Roy Blount Jr. and Text to Audio

In an Op/Ed in yesterday's NY Times Roy Blount Jr. current President of The Authors Guild comments on the text to audio functionality of the Kindle 2.

What the guild is asserting is that authors have a right to a fair share of the value that audio adds to Kindle 2’s version of books. For this, the guild is being assailed. On the National Federation of the Blind’s Web site, the guild is accused of arguing that it is illegal for blind people to use “readers, either human or machine, to access books that are not available in alternative formats like Braille or audio.”

In fact, publishers, authors and American copyright laws have long provided for free audio availability to the blind and the guild is all for technologies that expand that availability. (The federation, though, points out that blind readers can’t independently use the Kindle 2’s visual, on-screen controls.) But that doesn’t mean Amazon should be able, without copyright-holders’ participation, to pass that service on to everyone.

Funny, he didn't mention how changing the font size might destroy the market for large print books. I wonder why no one is arguing "hey, you think that mechanized voice was good, how about buying the version read by Jim Dale"

Publishing And Out of Work

Publishers Weekly has put together a long (and possibly growing list) of contact details for people recently laid off from publishing companies. This is quite nice of them.

LINK

Jonathan Galassi Interviewed By Haaretz

Want to know more about Jonathan Galassi and the Macmillan/FSG company then read this article published in Haaretz

"It's really about cutting through the miasma of information to grab the reader's attention. And that is getting harder and harder to do."

Galassi bemoans the way nearly all American papers have cut back their coverage of books. This past Sunday, The Washington Post published the last edition of its Book World as a stand-alone section, leaving The New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle as two of the few remaining U.S. papers printing separate book-review sections. (In Israel, Haaretz publishes a weekly book review in its Hebrew edition, and the monthly Books supplement in the English edition.)

Galassi suggests that the move is "short-sighted": It may be that book publishers have reduced their newspaper advertising, lowering the profitability of book sections for newspaper publishers, "but you know, a book review is not just about books, it's a forum for discussing ideas, for discussing culture in a different kind of way than you do in other pages." He notes that consumers these days turn to newspapers less for hard news, because they have other sources for immediate news delivery. So newspapers "are much more about context and interpretation." Which is what a good book review section has to offer.

The Shatzkin Files

No not some espionage novel, but Mike Shatzkin who has written here once or twice has joined the blogging community. His blog address is: http://www.idealog.com/blog/ and we will all be look forward to reading his views on the industry. (And it was nice of him to give me a call out).

Here are two of his past posts at Personanondata:

Borders Stickers Books, Why? (Perhaps a coincidence but this got a comment today).

Amazon and Book Pricing.

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 7): OCLC, Slate, EBook Pricing

For those with a bibliographic bent, ARL has published a short document on the proposed changes OCLC wanted to make to their data use. (Link) A sample:

“Band’s explanation indicates that both are intended as contracts, and describes the various forms and gradations that can characterize a contract as “bilateral” or “unilateral.” The new Policy is clearly intended as a unilateral contract, unilaterally imposed on any entity using records from the WorldCat database, including member libraries. While the 1987 guidelines have also served as a unilateral contract—and have much substance in common with the new Policy—the OCLC-member community has not perceived them as such. The guidelines are both less “unilateral,” in that they grew from a known and more open process of debate, and less “legalistic” in language. With the enormous environmental and technological changes that have occurred in the 22 years (a generation) since the guidelines were introduced, the major differences in tone and language between the guidelines and the new Policy, and a number of significant differences in substance between the two documents, the new Policy cannot be viewed as a mere update describing already accepted practices. The member community has seen the introduction of the new Policy as a fundamental change in the nature of the relationship between OCLC and its member libraries. In the eyes of the community, the guidelines expressed a mutual social contract, and the new Policy represents an authoritarian, unilaterally imposed legal restriction.”

The writers of the report also indicate that the manner and method of OCLC’s policy making needs a revision in thinking. (See when you screw up sometimes the consequences are even bigger than you might anticipate).

The task force applauds OCLC’s recent announcement of delayed policy implementation and the creation of a Review Board on Principles of Shared Data creation and Stewardship. We hope that the Review Board will consider its timeline and process, as well as its recommendations on policy issues, in light of the analyses and findings of this report. We believe that, using as a base the work done to date on the proposed policy and the issues it raises, a fresh start to policy determination and articulation is desirable.

Peter Brantley has a more expansive reaction to the report and its implications. (Link)

And it is there that I feel more caution must be exercised. The research library community, particularly, has now smitten OCLC forcefully upon its head with the flat of Library's sword and advised that it must go back to the schoolhouse. There is a danger of over-reaction in this. It is one thing to tell OCLC that the community believes its licensing policy was a mistake, its tone too “unilateral” and not conversational, and its process (essentially) pig-headed. It is another to envelop OCLC’s management in restrictive committee-based decision-making over matters that are vital to its survival; the times demand effective leadership and far-sighted vision; libraries have too long emphasized diplomacy.

Read Slate's article Not all Information Wants to be Free (Link). It raises and interesting question in my mind: Is Apple iTunes platform a precursor to the Kindle platform?

That iTunes is a free-standing application and not contained inside a browser, as is the Amazon music store, is not accidental, and I reckon that its "outside the browser" design has played some role in its success. Consumers have been conditioned to think that content delivered by a browser is supposed to be free. They get annoyed when they encounter a pay wall on a browser but are more psychologically open to the nonbrowser Web interface.

By thinking outside the browser, Apple answers to nobody but itself when it wants to add features, such as movies and TV show sales and rentals—or when subtracting them. If the browser window is the commons, the iTunes application is Apple's castle, where you're expected to do as you're told.

Some interesting data points in the discussions between Youtube and Music publishers over revenue sharing: (Guardian)

To understand the implications of these terms for closing deals, consider the penny per-stream component. It amounts to $10 per 1,000 streams, or a $10 clicks per-thousand. This means that before the digital company makes any money on advertising it would have to pay the first $10 of the ultimate CPM to the labels, then split what's left 50/50. So, if YouTube were to sell a $20 CPM pre-roll on a music video, it would give the first $10 to the label then keep $5 of the remaining money. That's $15 to the label and $5 to YouTube, or an effective CPM of $5 on a pre-roll ad. That's not going to leave YouTube rolling in revenue, never mind profits. Throw in the fact that it has to pay millions of dollars upfront, and you can see why these talks are so strained.

A very interesting discussion at HarperStudio over eBook pricing. It is the comments that are most interesting. (26thStory) Here is Shatzkin:

Decisions about price aren’t about fairness or equity, they’re about the market. I want to read books on my device. I choose a) from what’s available, b) what I like, and c) considering the price. I remember when I first got this ebook habit nearly 10 years ago, I paid $28 for an ebook bio of Grover Cleveland because (a) was very limited, so (b) got down near zero, and I was wanted to read something so I yielded on (c).

The ebook world is going to change enormously over the next several years. We’re still in a great period of proliferation: of formats, titles, concepts for the books, retailers, retailing “styles”, readers and devices. The Kindle and iPhone have a kind of dominance in the tiny market we have now; they may or may not be number one in what will be a much larger market three or five years from now.

Swan Song for Sir Crispin

Reed Elsevier presented a robust end to 2008 with the presentation of their end of year numbers yesterday. In constant currencies, RE revenues were up 7% over 2007 and operating income was up 12%. Underlying results were slightly less at 4% and 9% respectively.

Reed Elsevier revenues finished the year at £5.3billion and earning per share were up 15% in constant currencies and the press release points out this is their highest growth in 10 yrs. As expected Elsevier, Lexis and Exhibitions all drove revenue and operating income growth and while Reed Business Information was the laggard the business hardly fell off a cliff during 2008.

From the press release:

“Reed Elsevier has had a very successful year with major progress in developing the business, and the strongest constant currency adjusted eps growth in a decade. Good revenue growth was seen across most of the business driven by the growing demand for online information and workflow solutions. The revenue growth and a strong focus on restructuring and cost management delivered meaningful margin improvement and the operating cash generation was excellent. Whilst the economic environment has become progressively more challenging, our business is more resilient than most and we are in a strong financial position.

The year saw demonstrable progress across the business from our continued investment in new content and online product development. In Elsevier, subscription renewals reached record levels whilst other online solutions for the scientific and healthcare communities grew rapidly. Online legal information solutions have continued to expand, and there is growing demand for information analytics in the risk market. In legal research we see significant opportunities for more intuitive and interoperable offerings to enhance customer productivity and are stepping up our investment to reflect this. Reed Exhibitions had an exceptional year including the benefit of non annual shows cycling in. Reed Business Information held up well for most of the year, helped by the strong growth of its significant online franchises. In the last quarter, however, the business increasingly felt the impact on advertising markets of the global downturn.

The year has also seen a major reshaping of our business with completion of the sale of the remaining Harcourt Education businesses and the acquisition of ChoicePoint. ChoicePoint transforms our position in the risk information and analytics sector and the strategic and financial benefits are very attractive. The business has performed well with the insurance data and services business, which accounts for the substantial majority of ChoicePoint’s operating profits, delivering 10% year-on-year organic revenue growth. The integration with our existing risk business is progressing well and we are confident of achieving our savings and returns targets. We were disappointed not to be able to sell Reed Business Information but the macro-economic environment and poor credit market conditions made it too difficult to structure a transaction on acceptable terms. Whilst the short term outlook for RBI is very challenging, RBI is a high quality business, with a strong management team and a record of success in developing online services. It remains our intention to divest RBI in the medium term when conditions are more favourable.

Buried in the report was also the expected news that RE have reduced what was a $300mm (€230mm) investment in Harcourt parent Education Media and Publishing Group (EMPG) to just €15m. The equity stake that RE was forced to take in Harcourt when the business was sold represented just less than 12%. Companies do use their own judgment (there are FASB rules) when re-evaluating the value of third party investments like this one however, this action isn't likely to impress the bankers who lent $7Billion to EMPG for their acquisition spree.

Management Powerpoint Presentation

Source Interlink Expands!

The anti-trust suit that Source Interlink bought against Time and several other publishers two weeks ago has been dropped - although the press release only refers to Time. Readers may recall that SI received a preliminary injunction that forced SI's existing customers to continue shipping product to them. According to the press release the company's used the strength of their long standing relationship to reach an agreement on a multi-year contract. No comment about whether SI has been successful in imposing any additional fee on Time Warner as part of this agreement. Speculation would be that if they have it will not be as high per unit ($0.07 per copy)and it will not kick in immediately. If this improves the magazine supply chain at all it will be a good thing.

From their press release:

"I am happy to make this announcement because it means the continuation of what has been a mutually beneficial relationship. We have enjoyed working with our partners at Time and plan to keep working with them for many years to come," declared Greg Mays, Chairman and CEO of Source. "This agreement is effective immediately and assures that we can continue to supply all our mainstream, specialty and international customers with the popular Time titles."

In addition (and hence the post title) SI appears to have picked up a number of important distribution clients out of the rubble that was Anderson News' magazine distribution business. From the press release:

In a separate story, Source Interlink Companies today reported that its magazine distribution unit, Source Interlink Distribution (SID), has been awarded important new business from Wal-Mart Stores, Kroger / Fry's Companies and Basha's Supermarkets. This additional business increases SID's store count by 662 stores in 9 states.

Borders Reduces Corporate Staffing

Here is the corporate announcement from Borders. We sincerely hope it doesn't go any further.

Borders Group today announced that it has reduced its corporate workforce by another 136 positions, which were eliminated effective today. The majority of the jobs, which represent about 12% of the corporate workforce but less than 1% of the company’s total workforce, are based at the company’s headquarters in Ann Arbor. The workforce reduction was spread across virtually all business areas, including marketing, human resources, field management and corporate sales. The reductions were made at various ranks, ranging from entry level to middle management. Affected employees are being offered transition pay, severance and job placement assistance.

Today’s changes follow the company’s announcement just over two weeks ago that several top-level corporate positions had been eliminated to reduce management layers and help drive expense reductions. “While reducing payroll is never easy and we respect the impact it has on employees and their families, it is one of the necessary steps we must take along with other non-payroll expense reductions to help get this company back on track financially,” said Chief Executive Officer Ron Marshall. “In this time of transition, I greatly admire the tenacity and focus that employees at all levels here have shown as we drive to significantly reduce expenses and bring other key financial measures in line. We will continue to move forward with deliberate speed to make the changes required to get Borders back on firm financial footing.”

Teleread on Amazon's Long Play

An excellent and enjoyable look at Amazon's strategy from Aaron Miller writing on the Teleread.org blog:

Interestingly enough, the Online Reader is also what authors can use to preview Kindle publications on the Digital Text Platform, Amazon’s foray into the self-publishing market. But it has all the appearances of a parallel project, something to enable reading on devices other than the Kindle. Clicking on the "Your online books" button exposes a "Media Library" and CoverFlow-like book list, which you can populate with books you’ve already purchased. Provided you’ve purchased the upgrade and the print version of the book AND the book is eligible for online access (up to publishers probably), you can read it in the Online Reader for less than $9.99, with highlighting and social annotations and bookmarking.

The Reader, DTP, Search Inside and Amazon Upgrade all have a rudimentary, R & D feel, even though some of them have been around for awhile. They’re loosely connected when used as free services, and yet as revenue generators, they’re dependent on each other in a baroque way that creates barriers to consumer adoption. This stifling of adoption on the part of a giant like Amazon seems deliberate, the equivalent of throttling certain latent channels in order to allow another to flow more primarily. The undeniable truth of all of them together which would steal the Kindle’s thunder is that they do indeed allow you to read your Amazon purchases in digital form, without purchasing a Kindle. It’s easy to overlook this capability given the lack of content and promotion for these peripheral products Amazon has. But it seems clear that they each figure into a longer-term strategy. They could easily be brought together and streamlined into a huge force in the digital book market if the right circumstances were first created and nurtured by the Kindle. Thus the name.

Thoughts on Tools of Change

At The Digitalist James Long summarizes very nicely some of the themes from the conference. They echo some of my thoughts on my "Presuming" blog post (and I wasn't even at TOC).

Link

Memorial Service for Jean Srnecz

BISG informed me of a service to remember Jean Srnecz. The following is from Michael Healy with the details on the arrangements:

Remembering Jean Srnecz

As some of you may already know, Jean Srnecz, Senior Vice-President of merchandising at Baker & Taylor and a longstanding Director of the Book Industry Study Group, was among those who tragically lost their lives in the crash of Continental flight 3407 on February 12.

Jean spent more than 30 years at Baker & Taylor and for many in our industry was the public face of that company. She believed passionately in contributing to the development of our industry and it was this belief that led her to play such an important role in BISG, in the Educational Paperbacks Association and in other industry groups.

Jean was not only a member of the BISG Board, but also a long-time member of our Executive Committee, a small group of industry leaders who guide our organization. In that role, Jean was a loyal and committed supporter of our work over a long period of time, and an insightful adviser.

For me personally, she was a generous source of sound advice from the time I joined BISG in 2006 to last Tuesday, when we spoke for the last time. Everyone at BISG will miss Jean, and on behalf of the organization she supported so strongly, I offer our sincere condolences to her family, her colleagues at B&T, and all her friends in the book industry.

Colleagues at Baker & Taylor have provided the following information about a Memorial Service for Jean:

Saturday February 21st and Sunday February 22nd 2pm-4pm and 7pm-9pm
Wood Funeral Home
784 Main Street East Aurora, NY

Funeral Mass – Monday February 23rd 11:00 am
St. Cecelia’s Roman Catholic Church
991 Centerline Road Sheldon, NY

A further service in New Jersey is planned but at this time no details are available.

Memorial Contributions may be made to the following organizations: Susan G. Komen for the Cure, 5005 LBJ Freeway, Suite 250, Dallas, TX 75244 or Mortel Family Charitable Foundation, PO Box 405, Hershey, PA 17033

Michael Healy Executive Director, BISG.

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 6): Borders, SharedBook, Tools of Change

Ingram Digital Chief Commercial Officer Frank Daniels has done an audio interview with Karen Holt at Teleread.org and among the topics covered are the following:

–Frank’s most recent title. “If it has to do with customers, it has has to do with me.” Earlier he was chief operating officer of Ingram Digital.

–E-newspapers vs. e-books—how they differ. Frank worked for both the editorial and business sides of the Raleigh News & Observer, which his family owned for many decades.

–Ingram Digital’s VitalSource e-reading software, whose interactive capabilities are especially useful in education-related apps, such as dental training. See video for more. Ingram bought VitalSource Technologies, of which Frank was president and CEO, in 2006.

–E-book prices, which he notes range widely. “E-books are going to be priced on convenience more than they’re going to be priced on format.”

–Kindle vs. iPhone. The device “that’s going to prevail has not been invented yet.” In fact, he’s doubts that the industry will standardize on a particular device the way the Apple iPod dominates music.

–DRM. Frank’s unabashedly pro. His DRM comments begin just short of nine minutes into the interview. Listen carefully. and please be civil in our comments section if you’d like to respond. “We’ve not seen DRM to be any kind of barrier to a sale.”

Borders' is able to extend the terms of their agreement with Pershing Square. It costs them $750,000 for expenses. The company now has until April 15th to repay a $42.5mm secured term loan. Coupled with this agreement the companies also agreed to extend the option to sell to Pershing the PaperChase business. Reuters Two businesses that were attempting to develop music and video "library" services on college campuses have folded. This week Cdigix sited the bad economy for their closure (Chronicle)

Cdigix, a company that focused on selling a service to colleges to place movies and music on reserve online for students, quietly ceased operations at the end of December and is in the process of dissolving. It cited a lack of clients and an inability to raise money to continue. The company initially offered an online music service for colleges, but it ended that service about two years ago to focus on offering reserves of electronic media.

Mark Brodsky, president and chief operating officer of Cdigix, said in an interview today that the company was “a casualty of the economic times.” It had about 25 to 30 colleges either signed up for the service or were testing it, he said, but customers were notified at the end of last year that the service would shut down.

Another service Ruckus also closed this week (Chronicle):

Colleges began signing up for Ruckus five years ago, and in 2005, almost one in five was considering a subscription to a music or movie service, according to a survey by the education-technology group Educause. At first Ruckus charged for campus wide access, but by 2006 it had shifted its focus from site licenses to advertising, still requiring colleges to sign deals, but not to pay.

SharedBook launched Smart Button technology a streamlined implementation of the SharedBook platform that, (SharedBook)

allows partners to apply SharedBook's customized creation capabilities with minimal resource application and maximum flexibility, delivering new revenue sources. Initially, Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors will use Smart Button to create a new line of books culled from their vast troves of content, arrayed to illuminate specific topics for their customers. Soon, visitors to Britannica.com will also have the ability to use Smart Button to make their own works, by selecting various articles and content, and with one click, add them to a custom, one-of-a-kind volume. "Smart Button turns the historical process of publishing a book on its ear, bringing specialized content to our users faster than ever before", said Joe Miller, Managing Director of Encyclopaedia Britannica's Consumer Division.

In addition to EB, Legacy.com and Sohio Blackwell was accused of 'dechristianising' their Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization (Guardian):

The Encyclopedia's editor-in-chief, George Kurian, claims that under pressure from an anti-Christian lobby, Blackwell decided that entries in the four-volume book were "too Christian, too orthodox, too anti-secular and too anti-Muslim and not politically correct enough for being used in universities". Kurian also claims that the press wants to delete words including "Antichrist", "Virgin Birth", "Resurrection", "Evangelism" and "Beloved Disciple" from the book, as well as objecting to "historical references to the persecution and massacres of Christians by Muslims".

Proceedings from last weeks Tools of Change Presentations. (TOC) Eduardo Porter writing in the New York Times on what Newspapers do (NYT):

Companies in countries with a larger daily newspaper circulation are fairer to minority shareholders and have a better record responding to environmental concerns. And a 2000 study by Timothy Besley and Robin Burgess of the London School of Economics proved Sen to be right: governments in India provide more public food and disaster relief in hard times in states where newspaper circulation is higher.

It’s easy to forget the role of an independent press in the development of democratic institutions in the United States. Through much of the 19th century, newspapers were mostly partisan mouthpieces. But as circulation and advertising grew, they shed political allegiances and started competing for customers by investigating shady deals and taking up populist causes.

Thinking about The Satanic Versus (BBC):

For Professor John Sutherland, critic and Booker prize judge, The Satanic Verses should now be seen as Rushdie's best novel, prophetic and the fruit of his obsession with on the one hand the magic of the Arabian Nights and on the other the literal truth claimed for the Koran.

"Rushdie is fascinated in the way that novels are true and the ways in which they become true through multiple untruths," he said.

"People looking for something offensive, heretical or blasphemous won't find it. It's not a diatribe, a calculated insult. It's an extremely good novel."

Jean Srnecz Dies In Crash

Noted via Publisher's Lunch the very sad news that Jean Srnecz SVP Merchandising at B&T was aboard the Continental flight that crashed in Buffalo. I didn't know Jean well but served on the BISG board with her and also sat with her on numerous panels. She was very well respected by me and many in the industry and all will mourn her loss.

Here is a statement for Baker & Taylor:

Baker & Taylor Mourns the Loss of SVP of Merchandising Jean Srnecz
Baker & Taylor, Inc.( 02/13/2009 )

CHARLOTTE, NC, February 13, 2009 - Baker & Taylor, Inc., the world's largest wholesale distributor of books and entertainment products, today mourns the loss of SVP of Merchandising Jean Srnecz. Srnecz was among the passengers of Continental Flight 3407, which crashed late Thursday night outside the Buffalo airport.

"We are all tremendously shocked and saddened at this terrible loss," said CEO Tom Morgan. "Jean was extremely highly regarded throughout the industry. She had tremendous industry expertise and was integral to Baker & Taylor's strategic growth, but was also valued as a kind and good person by all who knew her. She will be greatly missed by scores of people throughout our industry, and especially throughout our company. Our thoughts and prayers remain with her family."

Srnecz held many positions during her 33-year career at Baker & Taylor, ascending to SVP of Merchandising in 2001. She served on the boards of the Book Industry Study Group and Educational Paperback Association.

"I worked alongside Jean for 30 years and there was no one more knowledgeable and respected, as a professional and a person," said Baker & Taylor President Arnie Wight. "Jean truly loved this business and was loved by many in it. She will be sorely missed."

In her most recent position, Srnecz was responsible for all buying and inventory management activities, including Children's, General Interest, Adult, Academic, Professional, Higher Education, Mass Market and Audio. She was also responsible for Publisher Services, Publisher Sales Reporting, Inventory Analysis, Publisher Relations, and Advertising in B&T publications.

Source Interlink Wins Temporary Restraining Order

Lawyers representing the publishers in the suit brought by Source Interlink have been able to convince a Judge that the case should be heard in New York rather than Florida. Subsequently, the judge in the case agreed to an 'expedited' temporary restraining order requiring publishers to continue to ship their magazines to Source Interlink per their existing distribution agreements. A longer preliminary injunction hearing is set for February 23rd. (BusinessWire). It's probably never a good thing to sue your customers and one wonders how SI is ever going to regain publishers confidence regardless of the outcome of this legal tussle.

Time, American Media, Hachette Filipacchi, and Bauer are the major publishers currently using SI and must comply with this order.

ABA Takes it on the Chin for Booksellers

The ABA is reducing annual membership fees by 50% and implementing an assortment of other cost cutting programs to "to help and support booksellers in these extraordinarily difficult economic times." ABA

Among the policies they are implementing are the following:

1. Institution of a hiring freeze, resulting in a reduction of ABA staff by 5-1/2 FTE (full-time equivalents) -- or 12 percent -- achieved through attrition.
2. Implementation of a total wage freeze.
3. Suspension of ABA contributions to the association's 401(k) and SEP plans.
4. Elimination of all discretionary travel.
5. Elimination of all discretionary spending unless prior approval from the CEO or COO is obtained.
6. Increased implementation of web-based communication and webinars for delivery of ABA education programs.
7. Cancellation of ABA's annual spring forum schedule.
8. Revamping of the group medical benefit, with a move to a higher deductible and the implementation of a Health Savings Plan.

The organization has attributed the 50% dues reduction to the 2009 calendar year and has said any new members during this time would also pay the lower rate. Any member that had the temerity to pay already have paid their 2009 dues will get a refund. The announcement did not make any note of the current search for a CEO and whether that position was to be amended in any way as a result of these changes.

All Together Now: Apologize!

In the Independent this week Michael Bywater discusses the Apology Culture. Over here, with just this week everyone from the President to A-Rod, apologizing this op-ed is just as relevant. Here is a sample:

The apology has become the defining gesture of the age. Russell Brand had to apologise for making off-colour remarks. Jeremy Clarkson – a man who would eat his own testicles rather than petition for an apology, even though he'd have to remove them from his own personal brain where they've been living for all these years – had to apologise for making a startlingly fine joke about lorry drivers, and, subsequently for calling Gordon Brown a "one-eyed Scottish idiot" at a press conference in Australia. His calling Gordon Brown a "one-eyed Scottish idiot" would probably have escaped much attention had it not been for the BBC – powerfully complicit in driving the Apology Culture – publishing on its website a video of Clarkson calling Gordon Brown a "one-eyed Scottish idiot" accompanied by a story saying that Clarkson's calling Gordon Brown a "one-eyed Scottish idiot" had "provoked anger in Scotland".

We might find some comfort across the Atlantic, where the Apology Culture has become even tackier and more insane than here. President Obama apologised for the sins of his cabinet appointees, on five different TV networks in seven different ways. This wasn't for something he had done. It wasn't for something other people had done who had falsely got into positions of power. Obama was apologising for something two other people had done who hadn't got into positions of power because what they'd done had been found out. So what (we might ask) was President Obama actually apologising for?

Read the whole thing.

Lincoln's Birthday

There's been so much written about Lincoln this year it is no surprise that there is more attention paid to his birth date than (perhaps) normal. OUP has a series of three articles beginning with this one on the President where they interview Allen Guelzo, author of Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction.

Often cited is the fact that Lincoln is the most written about historical figure. Well with little to interest myself last weekend I took a look at BIP via the New York Public Library. According to the database (and this is an unscientific query), there are 1,577 active titles, 25 forthcoming and 519 inactive nonfiction hard or soft cover books on the President. That's a lot especially compared with some other notables such as Washington (1480 active), WSChurchill (521), Napoleon (1143) and Hitler (805). I checked "God" just in case and he/she has 8,312 although I am not sure how those are classified.

OCLC's identities also shows an interesting perspective on books about and by Lincoln. Here. They show fully 18,714 works in 26,693 publications in 66 languages and 1,036,286 library holding. The identities shows how constant has been the flow of books about Lincoln over the past 100 years. It looks like there is always between 350 - 450 new Lincoln books per year.

TOC Summary

Publishing Trends summarizes some of the sessions at this week's TOC conference in NYC.

Link.

Also, if you didn't attend (or even if you did) here is the link to the presentations. Very good of them to make these available.

TOC

Jane Austin Goes all Zombie

Chronicle books for reasons unknown is to re-tell Pride and Prejudice as a Zombie novel. Mr. Darcy comes up all blood sucking. From their catalog:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies -- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Complete with 20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice), this insanely funny expanded edition will introduce Jane Austen's classic novel to new legions of fans.

The 'author' is one Seth Grahame-Smith who has penned some notibles such as How to Survive a Horror Movie and - get this - The Big Book of Porn. And, that's a double entrende that would perhaps escape both Janey and Mr Darcy. Do we really need this?

BookExpo In New York

This news will come as a nice surprise to publishers weighing the continued benefits of BookExpo given the show was scheduled to visit Washington and Las Vegas in the next several years. From their press release, BookExpo has announced that the show will take up semi-permanent residence in New York.

BookExpo America has announced that it is moving the show to New York City where it will take place at the Jacob K. Javits Center through 2012. The show was previously scheduled to take place in Washington DC in 2010 and Las Vegas in 2011. In so doing, show organizers are also re-shaping the convention so that it will now occur on a shortened schedule during the work week.

The next BEA, which had already been scheduled to take place in New York City in 2009 and which will include all the leading publishers, will take place, as has been announced, on Friday, May 29 – Sunday, May 31. It will not be affected by the strategic change in scheduling. As always, there will be a full day of conference on Thursday, May 28 before the exhibit floor opens.

The new schedule means that BEA will have New York City as its home for the next four years in a row. BEA Show officials note that they are keeping their options open with regard to dates and location after 2012. The dates for BEA through 2012 are as follows: 2010: Conference/Special Events and Show Preview Tuesday May 25th (exhibit hours 4-6pm), Wednesday, May 26th (9-6 show hours), Thursday, May 27th (9-5 show hours). 2011: Conference/Special Events and Show Preview Tuesday May 24th (exhibit hours 4-6pm), Wednesday, May 25th (9-6 show hours), Thursday, May 26th (9-5 show hours). 2012: Conference/Special Events and Show Preview Wednesday May 30th (exhibit hours 4-6pm), Thursday, May 31st (9-6 show hours), Friday, June 1st (9-5 show hours).

“We feel that this is a move that is timely and responsive to industry needs,” notes Lance Fensterman, Industry Vice President and Show Manager for BookExpo America. “It makes sense on a multitude of levels, not the least of which is that it will provide the majority of our exhibitors with a cost reduction, as well as more flexibility in managing their presence at the show. We wanted to take decisive action in setting our future course and this is our first major step towards a new vision for BEA for years to come. New York City is also the publishing capital and we are anxious to build a strong identity between New York and BEA. There is a significant media presence in New York City and we would like to take advantage of this, not only by building media attendance, but by involving the media in a substantive way in our programming.”

Kindle 2 Hype

Several sites have been live blogging the kindle 2 launch (Bits) (CNet) and at the presentation Jeff Bezos was supported by none other than Stephen King who extolled the virtues of said gadget. From their press release here are some highlights:

Kindle 2, the new reading device that offers Kindle’s revolutionary wireless delivery of content in a new slim design with longer battery life, faster page turns, over seven times more storage, sharper images, and a new read-to-me feature. Kindle 2 is purpose-built for reading with a high-resolution 6-inch electronic paper display that looks and reads like real paper, which lets users read for hours without the eyestrain caused by reading on a backlit display. More than 230,000 books are now available in the Kindle Store, including 103 of 110 current New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases, which are typically $9.99. Top U.S. and international magazines and newspapers plus more than 1,200 different blogs are also available. Kindle 2 is available for pre-order starting today for $359

Bezos said he wants to provide every book ever published available for download in 60seconds or less. Among the features touted; it is about the width of a number 2 pencil, lighter than any book of similar size, has 2gig of memory, 25% more battery life that is said to last 14 days, a 250K dictionary, text to speech that enables a reader to listen to the book rather than read. 1200 blogs are available on the device as well as magazines and newspapers which are available for separate additional subscriptions. Pricing remains the same as the earlier version and the company is giving preferential treatment to current owners who want to upgrade. Not a price break but you get to go to the head of the line.

Anderson News Folds the Tent

Anderson News has given up and ceased magazine distribution operations as of Sunday. PND Readers may recall that competing magazine distributor Source Interlink and Anderson wanted to impose a 7cent per copy tax on all magazines they distributed. None of their clients seemed to agree with this and have moved their operations to other providers. From MediaWeek:

The move was far from unexpected. Industry observers have predicted that Anderson, along with Source Interlink Cos., would be forced to shut down after leading newsstand publishers Time Inc., Bauer Publishing and American Media Inc. refused to meet the wholesalers’ demands back in January for an extra 7 cents per copy to deliver their magazines to the nation’s retailers.

The debacle has wreaked havoc on the nation’s newsstand sales, as Time Inc. and co. are expected to see a short-term loss of sale as a result of their wholesaler change.

The latest move by Anderson raises new questions for Comag Marketing Group, which represents Hearst Magazines, Condé Nast and Wenner Media titles. As of the week of Feb. 2, Comag was still relying on Anderson and Source to deliver their magazines.

The disagreement has left magazine publishers scrambling to identify alternative distributors (Anderson and Source represent about 50% of the market) but also to placate advertisers who will be closely watching the amount of lost newsstand sales if titles are not on store shelves when promised (or at all). If rate bases are not met a publisher will be obliged to rebate some amount of the advertising paid by advertisers. In this environment where titles are already perilously thin this is the last thing any publisher will want to contemplate. The SI swim suit issue comes out Feb 1oth which represents big money for Time and they will want to have this situation solved quickly.

There is also the situation with mass market book titles which have had little mention in this disagreement. Without the carry over from the magazine scale, it is doubtful Anderson would continue with books by themselves.

Earlier in the week WalMart indicated many of their customers would have to do without People Magazine (whatever will they do?). (NYPost - with cheesy picture of Ron Burkle)

Wal-Mart, the single-biggest magazine retailer in the country, will be without copies of People, Sports Illustrated and Time. They will also not have Bauer Publications' In Touch and Life & Style, and American Media-owned Star and National Enquirer.

While it's too early to know how many of Wal-Mart's 4,200 US stores will be affected, it appears a majority of them will be.

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman confirmed that some stores are expected to be without magazines this week, but did not offer specifics on the titles or how many stores will be affected.

Early in the week, Source Interlink denied it would exit the business. MediaWeek

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 5): Banned Books, AA Travel Guides, Newspapers

The Times reports on the most stolen books from bookstores. Now they know which books to place up front with the condoms and razor blades (never figured that combo out myself).

The “pocketing potential” of a book seems to relate to its resale value. Many of the booksellers who took part in the survey are convinced that a thriving black market for books exists - according to them, illicit sales are made mainly in pubs, where disorientated consumers are happy to buy maps, travel guides and the latest Harry Potter for their children from a network of book thieves selling at bargain prices.

Paranoia or conspiracy? In 2004 a man was jailed after it was revealed that he ran a gang of thieves who stole Lonely Planet travel guides to order. He had sold an estimated 35,000 stolen books a year.

Some think the AA travel guides are consorting with the enemy and have become less objective since a private equity buy-out. Typically, blame the Americans. (Telegraph)

“This is typical of American-style private equity action,” said Paul Maloney, national secretary of the GMB (AA section), the union recognised by the AA until the private equity takeover. “[Their view seems to be] 'We’ve got a company, we’re going to strip it of what we like in order to turn a profit.’”

11th Circuit Court upholds Cuban book ban in Miami Dade elementary schools (AP). Luckily, according to Worldcat.org there are at least 300 other copies available for inter-library loan.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Miami-Dade County School District wouldn't be infringing freedom of speech rights by removing 49 copies of "Vamos a Cuba" and its English-language version, "A Visit to Cuba," from its libraries. The board has argued that the books, for children ages 5 to 8, present an inaccurate view of life in Cuba.

The board voted to remove the book in 2006 after a parent who was a former political prisoner in Cuba complained. A federal judge in Miami later ruled that the board should add books of different perspectives instead of removing offending titles.

Walter Isaacson on saving the nations newspapers. (Time). Almost since 'last Tuesday' there seems to have been a rising tide of stories about how newspapers need to charge for their content. I think that is a good thing. Isaacson sees an iTunes and micropayments type solution.

What Internet payment options are there today? PayPal is the most famous, but it has transaction costs too high for impulse buys of less than a dollar. The denizens of Facebook are embracing systems like Spare Change, which allows them to charge their PayPal accounts or credit cards to get digital currency they can spend in small amounts. Similar services include Bee-Tokens and Tipjoy. Twitter users have Twitpay, which is a micropayment service for the micromessaging set. Gamers have their own digital currencies that can be used for impulse buys during online role-playing games. And real-world commuters are used to gizmos like E-ZPass, which deducts automatically from their prepaid account as they glide through a highway tollbooth.

Under a micropayment system, a newspaper might decide to charge a nickel for an article or a dime for that day's full edition or $2 for a month's worth of Web access. Some surfers would balk, but I suspect most would merrily click through if it were cheap and easy enough.

Melbourne Fires

In the last few weeks forest fires have spread across the Australian states of Victoria and South Australia. The devastation has been horrific and the death toll has surpassed 100 and represents the worse killing spree in Australian history. Bush fires in Australian can move incredibly fast due to wind but also to the oil in the prevalent eucalyptus trees. These 'gum' trees will literally explode when the temperature reaches a certain point and thus travel from tree top to tree top at a tremendous rate.

Another aspect has been the continual dry weather and high temperatures. When I lived in Melbourne in the mid 1970s we had top days but the temperature rare got above 95. Yesterday the temperature in Melbourne was 117. North of Melbourne the town of Marysville has been wiped off the map with every house and business torched. ABC Television. TheAge Video

We have family and friends down there and my friend Richard noted some of his staff have lost family in the fires. A very sad situation.

News Corp Reports 2Q

Suggesting headcount reductions were on the way, Rupert Murdoch commented that they don't run fat during their presentation of the company's second quarter numbers. Speaking about cost cutting,

We are taking them out everywhere. I mean, I am at Australia at the moment and the local management is in the process of combining all their back offices between the States and (Inaudible). There are many different processes we are doing. That goes right across the company, which is going to save a lot of people and a lot of money. And there are little things, the Wall Street Journal, there are so many numerous small things. We are combining in the back office, the Wall Street Journal and New York Post, which will eventually save about $7 million, certainly $4.5 million in the immediate future. We have also negotiated -- nearly renegotiated nearly all of our delivery contractors across the whole of United States with a saving just starting now of $5 million a year. And it goes on and on. It seems like we are chiseling away at small things, but they do add up to a lot of money.

Due to a non cash impairment write down the company reported a operating income of loss of $7.6billion versus operating income of $1.4billion in the same quarter last year. Without the impairment charge operating income of $818million was 42% lower than the same period last year. Results were off in all divisions except magazines and inserts.

Commenting specifically on publishing,

Turning to the book publishing segment, second quarter operating income contributions were down $44 million compared to last year. This decline reflects the weaker retail book market, the lack of comparable strong releases versus a year ago and a charge of $6 million for the bankruptcy of a customer.

Conf Call Transcript: SeekingAlpha.

From the company's press release:

BOOK PUBLISHING

HarperCollins operating income decreased $44 million versus the same period a year
ago due to lower sales driven by the weakening retail market as well as a difficult
comparison to a year ago that included strong sales of The Daring Book for Girls by
Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz, The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn and Hal Iggulden and Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. In addition, segment profits for the quarter were down due to charges related to the bankruptcy of a major UK distributor.

Second quarter results included solid sales of The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb, A Lion Among Men by Gregory Maguire, If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff and Multiple Blessings by Jon and Kate Gosselin and Beth Carson. During the quarter, HarperCollins had 50 books on The New York Times bestseller list, including six books that reached the #1 spot.

(The $6mm charge for the bankruptcy would be related to Bertram in the UK).

First half revenues for the publishing group were $620mm versus $736mm in the prior year and operating income was $26mm versus $103mm.

NY Times article on News Corp/Dow Jones.

Google Book Machine

There has been a lot of competition in getting book content on your mobile or making you mobile with your library of book content. Since the launch of the Kindle and book reader apps on the iPhone the mobile book has been a little bit of a battle ground. In the background has been the not inconsiderable presence of Google which has of course been creating a very large content repository. That aces the reader applications (and always will).

The one interesting aspect of the last few months activity has been that there has been few competitive moves into the mobile space by Google. This despite the fact that Google has invested millions in the development of a new mobile platform named Android. (I have had a draft half written post for months titled 'Does your Android read?'). Today Google announced that they have opened up part of their considerable book database to mobile readers. The company says that they have over 1.5million out of copyright books which will now be available to mobile readers. Perhaps that's not that appealing to anyone looking for the recent Patterson title but Google's ambitions are far more expansive than that. Indeed, Google has cornered the base of the pyramid of content and adding successive layers on top will be only a matter of time.

From their blog post:

One of the great things about an iPhone or Android phone is being able to play Pacman while stuck in line at the post office. Sometimes though, we yearn for something more than just playing games or watching videos.

What if you could also access literature's greatest works, such as Emma and The Jungle Book, right from your phone? Or, some of the more obscure gems such as Mark Twain's hilarious travelogue, Roughing It? Today we are excited to announce the launch of a mobile version of Google Book Search, opening up over 1.5 million mobile public domain books in the US (and over half a million outside the US) for you to browse while buying your postage.

Given Google's technical expertise, this content, including all the newer stuff, will be arranged and rearranged in all sorts of ways that will benefit readers. That may not be the case with the content on some of the other platforms. And don't forget that Android is an open platform so there is no telling what application developers will come up up. Certainly, the size of the Google library will be a significant differentiator over the others but given the recent agreement with publishers over the copyright issue, the content pool is likely to get much bigger.

Horizon Report on Education

Last week at the SIIA conference, Marjorie Scardino mentioned a recent report from Horizon about technology trends to watch in education. Here is a summary of the technolgies to watch:

• Mobiles. Already considered as another component of the network on many campuses, mobiles continue to evolve rapidly. New interfaces, the ability to run third-party applications, and location-awareness have all come to the mobile device in the past year, making it an ever more versatile tool that can be easily adapted to a host of tasks for learning, productivity, and social networking. For many users, broadband mobile devices like the iPhone have already begun to assume many tasks that were once the exclusive province of portable computers.

• Cloud Computing. The emergence of large-scale “data farms” — large clusters of networked servers — is bringing huge quantities of processing power and storage capacity within easy reach. Inexpensive, simple solutions to offsite storage, multi-user application scaling, hosting, and multi-processor computing are opening the door to wholly different ways of thinking about computers, software, and files.

• Geo-Everything. Geocoded data has many applications, but until very recently, it was time-consuming and difficult for non-specialists to determine the physical coordinates of a place or object, and options for using that data were limited. Now, many common devices can automatically determine and record their own precise location and can save that data along with captured media (like photographs) or can transmit it to web-based applications for a host of uses. The full implications of geo-tagging are still unfolding, but the impact in research has already been profound.

• The Personal Web. Springing from the desire to reorganize online content rather than simply viewing it, the personal web is part of a trend that has been fueled by tools to aggregate the flow of content in customizable ways and expanded by an increasing collection of widgets that manage online content. The term personal web was coined to represent a collection of technologies that are used to configure and manage the ways in which one views and uses the Internet. Using a growing set of free and simple tools and applications, it is easy to create a customized, personal web-based environment — a personal web — that explicitly supports one’s social, professional, learning, and other activities.

• Semantic-Aware Applications. New applications are emerging that are bringing the promise of the semantic web into practice without the need to add additional layers of tags, identifiers, or other top-down methods of defining context. Tools that can simply gather the context in which information is couched, and that use that context to extract embedded meaning are providing rich new ways of finding and aggregating content. At the same time, other tools are allowing context to be easily modified, shaped, and redefined as information flows are combined.
  

• Smart Objects. Sometimes described as the “Internet of things,” smart objects describe a set of technologies that is imbuing ordinary objects with the ability to recognize their physical location and respond appropriately, or to connect with other objects or information. A smart object “knows” something about itself — where and how it was made, what it is for, where it should be, or who owns it, for example — and something about its environment. While the underlying technologies that make this possible — RFID, QR codes, smartcards, touch and motion sensors, and the like — are not new, we are now seeing new forms of sensors, identifiers, and applications with a much more generalizable set of functionalities.

Dayton Literary Prize

Giving authors an opportunity to join the ranks of luminaries like Studs Terkel and Elie Wiesel and acclaimed new talents like Edwidge Danticat and Brad Kessler, The Dayton Literary Peace Prize today launched its call for submissions for 2009’s best fiction and nonfiction works that promote peace and non-violent conflict resolution.

The Dayton Literary Peace Prize is the only international literary peace prize awarded in the United States. It was founded in 2006 as an outgrowth of the Dayton Peace Prize, which commemorates the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords ending the war in Bosnia.

Winners receive a $10,000 honorarium and will be honored at a gala ceremony in Dayton on Sunday, November 8^th, 2009.

As part of the kick-off for this year’s call for submissions, organizers also announced the launch of a Nominating Academy to ensure that the widest possible cross-section of books is considered for this year’s prize. Members of the Nominating Academy include a diverse mix of leaders from the literary, publishing, and progressive worlds including: authors Alan Cheuse (NPR’s “Voice of Books”), Amy Hempel, Brad Kessler (2007 fiction winner for Birds in Fall), and Mark Kurlansky (2007 nonfiction winner for Nonviolence: Twenty-Five Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea); Lea Thau, executive director of The Moth; WETA’s books blogger Bethanne Patrick, and Susannah Lupert, executive director of New York City’s Housing Works Bookstore Café. The list of books nominated by the academy will presented to publishers in late February so that titles can be officially submitted for consideration

Borders Cuts

Borders has eliminated a number of senior positions at their corporate head quarters including the role of CTO held by Susan Harmon. Harmon held the position since 2007 having left book seller Books A Million to move to Ann Arbor from Birmingham AL. (I once went to Birmingham on a fools errand once).

From Forbes:

Bookseller Borders Group Inc. said Tuesday it is cutting six vice president and 10 director jobs to consolidate its management and help trim expenses in a tough economy.

Borders has eliminated the role of executive vice president of U.S. stores, which was held by Ken Armstrong, and cut the post of senior vice president and chief information officer held by Susan Harwood. Both Armstrong and Harwood joined Borders Group in 2007.

The position of senior vice president, e-business, which was held by Kevin Ertell, has also been eliminated.

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 4): Houghton Harcourt, Ebsco, Google

This is my 1001st post - wow. Riverdeep, the owner of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is the subject of a profile by The Boston Globe this morning. The newspaper reports what many have supposed - not least the Irish Press which has been dogging Riverdeep almost since the day they consummated the Houghton sale. In the article, they strongly suggest that the company is now worth far less than the amount of debt owned to their lenders. Any sale of all or parts of the company would be unlikely to cover these obligations and while there are rumors that Hachette maybe discussing acquiring the trade division, I wonder if this could occur if the value is so low and the resulting deal would be a humiliation not just for Riverdeep but also the banks holding the debt. Assuming a sale below book value, that would trigger a revaluation of the whole balance sheet and this in turn would trigger any number of covenants. Missing from the Globe article is that in selling Harcourt to Riverdeep, Reed Elsevier retained a $300mm interest in the business. (Link) What of the value of that and how is it handled on the RE balance sheet.

Moody's last month reported that Houghton, with a debt load estimated at more than 10 times gross earnings, is "a likely default" unless its loans are renegotiated. S&P last month placed parent EMPG on its list of weakest links - companies in greatest danger of debt default. "The debt level is our biggest concern," said S&P analyst Hal Diamond, "given the state of the economy and state budget constraints. While they can reduce costs, they can only go so far."

The Globe's request for an interview with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt chief executive Anthony Lucki or other senior executives was declined. Houghton issued a statement disputing Moody's 10-times-earnings figure, and insisted the company is gaining market share and has ample cash to cover its loans. Spokesman Josef Blumenfeld also said that since Houghton's reported decision last fall to suspend acquisition of new titles, it is signing new books again. He declined to comment on rumors that French-based Hachette Book Group, owner of Little, Brown & Co., might be a suitor.

EBSCO have added a Federated search capability to their suite of offerings and is designed to integrate with their EbscoHost2.0 product they released last year. (LJ)

With Integrated Search, the company aims to capitalize on users’ familiarity with the features and design of EBSCOhost 2.0, which debuted in July 2008, and carve out a role for its interface as a comprehensive destination for user searches. Integrated Search is slated to go live in early summer 2009.

Integrated Search will use connectors to remote content sources similar to those employed by other federated search products, like MetaLib (Ex Libris), Research Pro (Innovative Interfaces), and 360 Search (Serials Solutions). The hook: EBSCOhost will not charge customers for connectors to any EBSCO databases to which they subscribe. For connectors to non-EBSCO sources, the basic cost will be $200 per database annually. There will also be a $1000 annual base fee per site and per configuration. Customers already subscribed to a number of EBSCOhost products could see this translate into significant savings.

Librarything has added a Twitter ap. which looks interesting. (Blog):

We've added integration with Twitter, the popular SMS/microblogging site. Basically, it's an easy way to add a book to your LibraryThing while standing in a bookstore, library or friend's house.

A good summary of the Google Book agreement was presented at a session at ALA (ALA):

ALA’s Committee on Legislation and Office for Information Technology Policy hosted a panel session Saturday at the ALA Midwinter Conference in Denver. The session was called “Google Book Settlement: What’s In It For Libraries,” and aimed to educate librarians on the initial terms of the settlement, hear from leading a few leading library and legal experts, and offer time for audience members to pose questions to the panel participants.

Library Journal reports on the finances of the American Library Association.

As with private investors and endowed institutions, the American Library Association (ALA) suffered significant endowment losses in the past fiscal year, 24.1%, but, thanks to budget adjustments and some new sources of revenue, net operating income in Fiscal Year 2008 actually exceeded expenses more than in FY 2007, ALA officials said yesterday at the Midwinter Meeting in Denver.

Fiscal Year 2008, which ended last August 31, left ALA with net assets of $34.4 million, compared to $33.3 million at the end of 2007. Three months later, net assets declined to $24.1 million, primarily due to endowment losses. ALA has adjusted by reducing expenses, but continued losses in the endowment—which is not relied on for operating income--could cut into scholarships and awards. And the longer term remains a question mark.

Store Closings (Updated)

I have a tickler that sends me news items on various topics and one of these is news related to Borders. In the past two months or so, the citations listing store closings has become a torrent of store retrenching. Having announced earlier in 2007 that they would step up their store closings, the company appears to have accelerated this effort. Most of these closing are the Walden Books stores which has been a problematic store concept for some time and which the economy has only made worse.

In places like Lexington, MA and Great Falls, MT, Walden/Borders are leaving locations where their stores represent the only identifiable book store brand. Some people are upset and have started letter writing campaigns but the news of specific closings arrives so fast the community can't possibly organize fast enough. Truth is, no amount of community concern is going to trump simple economics. Sadly, other than in a few isolated cases, staff have not been offered work in other stores. Not only are there no other stores to move the staff to, but the Walden epidemic is often collected in news stories about other store brands shutting down in the same neighborhood or mall.

My incomplete list of closings noted just during January includes the following:

(Where is all this inventory going?)

Waldenstores:

Tippecanoe Mall, Lafayette Indiana
Logonsport Mall, Indiana
Stroud Mall, Penn
Volusia Mall, Daytona Beach, FL
Wyoming Valley Mall, Wilkes Barre, PA
Kenwood Town Center, Cinn, OH
Inland Center Mall, San Bernadino, CA
Sandberg Mall, Gailsburg, IL
Gainsville, FL
Contana Mall, B/Rouge, LA
Regency Mall, Racine, WI
Lexington, MA
Birlington Mall, Vermont
Greendale Mall, Worcester, MA
Sq One Mall, Saugus, MA
DeSota Sq Mall, Sarasota, FL
Prince of Orange Mall, SC
Bradenton, FL
Pompono Beach, FL
Tampa, FL
Orlando, FL
South Plains Mall, Lubbock, TX
Miller Hill Mall, Deluth MN
Clarion Mall, Clarion PA
Town Mall, Elizabethtown, KY
Marshall Town Center, IA
Holiday Village Mall, Great Falls, MT
Southridge Mall, Des Moines IA.

Borders Express:
Springfield, IL
Lahaina Mall, HI
Whalers Village, HI

Brentanos
Tower Place Mall, Cinn, OH

Borders:
Mill Avenue, Tempe AZ
Kemper Road, Springdale,OH
Compuware Bld (Downtown) Detroit, MI
Vero Beach Fashion Outlets, FL

Bonnie Schmick the Borders spokes person that each local reporter speaks to must be pretty depressed having to field all these calls.

(There are some misspellings in that list - apologies).

Update:

The NYTimes notes the decline of shopping Malls in a weekend article: NYTimes

I also posted my own view a few months ago in Death of the Big Box

Republicans: The President Is Very Good

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The Word - The Audacity of Nope

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Paul McCartney Appearance

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SIIA Conference: Marjorie Scardino

Marjorie Scardino, CEO of Pearson spoke at this weeks Software Information Industry Association meeting and here are my notes from that presentation.

Skills and capabilities that new generations are going to need to be successful in the 21st Century include: the ability to be imaginative, capable of or exhibit group working skills and the ability to solve increasingly complex business and social problems.

As educators we also need to think about hard skills: Math and Science.

Embedded in the development of hard skills is the development of the ability to connect disparate information and to be able to evaluate the veracity of information and information sources. It is not a unique skill to be able to do a simple ‘barely defined’ Google search. Anyone can do this; however, students are not being taught the skills necessary to dig deeper, form arguments and determine back-up or be able to present their research.

On new technology. She cites/refers to a digital youth study: How the young interact with new technology. (Horizon Report).

There are five new technologies (and she adds a sixth).

1. Mobile devices: language,
2. Smart objects: sensors
3. Ubiquitous computing semantic enabled software:
4. Geo tagging: to all media.
5. Storage and access: cloud computing.
6. Electro foretic (sp) pages.

In her opinion, (and this follows how Pearson is expanding) companies have to take a long term view: change the way teachers teach, the way readers interact with news, information and content. Additionally, the long term view or approach to investment has to be consistent. She says, sustained investment is difficult in a public company.

The key to success is to involve your customers. Release your software early and enable a culture that allows ‘do-overs’ assuming they are corrected or improved rapidly. Other comments:

1. Need to try everything: New companies have inclusive cultures that generate new ideas from all levels. This is important and the culture needs to be adopted by old line companies as no company can get it right if idea generation is concentrated at the top of an organization.
2. Content and technology are inextricable bound together.
3. Need to use technology that enables use of more of our intellect, allows us to reflect as well as analyze.

Discussing revenue models, Scardino spoke about a ‘the Ralph Lauren’ model of charging a lot for something and assuming people will pay for it. She seemed to be saying that if something were priced high then people would assume it had value and was worth the price. She then brought up an anecdote about her time as a newbie attorney in Savannah. When she moved there, she was one of many (but few women) attorneys charging $200/hr. She decided to charge $300 on the basis that people would come to her thinking she must be worth the extra (premium).

More recently she indicated that they have been able to raise the price of the FT and consumers have come with them on the price hike. She also noted The Economist’s revenues are 50% subscription versus advertising. A central component of their content strategy is to overlay the content with tools and analytics that extend the value of the underlying content. She says they as a company long ago realized that content was becoming a commodity in news and other segments like education. “There is only a few ways to describe photosynthesis” or describe history. Technology however can be a differentiator if used in an appropriate manner so the company attempts to understand how the reader interacts with the content. This approach is used in news, where there is more attention paid to analysis than news reporting, and also in education.

NYTimes Reviews API - NOT

The New York Times announced they are releasing an API for their best seller lists spanning years and years.

The Times Best Sellers API gives you quick access to current and past best-seller lists in 11 different categories, such as Hardcover Nonfiction and Paperback Mass-Market Fiction. The initial launch offers every weekly list since June 2008, and in the coming months, we plan to add data going back to the 1930s (thanks to the hard work of our Books staff). The API also offers details about specific best sellers, including historical rank information and links to New York Times reviews and excerpts. And these aren’t just canned responses; they’re searchable and sortable, with even more robust options coming in the next release.

I wonder about this.

I was initially quite interested in this bit of information but on reflection it seems they have missed a huge opportunity. WHAT ABOUT THE REVIEWS? Maybe I am missing something but with all the reviews sections closing all over the country the NYTimes has an opportunity to enable access to their reviews database via api staring them in the face. Surely, even if the book was a best seller for 23 weeks back in 1982 or 2002 is useful but the title is likely to have that stated on the cover anyhow (few publishers challenge such obvious marketing opportunities). Even if I know that wouldn't the review be far more useful? On top of that there are many books that weren't on the charts that were nevertheless reviewed well by the times so what of them? I give up...

Australia Again

Earlier this week I mentioned the discussion going on in Australia regarding the review of local copyright rules on imported books. The Guardian reports on Peter Carey's comments that he and other authors like Thomas Keneally wouldn't have found publishers without there being some sort of protection.

Take copyright away, he said, and they no longer have a commercial leg to stand on. "And then? Then the global companies will decide that their Australian offices will be much more profitable as distributors of product than publishers of books. If this sounds creepily colonial, it is because it is."

Carey, Grenville and other writers all said that without the support of Australian publishers at the start of their careers, they would never have become the internationally renowned authors they are today. "My experience shows how uninterested overseas publishers are in our work. The more "literary" it is (about ideas; more than simple entertainment), the less interested they are," said Grenville, who won the Orange prize in 2001 for her novel The Idea of Perfection. "Writers in the future might struggle to find the success that I have, because they may not have a local publisher to put the time and care into developing their career," agreed children's author Sonya Hartnett, who last year won the 5m Swedish kronor Astrid Lindgren memorial award.

Also, pay sharp attention to the photo and you will realize Peter was in NYC recently. In fact he lives here.

Gabriel Garcia Márquez Offers €5 Ebook

The Guardian reports that "the Spanish-speaking world's most famous literary agent, Carmen Balcells" has struck a deal with Spanish ebook downloading site Leer-e that will enable her client authors to sell their ebooks directly to consumers and also set their own prices.

As these do not hold the Spanish-language electronic rights to most of her authors' books, Balcells is in effect publishing them directly through leer-e. "I cannot tell you exactly what rights the authors get, but I can say that it is much more than they get from their books printed on paper,'' said Ignacio Latasa, co-founder of leer-e.

He said about 120 works by the authors on Balcells' books would eventually be available to download from leer-e. A dozen are already on the site.

It is not so much the pricing that is revolutionary since €5 approximates $9.99 but that Balcells has done an end run around publishers. There have been some suggestions that literary agents could become more active in 'selling' their stable of authors (or a long established literary property) directly to an ebook distributor rather than working with a publisher. Some literary estates may have been purchased recently with the intention of leveraging new formats without the need to 'bother' with a publisher. The vast bulk of these literary collections are finished works and therefore a publisher could be limited in the amount of value-add they can offer.

Congressional Quarterly For Sale

The Times Publishing company, owner of Congressional Quarterly has placed the company on the block (Press Release) and says it wants to concentrate on its newspaper operations in Florida. As a wholly owned affiliate of the Times Publishing Co., (which publishes the St. Petersburg Times of Florida), CQ is a private, for profit organization however, TPC is owned by the Poynter Institute, a non-profit school for journalists in St. Petersburg named in honor of CQ's founder, Nelson Poynter.

From the company's website:

Congressional Quarterly Inc. has been the nation's leader in political journalism since 1945. Over that time, the company has built a peerless reputation for objective, non-partisan and authoritative reporting on Congress and politics. Today, CQ stands on the leading edge of information companies publishing in both online and print platforms.

CQ has the largest press corps covering Capitol Hill. More than 150 reporters, editors and researchers keep subscribers informed on weekly, daily and real-time news cycles. In addition, CQ is the leader in legislative tracking. It offers a robust suite of fully integrated online services that includes bill coverage, schedules, CRS reports, government documents, member information, transcripts and more.

CQ is primarily a subscription-based publisher whose clients include members of Congress; leaders in the executive branch, business, nonprofit organizations and government affairs shops; and top academic institutions and media outlets.

CQ also publishes a free political site, CQ Politics, which serves up a unique, compelling perspective on politics and campaigns.

Last year, CQ's publishing operations (CQ Press) were sold to Sage.

Lonely Hearts and The London Review of Books

The juxtaposition of these two items was too much to ignore. I had just found out McCartney will be on Colbert on Wednesday night (so watch if Steven gets to duet) when I saw this headline on the Guardian: Lonely Hearts Club Band. The two items having nothing to do with each other but they fall together nicely.

The Guardian takes a poetic look at the personal ads in the London Review of Books and some of these ads are indeed hilarious. It does look like something of a sport to out humor the other guy/girl. Something like evolutionary humor...

Here is an excerpt:

The internet generation of daters hasn't abandoned personal ads. Rather, lonely heart sections have raised their game. Advertisers have evolved the formulaic WTLM/GSOH standard of old into clever haikus of longing and desire. No longer the realm of (whisper it) losers, there is a sophistication to the modern day personal ad that is both fascinating and, for those who are compelled to respond, frequently thrilling.

If clumsy, unfeeling lust is your bag, write to the ad above. Otherwise write to me, mid-forties M with boy next door looks, man from U.N.C.L.E. charm, and Fresh Prince of Bel Air casual insouciance. Wikky wikky wick yo. Box no. 2851.

You're a brunette, 6', long legs, 25-30, intelligent, articulate and drop dead gorgeous. I, on the other hand, have the looks of Herve Villechaize and an odour of wheat. No returns and no refunds at box no. 3321.

There are many more like those...

The Australian Problem

The Australian publishing and bookselling community can't seem to decide whether it wants or doesn't want protectionism. Peter Donoughue takes issue with the Australian Booksellers Association's decision to back track on their long standing support of abolition of the 30/90 rule.

Now the ABA comes along and AGREES with them! It says, yes, you're right, our members are so stupid that they would at every opportunity act against their commercial interests and, as a by-product, destroy local literary culture! No matter how reasonable the price of the local edition, no matter how fair the trading terms from the local publisher, no matter how good the distribution and customer care, no matter how beneficial to sales the publisher's marketing and publicity efforts, no matter the excellent personal service from the sales reps, no matter the impossibility of getting anywhere near the same deal from overseas wholesalers like Baker and Taylor.... we're gonna buy around, just because we can!

I'd call that stabbing yourself in the front!

Earlier in the month, the Sydney Morning Herald tried to explain the situation:

Why is this relevant to us in Australia? The Productivity Commission is undertaking an inquiry into how books are sold in Australia. We have a separate copyright territory. If a book is written, designed, edited and published by Australians - as is about $900 million worth of books sold in Australia annually - an overseas publisher cannot sell an edition of it here. If it is produced overseas, Australian publishers must publish it here within 30 days of its foreign release, or it can be "parallel-imported" to Australia. If it is out of stock, the publisher has 90 days to replenish it. This "use it or lose it" principle is commonly called the 30/90 rule.

Opponents of this say it gives us higher prices. Last month Bob Carr wrote in The Australian that price was "the only question before the Productivity Commission" and importation should be freed so more households could have "brimming bookshelves".

Cheaper books, higher literacy. The argument seems attractive. But it rests on a shaky assumption and a lack of consideration of the consequence.

I think I know where the frustration lies. The next title in Steig Larrson's trilogy is has been available in the UK since early January but won't be out here until summer. I can however order it from Waterstones.com. WTF?