data processing time or other technical limitations with competing projects.

Smart people are going to see an opportunity to buy or otherwise gather very large sets of data from groups or organizations who may not see the potential value. For example, buying the transaction data from all the EasyPass-like systems (RFID tags that let you pass through tolls) across the US, 'depositing' it with Amazon and then renting access to any urban planner that wants to analyze the info. The customer pays a fee and out of that fee the 'owner' of the data pays Amazon a service fee. A potentially painless way to an early retirement in Costa Rica. As I noted in my original post, this is a growth opportunity for publishers or others.

There's Money to Be Made: Prop 8 The Musical

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Strategy Anyone?

Yesterday was a bleak day as we know but in the long list of downsizing, reorganizations and salary cap announcements it seemed every statement was lacking a closing sentence along the lines of, "we continue to invest in new business models and content solutions to address the changing needs of our existing readers and the developing needs of our newer and younger readers." Sadly, the retrenchments are a typical reaction - along the lines of cutting marketing expenses, canceling the Christmas party and eliminating free coffee - to the declining economic situation. The sad thing for all of us, it that the good times will not return in the form we all familiar with. In other words, those jobs are not returning because by the time things improve the publishing business will be smaller and the jobs redundant.

I could go on, and I intended to particularly about the continuing love affair with imprints; that is, until I read the following from BookSquare:

No really, who cares if these groups are retaining editorial independence while combining strengths? Is that really going to change the business dynamic, or is it just focusing on the wrong problem?

Imprints are just boxes on an org chart. To most of the buying public, they mean nothing. To some of your acquisitions editors, they mean nothing. To the bottom line, they mean nothing. You can have a hit book from any possible label, to borrow from another business’s lingo. It ain’t the logo on the spine, it’s that magic combination of book and audience and right time/right place.

I am not disparaging the talents of Gina Centrello, Sonny Mehta, or Jenny Frost (I’ve particularly been a Centrello fan for a long time), but the emphasis on maintaining their individual silos does n’t begin to address the real problems facing publishing today: financial structure, changing readership, and, sorry, old-fashioned notions of of monetary priorities (differentiating between financial structure, where I mean big-ass corporate commitments beyond the nuts-and-bolts of publishing books).

Kassia goes on to make the same point I note in my first paragraph as well as some additional well taken points.

Misery Loves Company or Does It?

On the back of recognizing the success of a daughter over a mother in a law suit, The Guardian reviews the misery genre in UK publishing. Notably, having seen some success the publishers are now mining it for all it's worth with the predictable result; consumer exhaustion. That coupled with the general economic misery everyone is facing and readers may be less inclined to read about someones hardship. Next up happy books?

Here is a sample of the Guardian article:

The truth is that misery - or, as the trade prefers to put it, "inspirational" - memoirs have been on the decline since the beginning of the year, with sales of the top 30 titles this year down nearly 35% on 2007, according to Nielsen BookScan. Last year's bestseller, Don't Tell Mummy, sold over 300,000 copies over the course of the year, while its equivalent this year, Not Without My Sister, is just topping 152,000, according to the Bookseller.
"I think the public quite likes them but even the most miserable person in the world has got too much now," said publisher John Blake, who took the decision to pull out of the market six months ago after judging it to be saturated. "We used to do one a month, but every major publisher is doing two a month [and] we just can't compete. Really anything with a white cover and sad face is anathema to us."
"There was a lot of over-publishing and publishing of stories that weren't as good or well-written, and there have been a lot of problems legally with some of them," agreed Carole Tonkinson, a publisher at misery memoir powerhouse HarperCollins. "We are cutting back a bit."

Holiday in Old Town

Last week Mrs. PND and I visited her family in Old Town, Alexandria. Thanksgiving day was glorious and the tourists were gone from the streets. I spent a very pleasant morning wandering and marveling at the architecture.