MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 19): Newspapers, BookClubs, Television, George Orwell

Frank Rich in the NYTimes shares his opinion the state and possible future of newspapers:

In the Internet era, many sectors of American media have been re-enacting their at first complacent and finally panicked behavior of 60 years ago. Few in the entertainment business saw the digital cancer spreading through their old business models until well after file-sharing, via Napster, had started decimating the music industry. It’s not only journalism that is now struggling to plot a path to survival. But, with all due respect to show business, it’s only journalism that’s essential to a functioning democracy. And it’s not just because — as we keep being tediously reminded — Thomas Jefferson said so.Yes, journalists have made tons of mistakes and always will. But without their enterprise, to take a few representative recent examples, we would not have known about the wretched conditions for our veterans at Walter Reed, the government’s warrantless wiretapping the scams at Enron or steroids in baseball.

A few months ago I made a similar observation (PND):

Last week, I was discussing this topic with an acquaintance who lives in a fairly affluent part of Central New Jersey. He noted that, in a wide swath covering eight to ten townships and a number of counties, he wasn’t aware of more than one journalist assigned to that market from the larger state-wide newspapers. In Hoboken (regional HQ for PND), where mayoral and city council budget incompetence has seen our property taxes increase 50% in the past six months, there is rarely any local media coverage nor any attendance at city business meetings by traditional media. And forget investigative reporting - even in a state where you could throw a rock in any direction and hit a shady politician. The lack of journalistic attention means that one of the mainstays of democracy (the fourth estate) is eroded and this is seen starkly in Hoboken, where private citizens are forced (on their own initiative) to file freedom of information requests to gain access to basic public interest materials such as meeting minutes and financial statements.

And Rupert Murdoch was vocal this week becoming the self-interested shrill for paid newspaper content (Guardian) Nature Publishing is launching Nature Education and their first project is something named Scitable (ZDNet)

The first deliverable from the Education group is Scitable, an incredible combination of social media and a vast library of articles “commissioned, edited, and reviewed by NPG editors.” While Nature Education intends to expand Scitable’s offerings to include cellular and molecular biology and ultimately tackle the physical sciences, their initial focus has been on genetics. Exploring Scitable makes it very clear that this strategy of sticking with a single area of expertise and dealing with it expertly and in-depth makes a great deal of sense. I’m not a geneticist, but I spent enough years in the publish or perish world of biomedical research to know that they nailed this. The content is accessible, deep, relevant, and understandable. Entire college courses could be taught around this material and there is more than enough content to keep high school students digging deeper into their Advanced Placement Biology courses or to build introductory genetics curricula.

Watch the first series of Wallander stories on PBS happy in the knowledge that there will be a second series - and they won a BAFTA. (TheBookselller) Publishing Trends took a detailed look at Book Clubs (PublishingTrends)

Online retailers’ deep discounts, however, have lured away readers who might once have joined book clubs because they wanted cheap books, and any book can be found online, so today’s book clubs must offer something beyond price and selection. For PBC, that means an active online community; in fact, the club is online only. To expand its reach, PBC has linked with 37 “Alliance Partners,” including the Huffington Post and Daily Kos, and e-mails these organizations’ members about new books once a month. “Those people may buy books through us or may go on to Amazon,” Rosen says, claiming, “We just want to help these books sell, the books to do well, and the authors to do well, and this is our mission.”A look at how in failing health

George Orwell was able to finish 1984 (Observer)

This is one of Orwell's exceedingly rare references to the theme of his book. He believed, as many writers do, that it was bad luck to discuss work-in-progress. Later, to Anthony Powell, he described it as "a Utopia written in the form of a novel". The typing of the fair copy of "The Last Man in Europe" became another dimension of Orwell's battle with his book. The more he revised his "unbelievably bad" manuscript the more it became a document only he could read and interpret. It was, he told his agent, "extremely long, even 125,000 words". With characteristic candour, he noted: "I am not pleased with the book but I am not absolutely dissatisfied... I think it is a good idea but the execution would have been better if I had not written it under the influence of TB."And he was still undecided about the title: "I am inclined to call it NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR or THE LAST MAN IN EUROPE," he wrote, "but I might just possibly think of something else in the next week or two." By the end of October Orwell believed he was done. Now he just needed a stenographer to help make sense of it all.

Fears of new technology on incumbent businesses - in this case television - are often found to be unfounded. The Economist notes the impact of Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) that we supposed to destroy the television advertising model but have had nothing like that impact. In the words of one interviewee, DVR's have become "a hit saving machine" (The Economist)

Far from being revolutionary, in some ways DVR has made television more stable. With the exception of live events it is broadly true that the most popular programmes are recorded the most. Mr Wakshlag describes it as “a hit-saving machine”. Broadcast television receives a bigger boost from DVR playback than cable television. The device has made it harder to introduce a new television programme, particularly at 10pm when people are likely to be playing back shows they recorded at 8pm or 9pm.

Body Double Twits

Reading the twitter stream yesterday from BISG's Making Information Pay (#mip) made me anxious. I've spoken before at many conferences but things are different now. With heads bowed, tapping away there is out there a phalanx of twittering critics passing immediate judgement on any presenter. Well, maybe that's what an 'audience' is and like a school of fish they can suddenly turn unexpectedly from positive and engaged to "WTF am I doing here." Even today many speakers are probably happily unaware of the twittering audience phenomena, like Marcus Leaver (President, Sterling) who, in an otherwise interesting and engaging performance yesterday, happened to mention that he tried Twitter, didn't like it and some how ended up with a Twitter "body double". That's not playing fair.

Many people will know Mike Hyatt (CEO, Thomas Nelson) is an avid social network user. Why? Because he sees social networking as an important aspect of his job as CEO, and not just to spout off whimsically about this and that but to actively and meaningfully engage both his employees and customers. There would be no chance he would engage a body double twit. Mike often plays first line customer service rep on Twitter which is where his activity is significant. If he sees an item having to do with TN he will step in directly and engage with the person or persons who are either seeking help or complaining about something. A body double CEO can never do the same thing in the same way.

Played for laughs, Leaver went even further down the 'we're getting it wrong in social networking' road by telling us that the guy twit responsible for twittering on all things pregnancy - for their Good Expectations titles - recently got a response from someone that read, "I'm having Braxton Hicks contractions right now, what do I do?" It was amusing, but am I laughing because I'm imagining the helplessness of the twit or because I can't believe they've got this so wrong? If you are going to bother using social networking, be like Mike and make it real.

Murdoch on the Kindle and Paid Content

From their earnings conference call yesterday (SeekingAlpha):

If it is possible to charge for content on the web, it is obvious from the Journal’s experience. We are now in the midst of a [proper] debate over the value of content and it is clear to many newspapers the current model is malfunctioning. We have been at the forefront of that debate and you can confidently presume that we are leading the way in finding a model that maximizes revenues and returns for our shareholders. I can assure you we will not be feeding our content rights to the fine people who created the Kindle. We will control the prices for our content and we will control the relationship with our customers. Any device maker or website which doesn’t meet these basic criteria on content will not be doing business long-term with News Corporation.
Too many content creators have been passive in the face of obvious violations of intellectual property rights. We rightly hold China and other countries accountable on this important issue. But the violation of these rights is rampant on the web in our own country. Our content is extremely valuable and the violators have recognized that value.
Within the company itself, the very bright people we have at our Slingshot Laboratories are devising clever ways to monetize the content of some of our long established print properties. We will be matching their contemporary expertise and the creation of communities within our traditional -- with our traditional expertise in the creation of content. The [current days of the Internet] will soon be over.

PS: Barely a mention of Harpercollins. A tough 3rdQ means HC will need a very strong 4thQ to finish the year in positive territory. (PublishersWeekly)

Big Kindle Goes to School (Shrug)

The launch of Big Kindle looks like another round in the continuing Apple vs Amazon cage fight. Amazon looks to be on the defensive as they rush out a larger version of the Kindle for the education market in advance of Apple's proposed Tablet PC. Jobs may think that people don't read but he does know that children are educated, and education is an arena Apple has traditionally done well in. The developing convergence of education and book e-commerce is what Amazon may see as a threat: A captured market of educational materials that, should Apple enter with a tablet PC type device, Amazon could be locked out of.

For Amazon however, Big Kindle will still be giggled over by those in Cupertino. Will the Apple tablet be any better? It is certain to have a far better form factor. Whether it will be expressly suited to delivering educational content in a dynamic and forward thinking manner remains to be seen. That is certainly not within the capabilities of Big Kindle.

Several universities participated in the launch of Big Kindle and the hype around the launch hid a troubling question; namely, why these schools were in-bed with the retailer at all? On a list serve I questioned,

Don't the participating universities appear to be endorsing a hardware platform (not to mention a specific retail channel). You could argue (possibly strongly) that allowing the bookstore to be managed by B&N or Follett or even the adoption of college textbooks themselves to be little different; however, doesn’t the changed paradigm suggest an opportunity to operate on a more open field of play or is this more of the same leading to more student frustration, higher prices and deadened innovation in education?

In other words, why would the universities want to continue the (essentially) old way of doing business when most observers believe we are on the cusp of a renaissance in educational learning. The Kindle doesn't do multimedia, it doesn't do color and most importantly it doesn't do networking because the Kindle is a closed system. This is a short sighted collaboration between schools and Amazon that doesn't really suggest any major change.

As I thought about the Big Kindle development it struck me that there could still be a more interesting development. Content media companies suddenly developing a hardware delivery platform are growing like weeds from NewsCorp to Hearst, and there could be an opportunity for collaboration between the news/magazine world and education. What if CourseSmart or Safari joined one of these efforts? That would be a far more interesting and potentially game changing development than selling text book content on a Big Kindle. By definition, the hardware to support a digital magazine will be capable of all the aspects necessary in delivering a changed educational experience.

Will that happen? As it turns out some of the partners involved in CourseSmart are also participating in the Big Kindle roll out; but, what is CourseSmart if it isn't a new way to deliver educational materials to learners? That doesn't seem to be what students will be getting with Big Kindle. There may be all kinds of reasons why CourseSmart (or even an publisher themselves) won't be launching a device: The predominant reason may be the amount of print revenue tied to Amazon, and therefore from my perspective Big Kindle and education is more about marketing hype than anything fundamental. We await more developments with keen interest.

Library Associations Address Issues in Google Settlement

Fellow traveler Peter Brantley has posted on Scribd the submission by ALA, ARL and ACRL addressing their concerns about the Google Settlement agreement. This document was submitted to the court last week. Here are some of the notable passages but the document is only 22 pages long for those looking for a quick read.

On how important the database may become:

Notwithstanding these deficiencies in the ISD, an institutional subscription will provide an authorized user with online access to the full text of as many as 20 million books. Students and faculty members at higher education institutions with institutional subscriptions will be able to access the ISD from any computer -- from home, a dorm room, or an office. Accordingly, it is possible that faculty and students at institutions of higher education will come to view the institutional subscription as an indispensable research tool. They might insist that their institution’s library purchase such a subscription. The institution’s administration might also insist that the library purchase an institutional subscription so that the institution can remain competitive with other institutions of higher education in terms of the recruitment and retention of faculty and students.

And this in regard to market power:

However, as likely consumers of this essential research facility, the Library Associations cannot overlook the possibility that the Registry or Google might abuse the control the Settlement confers upon them. Abuse of this control would threaten fundamental library values of access, equity, privacy, and intellectual freedom.

This with respect to pricing:

Google will have the incentive to negotiate vigorously with the Registry to set the price of the institutional subscription as low as possible to maximize the number of authorized users with access to the ISD. Nonetheless, Google’s business model, at least with respect to the institutional subscription, may change, and at some point in the future it may seek a profit maximizing price structure that has the effect of reducing access.

Significantly, the predominant model for pricing of scientific, technical, and medical journals in the online environment has been based on low volume and high prices. Major commercial publishers have been content with strategies that maximize profits by selling subscriptions to few customers at high cost. Typically these customers are academic and research libraries. Therefore, the Registry and Google may seek to emulate this strategy in the market for institutional subscriptions.

On privacy:

Evidently, in the Settlement negotiations the class representatives insisted on these measures to protect the security of digital copies of their books; but no one demanded protection of user privacy. Users of the services enabled by the Settlement also cannot rely on competitive forces to preserve their privacy. In the online environment, competition is perhaps the most powerful force that can help to insure user privacy. If a user does not like one search engine firm’s privacy policy, he can switch to another search engine. Similarly, a user has many choices among online retailers, email providers, social networks, and Internet access providers. The competitive pressure often forces at least a minimal level of privacy protection. However, with the services enabled by the Settlement, there will be no competitive pressure protecting user privacy.

They worry about intellectual freedom and censorship:

While Google on its own might not choose to exclude books, it probably will find itself under pressure from state and local governments or interest groups to censor books that discuss topics such as alternative lifestyles or evolution. After all, the Library Project will allow minors to access up to 20% of the text of millions of books from the computers in their bedrooms and to read the full text of these books from the public access terminals in their libraries.

Addresses issues with new affiliated services:

Although the Settlement permits the Registry to license the rights it possesses to third parties such as Amazon, the Settlement does not require it to do so. Nor does it provide standards to govern the terms by which the Registry would license these rights. This means that the Registry could refuse to license the rights to Google competitors on terms comparable to those provided to Google under the Settlement.43 The Registry, therefore, could prevent the development of competitive services.

Remember the Book Clubs?

Ad age has a review of book clubs and the article touches on curation and community. It is interesting that the idea of helping information consumers navigate the plethora of choices available to them - in this case books - is being discussed with increased frequency. Ad Age:

From this article:

He views PBC not as a mere book club, but as a book community. Members can discuss their views online in community discussion forums and read exclusive content from highly regarded writers and journalists. PBC also offers a unique book-reading and charity-giving combination; books are selected for their liberal bent by a renowned editorial board (members include Michael Chabon, Dave Eggars and Erica Jong) and $2 of the proceeds from each book sale go to one of the participating nonprofits.

And this:

"We don't like to think of ourselves as pushing our books on readers; we like to think that we are curating and recommending a selection of books for our readers," Ms. Siegel said.

Direct Brands spent $51.8 million on advertising in 2008, according to TNS Media Intelligence estimates, excluding internet data -- a decrease of 18% over 2007.

(My post Silos of Curation from last week).

MediaWeek Report (Vol 2, No 19): Blog Roundup: Week 18 - Schlager, Exact Editions, O'Reilly, Booksquare

Neil Schlager worries about the future of reference publishing in a post this week (SchlagerBlog):

For too long–decades now, really–reference publishers have pumped out a cascade of books (and now databases) but done very little to address a fundamental problem: discoverability. Reference books have always required a conduit–the librarian–to be used properly and fully, because their contents don’t show up in any card catalog. A student writing a paper about the Battle of Gettysburg has no idea that the multivolume encyclopedia buried away in a far corner of the library has wonderful information that can tell her everything she needs to know, unless a librarian is there to help her, and unless that librarian himself is familiar with that set. As a result, as studies have shown, print reference sections in all libraries have been gathering dust, day by day, year by year, decade by decade. The familiar library convention discussion group topic–”Is Print Reference Dying?”–is both mordantly funny and also terrifyingly legitimate. The truth is that lots of print reference is still published and bought, but most of the new stuff joins its ancestors–it sits on a shelf, unused.

The situation is only modestly better with electronic reference. Tech-savvy students may indeed be more likely to stumble upon resources that they can use in this setting, but “stumble” is still the operative word. First, they have to navigate a myriad of unique, siloed databases, with inscrutable names and idiosyncratic search interfaces. Then, they have to be careful enough to pick the search results gems from what may be a torrent of hits.

Adam Hodgkin reflects on London Bookfair as well as thoughts about the meaning of the Google Book Agreement (ExactEditions):

If we think of this rather large and hangar-like hall being occupied by the books that are currently the focus of the commercial market for books, we can also imagine a skyscraper of 30 or perhaps 40 stories being built above the Earls Court Stadium. The stacked stories of this skyscraper will each contain another 300,000 mostly older books, but this time all of them ordered, regimented and deployed in total silence and precise obedience with no noisy haggling or discordant trading. Such a skyscraper would be a serious obstacle on the flight path for planes approaching Heathrow, but its towering shadow does give us an idea of the relative scale of the Google Books Search project as set against the current (this year, last year) output of publishers in the English language. The 10,000,000+ books that Google will have in its arsenal when the Google Book Search library goes live in a year of two will completely dwarf the current activity. The 40 odd stories of the Google Books skyscaper will not need the traditional tools and mechanisms of the book trade. The transactions, accessibility, searchability, and reading of these millions of books will all be a matter of database and web-driven activity. Commercial arrangements will be settled by the Books Rights Registry or the publishers' agreements with Google and the commercial transactions and access rules will be executed by Google or its contracted distributors. There will be very little need for human intervention, except at the periphery. When authors, agents and publishers decide to put things into the system, or, at the consumer edge, when readers, searchers, librarians or consumers decide that they wish to have some form of access to the repository. Of course Google will also not need a skyscraper at all. The few hundred terabytes, possibly by then one or two petabytes, that may be needed for the Google nearly-complete libary in 2012 will comfortably fit in the confines of the whirling, bladed and racked systems, housed in a single standard freight container. We should add a few more trailers to cope with the bandwidth of a billion users, but it is all fitting nicely in the underground loading bay that they have at Earls Court. The efficiency and reliability of the Google system does not require large physical infrastructure. Push on a couple of years, and by 2014 I think one can be sure that Google will have most of the world's published literature in the Google database. How will new books then be working in relation to the 50, 60, 70, 80 stories high skyscraper of previously published but now completely databased and universally accessible digital books?

Brian O'Leary had some thoughts on curation as a method to disperse the increasing clutter of information (Magellan Partners):

But that’s not quite a business model. As my colleague Mac Slocum noted, “The world definitely needs a clear-headed curation advocate, particularly one that links it directly to revenue (this labor of love stuff only goes so far ...).”

Historically, reviewers got paid by newspapers, who relied on some mix of advertising and subscription revenue to create and deliver a comprehensive product. It’s believed that few people read everything, but the “one size fits all” model was accepted by readers and advertisers alike.

Booksellers are paid for curation when they sell something. Unfortunately, the small, independent bookstore whose title mix reflects a niche, a neighborhood or a community is hard to sustain. This curation question came to a head two weeks ago, when Amazon appeared to delist titles with gay and lesbian content.

Joe Wikert posted some video from the CEO Roundtable at the TOC conference earlier this year. It features, Bob Young (Lulu), Mike Hyatt (ThomasNelson), Tim O'Reilly and Clint Greenleaf (Greenleaf Publishing). (2020 Blog)

Back on the curation theme Clay Shirky talks about "filter failure" and how collaboration may be the answer to finding the best information and news content (Pub 2.0)

The #swineflu hashtag on Twitter serves as a good point of reference for what Clay Shirky called “filter failure.” The problem is not that there’s a wild abundance of useful information, overloading us with detail, facts, and commentary; the problem is that we don’t have the proper filtering system set up to separate trusted sources and reliable resources from rumors, jokes, misinformation, and ephemera. If those seeking to provide links to reliable information started using a hashtag such as #therealswineflu, it would likely be overtaken — quickly — by tagged content with less value, whatever its source.

So how do we solve filter failure?

We depend on humans to serve as our filters. We do this all the time, when we ask a friend a question, or talk with someone we know who happens to be an expert on a given topic. (I imagine the world’s epidemeologists are fielding a huge number of Facebook messages from old friends this week.)

When it comes to reliable sources for news that breaks on a massive scale, our best sources are likely to be Wikipedia for facts, and journalists for explanation, clarification, context, and meaningful analysis.

Tim O'Reilly discusses a new book project written in (on?) Powerpoint (Radar)

Of course, modularity isn't the only thing that publishers can learn from new media. The web itself, full of links to sources, opposing or supporting points of view, multimedia, and reader commentary, provides countless lessons about how books need to change when they move online. Crowdsourcing likewise.

But I like to remind publishers that they are experts in both linking and in crowdsourcing. After all, any substantial non-fiction work is a masterwork of curated links. It's just that when we turn to ebooks, we haven't realized that we need to turn footnotes and bibliographies into live links. And how many publishers write their own books? Instead, publishers for years have built effective business processes to discover and promote the talents of those they discover in the wider world! (Reminder: Bloomsbury didn't write Harry Potter; it was the work of a welfare mom.) But again, we've failed to update these processes for the 21st century. How do we use the net to find new talent, and once we find it, help to amplify it?

Kassia Krozser expresses some concern over privacy that may engender if the Google Booksettlement goes ahead (Booksquare)

If the settlement is approved, then Google owns lots and lots of readers. We’re locked into the Google service if we want the best possible search results. Yet our concerns were not addressed in the settlement. One such worry is the privacy factor.

Every move we make online is tracked and traceable. Generally, this is not a concern; so much data is being crunched that individuals are rarely singled out for close examination. But this audit trail can be used against us, and I hadn’t really considered the implications of my online activity in light of GBS until I read a recent call from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Physical libraries have long held firm against law enforcement seeking to use customer records against individuals (and it’s just one more reason to love librarians!). What we read should remain private to us. However, once we, as a society move beyond the physical into the digital, new rules seemingly apply. Now is the time to ensure that the GBS includes consumer privacy protections.

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 18): Amazon, OCLC, Springer, RFID

Amazon.com launches subscription payments functionality for third parties (Amazon Blog via PB)

We are very excited to announce that more than 25 providers, including CardinalCommerce, Miva Merchant, Magento, ShopVisible, Mercantec, and Zoovy will be supporting Amazon Payments as part of their offerings. In addition, Convio, a software and services provider to the nonprofit community, is integrating Amazon Payments into its fundraising platform to enable its client base to accept alternate payment methods for online donations. Plug-ins for widely-used open source e-commerce platforms, such as osCommerce and ZenCart, are also now available for quick and easy integration with Amazon Payments.

Informa moves domicile for tax reasons and also looks to raise cash via rights issue (TimesOnline):

Informa, the publisher behind Lloyd's List, is to desert Britain for Switzerland to avoid “double taxation” controversially introduced by Alistair Darling for profits earned overseas.

The move, announced as the debt-laden company also said that it would tap shareholders in a £242 million rights issue, will save Informa an extra charge of about £10 million a year, based on last year's profits.

Discussion over RFID use in Libraries. Some commentary on placing bibliographic data on the RFID chip which seems to me to be a disastrous idea. RFID Blog:

The question of “what goes on the tag” has been occupying the list quite a bit this week. Prompted by an enquiry from Helen Jarvis at the University of Kent I wrote a short reply to try and explain my assertion that adding bibliographic data to tags was not necessarily a good idea. My invitation for someone to “tell me I’m an idiot” was enthusiastically accepted by Ivar Thyssen, Export Manager of PV Supa, who suggests that placing any bibliographic data on tags is, in fact, illegal. I must confess that this came as something of a surprise to me but not as much of a surprise at it will be to those libraries that have already begun adding bibliographic data to tags. We’ll have to see how Ivar’s assertions stand up under scrutiny, since he has been invited to provide backing for this claim by Brian Green Executive Director of the ISBN agency but if he’s right the rules have just changed again.

OCLC announces a report: Online Catalogs, What Users and Librarians Want.. Selected key research findings:

• The end user’s experience of the delivery of wanted items is as important, if not more important, than his or her discovery experience.
• End users rely on and expect enhanced content including summaries/abstracts and tables of contents.
• An advanced search option (supporting fielded searching) and facets help end users refi ne searches, navigate, browse and manage large result sets.
• Important differences exist between the catalog data quality priorities of end users and those who work in libraries.
• Librarians and library staff, like end users, approach catalogs and catalog data purposefully. End users generally want to fi nd and obtain needed information; librarians and library staff generally have work responsibilities to carry out. The work roles of librarians and staff infl uence their data quality preferences.
• Librarians’ choice of data quality enhancements refl ects their understanding of the importance of accurate, structured data in the catalog.

The Economist reports on standards efforts in the Cloud Computing world:

Just as predictably, the leaders in cloud computing are absent from the list of supporters: Amazon, an online retailer that has successfully branched out into computing services; Google, which is not only a huge cloud unto itself but has built a cloud-computing platform for use by others; Salesforce.com, the biggest provider of software-as-a-service; and Microsoft. Indeed, it was an executive at the world’s biggest software firm, Steven Martin, who first leaked the manifesto, complaining that it had been drawn up in secret. “It appears to us that one company, or just a few companies, would prefer to control the evolution of cloud computing,” he wrote in a blog.

Speculation on which Private Equity firms may be interested in an investment in Springer (FT):

Leading private equity groups are competing to inject about €400m ($530m) of equity into Springer Science and Business Media, the German academic publisher, which is looking to sell a stake of as much as 49 per cent.

Blackstone, CVC Capital Partners and TPG are all considering submitting first-round bids, due by next month.

Other groups mulling over a bid are: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Hellman & Friedman, Carlyle, EQT and Providence Equity Partners.

Truthiness a Casualty in Reality

According to a serious study undertaken by researchers at Ohio State both liberals and conservatives find Stephen Colbert funny. No harm in that. On the other hand conservatives don't know he's joking:

Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism.

See, that's what makes these people so dangerous.

Photo Walk Around Mayfair and St James'

Direct Link to Collection

Amazon Stanza: This Changes Nothing

There is a lot of consternation in TwitterLand regarding the news that Amazon will buy LexCycle the producer of the Stanza iPhone book application. This is the community whose collective pulse has only just returned to normal after the 'adult' content categorization issue so it might be time to get the paddles out. How the publishers will react (if at all) is less clear, but one thing is clear: As e-Books become progressively more important to publisher futures, their collective power with respect to Amazon diminishes. And while these are early days in the future of eBooks, it precisely the point that eBooks are of only minor importance to publishers that perhaps gives them the opportunity to define their future landscape.

Amazon's acquisition does warrant concern regarding concentration of retail options for e-Books: How publishers deal with that issue is unlikely to be effective, however. Here are some ideas:

1. E-Pub - whether e-pub is the correct standard is less important than everyone adopting a common standard. It is also crucial that they adopt the common standard without bastardizing it and creating 'their version' of e-pub. At LBF last week, there were many asides such as 'they have their own version' of e-pub. Publishers need to force this issue collectively and aggressively (and this is not a collusion issue) so that the e-Book supply chain can run as smooth as possible. The industry is wimpy in its policing of a standard for e-Book content and it needs to get stronger. The gyrations publishers are going through to prepare and deliver a variety of formats is stupid and has to stop.
2. Interoperability - An e-book purchaser has to be able to take all of this or her purchased content from one e-reader to another with no degradation in experience and no added expense. If I buy a book to read on the Kindle, I must be able to read the same book on a Sony or IRex. That is the minimum a reader should expect. In "bookland" we view our marketplace as the center of the universe; however, there is a much larger related issue around Amazon's data services that impacts a much wider segment of business. Earlier this month in The Economist, the newspaper reported on the "Open Cloud Manifesto" which attempts to set common standards for interoperability across the various cloud computing market offerings. Guess who is refusing to play: Amazon and Microsoft. This means that if I decide to use Amazon for the first three years and then strike a deal with another provider (for lower cost or better service) I am going to have a very difficult time making the switch. Publishers need to require that all retailers enable interoperability across e-readers.
   
3. Archiving - As a reader, I do not want to run the risk of losing access to my e-Books because the vendor stops selling the hardware or sells the division to a competitor. There has to be a mechanism to effectively escrow my content so that I can always get to it. Is it too much to expect a replication of the practice of placing a p-book on my shelf for 50 yrs? Maybe, but why limit my expectations? This also applies when I go overseas: It is unfathomable that I would lose access to something I purchased legally.
4. Collaboration - Trade publishers should give serious consideration to collective activity in building a trade version of CourseSmart which is a JV combining many of the top educational publishers in an effort to leverage e-content. CourseSmart is not anti-competitive, rather, it seeks to provide a level playing field for the delivery of all e-content into the educational marketplace. In the p-world, publishers combined their sales, fulfillment and distribution with other publishers (less so in the US but it is a common practice in the UK and Australia) so why not have a similar program for e-Books? If so, it can and should be done in combination with the other ideas above.
5. Fight - Hold back e-Content from retailers that refuse to play by the rules. "Fat chance" you say? Well, think about how hard this one will be to consider as an option in 5 or 10 years. If not now then never, and it really is the only credible option. Getting a Coursesmart offering off the ground or actively helping B&N (strange bed-fellows) with their expected e-Book store could be critical here.
   

Admittedly, I am naive in assuming that publishers collectively could force commonality on any of these issues but this early stage in the e-Books history offers a once in a lifetime opportunity. Once e-Books become important, then the retailer holds the cards and doing it their way will have a long-term deleterious impact on the industry. Added costs, less efficiency, lessened user experience. The purchase of Lexcycle just proves that Amazon acts completely in their self-interest to protect their marketplace (and maybe they should), but it also tells me they are unafraid of any meaningful reaction from the publishing community to counter-balance their unilateral tendencies.

There are possibly more points upon which the publishing community should be more forceful, especially as they relate to Amazon; however, rather than lament the further consolidation of e-Book power around the Kindle/Amazon (which will get nowhere,) think about forcing adoption of standards, processes and terms of service that make for a more efficient market. Those are not necessarily in Amazon's interests, but they should be in the publishers'.

London Days of Futures Past

The question from the back of the room momentarily perplexed the panel of publishing executives: “What will we be reading these things on in five years?” It was a question so lacking in substance that it seemed designed only to become the lead for the writer article. But at the same time, it hit me: This question sums up the trade publishing industry. We anxiously await the next technical innovation that will both confuse and galvanize us but, in the process neglect to make our own plans. There is a little bit of the victim in us: We remain focused on the machine rather than the content and stand to become victims of change rather than masters of it. No publisher knows the answer to the machine question but, at the same time, they don’t appear interested in influencing the direction of technology that will guide their industry.

The writer in this case was looking for some new type of reader he could wrap his article around. What he (and the audience) should have been asking is what will we be reading (perhaps “interacting with” would be more accurate) in five years. And there lies the issue. If you asked most of the attendees at this week’s London Bookfair, they might have answered, ”an electronic version of that” while blithely pointing to something on the shelf. A more sophisticated respondent may have noted that e-book sales are only 1% of total revenues and therefore not enough to induce any radical change.

The capabilities of today’s ebook readers and applications surpass the requirements of today’s content and I don’t think that’s a good thing. In the wider world of publishing, there is a lack of ambition when it comes to how content could be presented or even how the novel could be made over. As a case in point, a panel presentation on the publishing future of 2020 offered nothing to the inventive publisher looking for guidance or direction for the future - just a lot of mild blather about workplace diversification (an important topic, certainly, but not in this context), platitudes, generalities and a presentation about workforce training in which the presenter held (in the air!) his ‘props’ (which was charmingly retro but, to my mind, underlined the lack of collective imagination).

This session was followed by the annual ‘state of British publishing’ presented by numerous heads of house in which platitudes were plentiful and expectations were dulled. Guttenberg has been dead a long time but the eBook has cryogenically resuscitated him while, at the same time, causing us to collectively lose our ability to think strategically about the impact of movable type. I mean, if we’re going to continue to bring him up let’s at least document the path from illuminated manscripts to today’s self-publishing. Mention Guttenberg and we get a free pass: I won’t have to think hard about the significance of the migration to e-text, e-delivery, e-commerce, e-interaction, etc., etc., because Guttenberg is the God of publishing change and everyone will get the significance. These publishers stand to be the victims of change rather than its master: The millennial-Monk forced out of a job.

Earlier this year, publishers were as much in the dark about the capabilities of the new Kindle reader as the rest of us. What we should really be considering is how can we can re-think our current products and involve ourselves in the technical development of e-readers and apps that take advantage of our new ideas. Force developers to adapt the technology or incorporate new applications that enable the delivery of our uniquely developed concepts. Press developers to work for us (not surprise us) and haul back some of the product development initiative. Perhaps then consumers will find themselves less in love with the ‘Kindle’ (machine) and more enamored of the content.

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 16): OCLC, Television, NYTimes

OCLC gather bibliographic experts to discuss metadata needs and practices for publishers and libraries. From their summary press release:

This report is a high level summary of proceedings, outcomes and proposed next steps. Participant biographies, agenda, presentations, related reading and upcoming events can also be accessed from this Symposium website. Purpose of the Symposium: Explore current models for creation, distribution and maintenance of publisher supply chain and library metadata: Are they sustainable? What are the common needs? Are they subject to duplication of effort across communities? To what extent are they shared and interoperable? Explore new paradigms for metadata creation, distribution and maintenance that: Are more easily shared and interoperable, start upstream and allow metadata to evolve over time, engage multiple communities in the metadata lifecycle

Also, OCLC has updated the interface for worldcat.org and it looks pretty spiffy. Here is a link to an entry for The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford and one of my favorite books. OCLC also took an important step in creating a set of network services dedicated to the library community. Long in the making, OCLC has put some definition around how it sees its revised role in the library world. (This move by them requires a much longer post).

OCLC's vision is similar to Software as a Service (SaaS) but is distinguished by the cooperative "network effect" of all libraries using the same, shared hardware, services and data, rather than the alternative model of hosting hardware and software on behalf of individual libraries. Libraries would subscribe to Web-scale management services that include modular management functionality. Moreover, libraries would benefit from the network-level integration of numerous services that are not currently part traditional integrated library systems, e.g., Knowledge Base Integration, WorldCat Collection Analysis, WorldCat Selection, WorldCat Local, etc..

NYTimes (via GigaOm) points out the likely long term failure of international rights in the age of eBooks. (Well not really but that's at the core of this issue). NYT

So we see that Fictionwise is not the only retailer affected by these outdated licensing practices, and that’s exactly what is at play here. Publishers like Fictionwise and Amazon do not own the content they sell, they simply license it for sale just like you and I license it when we buy e-books. The archaic licensing system means that publishers have to make separate license deals for each country in which they want to sell e-books. This is something that is very difficult to do, even for the bigger houses like Fictionwise and Amazon.

BTW - Those DVD's that President Obama give to Gordon Brown a week ago don't work in the UK. (Guardian) In Newsweek, read about changes in Television that could presage changes in publishing.

For decades network TV has been about reach. Programmers traditionally chose shows with broad appeal, the better to get millions of viewers and, in turn, persuade national advertisers to buy those eyeballs. That era is essentially over and the networks are scrambling to adapt to a fragmented landscape where even popular shows are lucky to pull in 10 million viewers. "They have to rethink what they put on the air, how many hours they'll do it, everything in their playbook," says a former top executive who now produces TV shows.

LATimes festival of books and discussing the future of books. The always quotable Richard Nash: (LAT)

Nash noted that poetry micropresses are flourishing in this new, hectic publishing environment. With what may be the quote of the festival, he added, "Poetry, like porn, is a harbinger of culture."

Private Equity investment firm has taken a bath on NYTimes shares and maybe looking to off load them. Who would buy? Reuters

Interest has grown as Harbinger, which bought the shares as part of a campaign against the Times to change its business, reels from losses in its funds, the Journal reported.

Harbinger bought the Times stake over a period of weeks in 2007 and 2008, eventually pouring more than $500 million into the publisher. Since then, Times shares have fallen along with other newspapers, which are fighting for their lives as advertising revenue slumps.

Harbinger's stake is worth less than $160 million now.

Overview of Open Access Book Projects

Writing in the UM Journal of Electronic Publishing Peter Suber provides a complete run down of open access initiatives. This article mainly covers journals however he does pay significant attention to open access initiatives concerning books. (LINK)

Here is a sample:

2008 wasn’t the first year that academic book publishers published OA monographs or discovered the synergy of OA and POD (print on demand). But in 2008 the OA-POD model moved from the periphery to the mainstream and became a serious alternative more often than an experiment. We saw OA monographs or OA imprints from Amsterdam UP, Athabasca UP, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Caltech, Columbia UP, Hamburg UP, Potsdam UP, the Universidad Católica Argentina, the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Forum for Public Health in South Eastern Europe, the Institut français du Proche-Orient, and the Society of Biblical Literature.

He goes on to name many more programs. He also discusses the Google scanning project:

The settlement could mean that fair use will never be a workable rationale for large-scale book scanning projects, even if Google’s original fair-use claim was strong (as I believe it was). Future scanners may have to pay for permission, in part because Google paid and in part because the new commercial opportunities arising from the settlement itself will weigh against fair-use claims. At the same time, it means that users will have vastly improved online access to books under copyright but out of print (20% previews rather than short snippets), free full-text searching for a much larger number of books, free full-text access from selected terminals in libraries, free text-mining of full texts for some institutional users, and easier priced access to full-text digital editions.

The Google Settlements Vast Supply of Content

For most public and academic institutions, amassing a collection of seven million volumes would be a pipe dream of extraordinary proportion and, while there are many legitimate concerns and arguments regarding the imminent resolution of the case between Google, The Authors Guild and the AAP, the benefit to the public (via libraries) is hard to ignore. Take an average cost of $10 per book purchased and add to that cost the costs of making it shelf ready, of checking it in and out and the capital expense of storing it, and there is simply no way libraries could afford to acquire a collection as comprehensive.

We don't know what the pricing will be to libraries (and Mike Shatzkin and I are attempting to make some estimates) but the methodology for pricing is unlikely to differ substantially from the way existing databases are offered to public and academic libraries. Allowance will be made for institution budgets, school enrollment, population served, etc. and both Google and the Book Rights Registry (AG & AAP) will be interested in maximizing penetration so that their revenues are optimized. There may be built in protection against extortionate pricing since both Google and the BBR want to maximize views which argues for pricing that achieves the widest potential audience for the database. Library penetration will not be 100% but it will be high since libraries - particularly academics and large publics - will feel compelled to purchase access to this content to support their patrons. In fact, not having it will cause more consternation and deliberation.

Many libraries will see licensing this content as an opportunity to put their research capabilities on par with the top order of academic libraries. After all, this content comes from a who's who of top flight public and academic institutions. A small agricultural college in west Texas may never have had the resources to purchase a deep repository of content supporting their core curriculum but here they have the opportunity to do just that.

Opposition to this agreement is building in advance of the early May decision and, while I personally support adoption of this agreement, I am troubled that the fact of the scanning of this material is now treated as a fait accompli and has thus become a starting point for establishing agreement. Resolution should have addressed the core issue of fair use and copyright but that has not been the case and, because those issues have not been addressed, it leaves Google with a certain (some may say excessive) market power and leaves non-participants to this agreement/resolution open to possible future copyright violation.

As has been pointed out (and openly supported by Google), Orphan works legislation is not precluded or superseded by the agreement between AG, AAP and Google. What strikes me as odd however is the lack of attention any member of Congress has paid to this particular issue. To my knowledge no Congressional representative has come out either in support of the Google settlement or become newly interested in Orphan works legislation. Given the intensity of the attention paid to this issue in the publishing and library community it would seem that if Congress is still not interested in addressing Orphan works legislation then they never will. That's the situation we effectively had before the parties agreed to the settlement (and for many years past). I hope Congress does take up Orphan works legislation but in the meantime I also hope a lot of students and researchers make extensive use of this vast supply of content.

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 15): Kindle, McClatchy, Dawson, Springer

More remedial analysis and needless hype over sales numbers for the Amazon Kindle. What is somewhat irritating about this post by Michael Arrington at Techcrunch is the fawning responses from some of the commentators.

Mahaney’s most recent estimates are for more than 1 million Kindle 2s to sell this year, and the current sales numbers absolutely support that, based on how the economy goes. Amazon could easily increase production to satisfy a surge in demand.

Our sources on Kindle sales have proven extremely reliable in the past. Last August we nailed the number of Kindle 1 devices sold at that time. And we first broke the news of the Kindle 2 and the new large screen Kindle.

In actuality there is no reliability to his sources because nothing has been said publicly. Also, if these are the numbers now what will the numbers look like when (if) eBooks really take off and they constitute more than 5% of revenue? Publishing Technology (nee Vista & Ingenta) have announced trials with several publishers that enable e-Book sales directly off the publishers web site (Telegraph):

Publishing Technology is creating a new service which will allow publishers to sell their 'e-books' directly though their own websites.

The company has already been running trials with Random House, Harper Collins and Penguin in a move which could cut out the need for the big internet intermediaries.

Chris Andersen's Booktour company which is identifies when and where authors have events has received $350K in seed money. Dawson holdings which distributes into the newsagent marketplace in the UK continues to loose clients and it's becoming clear they will have to exit this market (Telegraph):

Dawson Holdings, which distributes magazine and newspaper titles to newsagents, retailers and airlines, said in a trading update today that it expected Telegraph Media Group to "terminate" its deal in the autumn.

Last month Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail, and Comag, the joint venture between Condé Naste and the National Magazine Company, announced they would not be renewing contracts with Dawson when they expire in 2010. The two deals accounted for £139m in revenue for Dawson last year.

Dawson also has a library supply business that to-date appears unaffected. McClatchy newspapers reported that they expect to make $225mm in digital revenue this year which translates to 15% of total revenues. (Reuters)

At McClatchy, 15% of our advertising revenue today comes from online. McClatchy, a company founded before the advent of electric lights, will generate nearly $200 million dollars in digital revenue this year at a higher profit margin than our print business.

What significance is this?

• Fifteen percent is above the average newspaper publisher’s take from digital
• $200 million would be almost enough to run The New York Times’s newsroom operations for a year. Not bad.

Higher profit margins than print? We know Gary is a big fan of pop music to highlight his industry presentations, and that he likes the Rolling Stones in particular. Maybe “Time Is on My Side” would be a decent choice for those kinds of numbers.

Qualification from Springer & Candover that the investors are looking for a $500mm partial sale not a sale of the business. Take that with a grain of salt when viewed in the context of the fact that their entire portfolio is under review. (Hedgeweek)

CCC Holds Online Google Settlement Seminar: Recording

I mentioned several weeks ago that CCC were to hold an online webinar to explain some of the details of the Google Settlement agreement. The webinar was last Tuesday but they have made the archive of the seminar available here.

Google Windfall

Mike Shatzkin and I have been thinking hard about the commercial aspects of the Google Book search settlement (IdeaLog Blog):

Here is a sample of Mike's post:

We believe it is unfortunate that the attention has been focused there because there are some very real commercial questions that we think need answers to fully appreciate the practical implications of the settlement. We’ve been doing our best to build a model of what revenue will be and where it will go. Trying to do that makes it very clear how much important detail has been omitted from the debate we’ve heard so far (and we’ve both heard a lot of it.) Here’s a starter list of questions that need answers to forecast this business which we hope that people more familiar with the terms of the settlement than we are might be able to answer for us.

Bloomsbury Launch Library Online

Adam Hodgkin has a post about a new and interesting initiative by Bloomsbury (UK) to tackle the library market.

Bloomsbury have held steady to their target of developing a service for libraries, initially primarily in the UK. It has turned out to be pretty much the project that they explained to us before Christmas. A shelf for libraries of some of the best books, from contemporary authors, which will grow and which will also serve to promote sales of the print books and public awareness of the authors selected. I suppose that there is, in this chosen vehicle, an element of quasi-political support for public libraries - a resource which publishers rightly hold to be key to the flourishing of a literary culture. Nevertheless it is interesting that one of London's leading Trade publishers should set such a priority on the support of public libraries, and that they should fashion such a service for a market which must be a tiny fraction of the market for their print publications.

Here is the Bloomsbury release:

Bloomsbury is set to transform the relationship between publishers and libraries, and between libraries and readers, with an innovative development in public lending: The Bloomsbury Library Online.

At a time when the British library system is under pressure to reach larger audiences with tighter budgets, and when the reading public is feeling the pinch, Bloomsbury is launching a unique, affordable and user-friendly online initiative.

In association with www.exacteditions.com and using existing technology in libraries across the country, Bloomsbury is rolling out a groundbreaking e-lending strategy which will allow readers toread collections of bestselling books at local library terminals or with the use of a library card on home computers and internet enabled devices.

The Bloomsbury Library Online will consist of a number of themed shelves: children’s books, sports titles, international fiction, Shakespeare plays, reference books and more. They will launch with a shelf of Book Group titles including Galaxy Book of the Year, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, by Kate Summerscale, Orange Prize longlisted Burnt Shadows, by Kamila Shamsie, word-of-mouth phenomenon The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer, and international bestseller The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri. Embracing the advantages of the online format, users will be able to read the book, search the text, access author interviews, reviews, press features, and links to specially commissioned reading group guides.

How will it work?
• The Bloomsbury Library Online will be sold on subscription – libraries will subscribe to a bookshelf for a year at a time and will pay according to the size of population served.
• New titles will be added on a continuous basis – free of charge within the subscription year.
• Users will click through from the Library terminals or through an online portal accessible via any web browser (including those found on iPhone and Blackberry) anytime, anywhere in the UK.
• Text accessible through screen readers and therefore available to blind and partially-sighted users.

Macrovision Buys Muze

Muze, a company that supplies data information products supporting entertainment products such as music, video, books and games has been acquired by Macrovision for $16.5mm (all cash). Macrovision has been acquiring data companies (notibly TVGuide) and building its data products portfolio to support its business of "connected middleware, media recognition, interactive programming guides, copy protection and rich media, data and metadata on music, games, movies and television programming." From the press release:

Consumers' options are increasing as entertainment becomes digital. They can now enjoy their movies, music or other digital content in more ways, including numerous options online and on portable devices. All of these choices lead to an increased need for enhanced search and discovery capabilities to help consumers find entertainment content that matches their personal preferences. This process is powered by entertainment metadata.

"Macrovision believes that professional entertainment metadata is required for our customers to provide best in class consumer facing products," said Fred Amoroso, President and CEO of Macrovision. "The addition of the Muze assets will complement Macrovision's data solutions. It represents continued execution on our vision of delivering solutions that power a uniquely simple home entertainment experience."

Muze, which has been around since 1991 and is headquartered in NYC, has had a troubled history and was purchased in 2005 by a a private equity company that sought to establish more strategic focus, better cost containment and more professional management. In the years since 2005, Muze has acquired or allied with several companies and purchased the the assets of Loudeye for $11mm in cash in 2006.

In 2005, there was some excitement around the financial prospects for companies like Muze and AMG (another data supplier) and the multiples asked in sales prospectus' were relatively high. While terms were not disclosed on the 2005 Muze sale, some in the industry put the number at north of $30mm.

London Calling (and a Theft.)

I will be in London for the Bookfair next week and if you are also there please let me know and we can get together. For those interested I can expand on what we are doing at Mywire.com. For now a little LBF story. 

Several fairs ago, I was returning to our booth, which was on the upstairs balcony at Olympia from a meeting and I noticed two individuals walking behind the row of publisher stands. This immediately struck me as odd and I even said to the person I was with. "I wonder what those guys are doing". 

Ordinarily our booth was closed at the back however, one of our senior executives (we'll call him CH) had been horsing around and had pushed one of the panels out of the back wall of the stand. As a result, our storage area was completely open. As I continued towards the stand, I saw one of the guys come from behind our booth with a shopping bag which he had not had with him before. Smelling a fish, I moved towards him and started following him down the long stairway that joined the balcony with the main floor. The gent was now alone as his friend had gone off in another direction. As I came up next to him I looked in the bag he was carrying and there was a handbag. So I said to him, "that's a lovely handbag is it yours? I don't think he understood English but he did realize he needed to make a run for it. So he took off down the stairs with me in pursuit through the main floor of the fair towards the back. He dropped the shopping bag mid-way which I grabbed and continued to follow him. 

I was of two minds about stopping him; I was very worried he had a knife (and I have some experience in that area) so I let him escape out the back door. As I was running through Olympia in pursuit, people politely stepped out of our way which I thought was quite gracious. But no one offered to help nor did anyone ask me what the fuss was about. 

When I got back to the stand, our staff were in some agitation. Apparently, someone had lost their handbag with their wallet, passport, house keys and probably some make-up, so I calmly returned the bag to an eternally grateful Canadian.

Making Information Pay 2009

BISG has announced the speaker line-up for next months Making Information Pay conference. Here is the link to the registration page. It should be another full house.

Speakers and topics include:

The first part of the conference will feature the latest data from multiple industry sources. Confirmed speakers and session topics include:

• Leigh Watson Healy, Chief Analyst, Outsell
  A Time of Great Change: Insights from Top Publishing Executives on the Future of our Business

• Mike Shatzkin, Founder & CEO , The Idea Logical Company
  The Publishing Climate 2009: Publishers Wrestling with Change

• Jim King, SVP & General Manager, BookScan US
  The Retail Perspective: What’s Up? What’s Down?

• Kelly Gallagher, General Manager, Business Intelligence, R.R. Bowker
  The Customer’s Always Right: Who Is Today’s Book Consumer?

The second half of the conference will feature leading publishers discussing their strategies for current and future success. Confirmed speakers and session topics include:

• Dominique Raccah, Publisher & CEO, Sourcebooks, Inc.
  Business Unusual: Rethinking the Publishing Enterprise in Response to Changing Times

• Marcus Leaver, President, Sterling Publishing
  The New Marketing Budget: Breaking Traditional Marketing Allocations to Build a More Effective Model

• Josh Marwell, President of Sales, HarperCollins
  The 21^st Century Catalog: A Look at HarperCollins’ Initiative to Shift from Print to Digital Catalogs

Dave Thompson, VP, Sales Analysis, Random House
Squeezing the Most Sales from Non-Book Accounts: Tactics for Working with Inexperienced Buyers in Mass Merchant and Other Non-Book Accounts

Snooth and Book Selling

I have now been to several NY Tech Meetup meetings where the audience gets to hear (in five minutes) all about five or six new tech start ups. This is a large, appreciative and young audience and I have found myself nodding surreptitiously so some other gray beard across the aisle as we both realize the average age of the audience and the presenters are less than my shoe size. That doesn't stop the excitment however, and most of these presentations are really interesting having been vetted before hand.

This week a presentation from an online wine merchant was particularly interesting. The company Snooth is based in Brooklyn and has created a front door to wine sellers around the world. On top of that they have incorporated and organized content (formal and social) that provides a user with a wide degree of latitude in search. The interface is clean and the functionality is both well designed and obviously well tested.

Wine isn't really publishing or book related but what struck me relevant about this webstore were the similarities between the bookselling environment and wine. The founders speak about a disorganized and insular business that confused vintners and consumers alike. Applies to publishing - check. Yet wine is also complex in a similar manner to books. Wine is matched to taste and occasion and so are books. Wine is produced in many locations by many vintners - read subjects, authors or publishers. Wine is dominated by large brand merchandisers - read publishers. Wine is sold by many unconnected retailers - read book selling.

Snooth has aggrated content to support a consumers' choice and also aggregated supply so that consumers can locate and order from a local supplier (and one they know has the wine in stock). Snooth collects inventory data from a global network of 11,000 merchants and they recently announced their 100,000th registered user. And true to my heart, they are building a data analytics program that will support value-added revenue opportunites.

Michael Tamblyn suggested thinking about a new paradigm for on-line bookselling and Snooth could be an example. Check it out.

Someone's Blinded

Did you hear the one about the blind person that shelled out $350 to buy a Kindle just so they could listen to a book rather than buy a braille version? Assuming they could find the book in a braille version. Deciding the approach is far more convenient for them despite the tinny voice-over, they decide to spend their book dollars on Kindle eBooks rather than Braille books and as luck would have it, they spend more on books now that they have more choice and a far more convenient option. So every one wins: the consumer, the publisher, retailer and author - right? Apparently not.

Even though it could be legitimately argued that enabling the speech to text functionality on the Kindle could actually increase revenues (reasons above), the Author's Guild has 'persuaded' Amazon (who uncharacteristically folded like a deck chair) to disable the tool. AG believes they are protecting the economic rights of their authors. Yes, this is a real and legitimate function of the AG: View their work protecting authors in the Google book scanning suit, but no sooner had the shine on that agreement begun to dull that they stepped into this mess of their own making.

This is not about the Blind but they are now the unwitting victims of this misguided action by the AG. And realistically, who could believe the AG would ever want to take on Blind people? I'm confident there are even some blind member authors of AG. (I wonder how they feel). On the other hand, it is about the AG attempting to maintain an authors right to royalties from audio versions of their books. Yet, I must be missing something. If I buy a book for the Kindle how many times am I going to also buy the audio version? Never, is the answer. Just like if I buy an audio book for my drive commute I am unlikely (never) going to also buy the print version.

Now I am sure some will say "Oh, I did do that once," and on a few occasions I have found my self in the middle of a hardcover book and not wanting to tote it on a trip have bought the paperback at the airport. But rarely; that is, effectively never.

My point is I don't see where the author is out any royalty. It is hard to believe there is any appreciable overlap in formats purchased of the same title that makes this concern of AG's even remotely valid. On the other hand, maybe more people would buy more books if they had more options available in the manner in which they consumed them. Blind people included. Everybody wins.

For the record, if you want to read this aloud to someone -even yourself - go right ahead.

Another Embargo Undone?

The Bookseller is reporting that A&C Black is very concerned that the embargo keeping the latest Wisden Cricket Almanac off the shelves until April 6th was broken. According to Nielsen Bookscan, 816 copies of the book have been sold before the embargoed date. That's a lot of copies but could this be a case of mistaken identity or bad data? Why didn't anyone notice until the numbers were reported? We shall see.

Shared Book to provide annotation publishing tool to ourenergypolicy.org

Shared Book announces a new partnership today with web company ourenergypolicy.org that empowers OEP users with the ability to add and include comments to source documents without changing the original document. Implementation of this tool allows the user to determine which comments and mark-up is most useful to them and include or attach that material to the document. The user can then decide when to publish the material rather than having to wait for the publisher's publication date.

From the press release:

SharedBook’s annotation platform allows approved experts on OurEnergyPolicy.org to contextually add initial and responsive comments to an energy document through online footnoting, while not allowing the original content to be changed, creating a digital platform for a discussion of energy policy. The platform also has a compilation and print capability, allowing books to be created from the content with any combination of the annotations, which appear in the book as footnotes.

“Integrating our revolutionary annotation technology with OurEnergyPolicy.org is an excellent showcase for the capabilities of the patented platform,” said Caroline Vanderlip, Chief Executive Officer of SharedBook. “By allowing authorized experts to contribute thoughtful comments on the specific energy policies and positions being discussed, our annotation platform allows discussion on the site to evolve in a thoughtful, controlled way. It also gives users the option of creating books, PDFs or other printed output with a specified combination of the annotations, for use in government hearings, outreach efforts, and elsewhere.”

More on SharedBook

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 13): OCLC, Amazon, Dawson, Curation, Bookfairs

Things are really bad in newspaper land when you can't get a copy at your local library any more. On top of this they will be charging for internet access. (BBC)

"Savings of around £10,000 will be made by ending the provision of national newspapers in a handful of libraries," a spokesman said. "National newspaper websites already publish full editorial content." The council also plans to charge people £1.30 to use computers with internet access after the first 30 minutes.

Newsagent distributor Dawson has suffered another deflection (Telegraph):

Dawson Holdings, which distributes magazine and newspaper titles to newsagents, retailers and airlines, said in a trading update today that it expected Telegraph Media Group to "terminate" its deal in the autumn.

Last month Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail, and Comag, the joint venture between Condé Naste and the National Magazine Company, announced they would not be renewing contracts with Dawson when they expire in 2010. The two deals accounted for £139m in revenue for Dawson last year.

Dawson also has a library supply business in the UK.

WorldCat (OCLC) has partnered with book/reading social networking site WeRead (Info2Day)

It is the latest organization to join the list of more than 25 OCLC World partners. With one of the largest and most popular social book discovery applications on Facebook, MySpace, bebo, Hi5, and Orkut, weRead is a natural fit to partner with OCLC to enhance the social networking and user-discovery aspects of WorldCat.

Cindy Cunningham, director of partner programs for OCLC says, "The mission of weRead-the social discovery of books-extends and further enhances the WorldCat.org goal to connect users with their local libraries. With weRead being a Lulu company and the corresponding support for self-publishing, OCLC can offer its users access to an entirely new reading experience."

Can Curation save the media industry? (SiliconAlley)

So, what are both Maheu and Schrier in agreement about? Curation. It's a word that gained a lot of traction in the past 12 months as the overarching trends of ubiquitous distribution and mass content creation have emerged as the two headed dragon that may slay media as we know it.

The old model was "one to many" (NBC -> viewers). The new model is "one to a few" (YOU -> your friends and followers). That means there is an overwhelming explosion of content being created (Twitter feeds, blog posts, Flickr photos, Facebook updates) and most of it is interesting to a very small number of people. But, mixed in with this cacophony of consumer content, there is contextually relevant material that needs to be discovered, sorted, and made "brand safe" for advertisers. Curation is the new role of media professionals.

Separating the wheat from the chaff, assigning editorial weight, and -- most importantly - giving folks who don't want to spend their lives looking for an editorial needle in a haystack a high-quality collection of content that is contextual and coherent. It's what we always expected from our media, and now they've got the tools to do it better.

Flat World Knowledge gets $8mm for open source textbook venture. (Reuters)

Flat World offers students online books for free and the option of paying for a printed copy, which typically costs less than a comparable textbook from a college store. The textbook "Principles of Microeconomics," for example, costs $30 for a black-and-white copy and $60 for one in color.

"The idea here is the cost of textbooks has gone up dramatically over the last 10 years," says Hooks Johnston, general partner at venture firm Valhalla Partners, the largest investor in the startup. Other VC investors include Greenhill SAVP and High Peaks Venture Partners.

Amazon changes their payment terms to small publishers in the UK (Times)

The online retailer is asking for an extra 2% off the list price of books from suppliers that use its Amazon Advantage system in order for them to be paid by May 15 for sales made in April.

Those that remain on standard terms, which already involve giving Amazon a 40% discount, will not have invoices from sales made in April settled until the end of June.

The new terms, which Advantage customers were informed of last week and take effect from Wednesday, have stirred industry anger.

“How dare they try this on when we are feeling the pinch more than ever?” said one small publisher. “It’s nothing more than an attempt to rip off the small fry.”

Publishers estimate that up to 20% of books sold by Amazon go through its Advantage system.

BookFairs seem to be holding their own: "No child has too many books" (AP)

Book fairs have been around for decades, although the field now is largely controlled by Scholastic. The publisher says its business has grown from around 8,000 annual fairs in the early 1980s, with sales of around $5.5 million, to around 120,000 fairs expected this year.

The field is enticing enough that Barnes & Noble, Inc., has steadily increased its own fairs by double digits over the past few years, to over 10,000 in 2008, according to the superstore chain's vice president of speciality marketing, Kim Brown.

"As the school budgets are tightened up, the parents - the PTA - are looking for different ways to fund-raise," Brown says. "Luckily, people save their discretionary income for their children."

Educators and parents welcome the money, with 25 per cent or more of the take going back to the schools, but, as with the Scholastic book clubs, they worry about what's being sold. Scholastic fairs, like the clubs, often feature books that are tied to TV shows such as "Hannah Montana" or non-book products such as pencils, markers, toy banks and electronic games.